Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1941: Clovis Mayor E.E. Kraus had declared June 3-4 as the annual Clovis Pioneer Days Celebration.
A proclamation read in part:
“... (I)t is the duty of each and every citizen of our community to enter into the spirit of this Celebration and give it proper recognition.”
1955: The Varsity Drive-In Theatre, south of Portales on the Roswell highway where there was “always a double feature,” was showing “Where’s Charley” and “San Francisco Story.”
Admission for adults was 50 cents. Children were allowed in for free.
1965: Lee Hammond, New Mexico Cattle Growers Association Cattleman of the Year in 1960, died after 50 years farming and ranching in Curry County.
He often farmed 4,000 acres of wheat, using mules and horses until the 1940s, according to a family profile in the history book “Curry County, New Mexico.”
1968: An F-100F Super Sabre jet crashed two miles west of Melrose Practice Range, moments after an instructor and his student pilot safely ejected.
The Clovis News-Journal reported the plane crashed on an isolated section of the Billy Joe Grider Ranch.
Capt. Dale Strawn, 28, of Charlotte, N.C., suffered a fractured elbow. Pilot 2nd Lt. Edmund Basher suffered lacerations on his neck, military officials reported.
The plane, in service with the Air Force from 1954 to 1971, was among the first USAF fighters capable of supersonic speed in level flight. It cost about $700,000 to build.
1970: Bill Duckworth, one of Clovis’ more prominent businessmen for six decades, died at age 84.
He operated Duckworth Drug Co. at 310 Main in Clovis from 1932 to 1952. He also had interests in farming, real estate and auto sales, served as New Mexico’s lieutenant governor in 1921-22 and was a state senator from 1961 through 1966.
1971: Clovis school officials were in the process of phasing out Eugene Field Elementary School, which was to be used by Clovis Community College in the fall.
Lockwood Elementary Librarian Alexa Pickel was pictured on the front page of the Clovis News-Journal sorting through 3,500 books that would be redistributed from Eugene Field to Lockwood and other schools in Clovis’ system.
1978: John Burroughs, one of Portales’ first peanut processors who went on to become New Mexico’s 18th governor, died at age 71.
A football player at Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) in the late 1920s, he taught school in Los Lunas and Clovis before entering the food processing industry and moving to Portales.
He was elected governor in 1958 and served two years, Jan. 1, 1959, to Jan. 1, 1961.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens and Betty Williamson. Contact:
