Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date …
1930: A.B. Castle had sold Red's Café in Portales to J.A. Harleson, who was moving to town from El Centro, Calif.
Harleson planned to “manage the café practically in the same manner that was used by Mr. Castle,” the Portales Valley News reported.
1936: A Clovis man died trying to save a child who had fallen into a tank of water at the Santa Fe Railway yards. Lavelle Brown, 7, was saved, but Rito Mendez, 45, slipped in and drowned. The sloped tank, where water settled after it was used to clean the steam engines, was 40 feet deep. Officials said Mendez, who could not swim, became entangled in moss at the bottom of the tank; men who had helped Mendez rescue the child could not pull Mendez free. He left a wife and six children.
1954: The health department and tuberculosis association had joined forces to provide free chest x-rays in Clovis and Grady. The procedure was intended to detect “possible cases of tuberculosis, lung cancer and heart trouble,” organizers said.
1960: Clovis had recorded 30.58 inches of rain the past 10 months.
The historical average for January through October was 15.52 inches.
1960: Jerry Taylor of Portales had edged Robert Curtis of Portales to win the Portales News-Tribune's weekly football contest.
Both missed three games, but Taylor was closer on a tiebreaker.
Taylor received $7.50 worth of gift certificates from local merchants. Curtis received $5 in gift certificates.
1964: Household Finance, at 220 Main in Clovis, offered loans for everything from cars and clothes to vacations and remodeling. Borrow $1,000, a newspaper ad reported, and pay just 24 monthly payments of $51.81.
1965: Postal authorities were investigating complaints that mail from a Clovis serviceman in Vietnam was being mutilated.
The parents of Max Viasana, 23, said several letters from their son had been torn into small pieces, then placed back in the envelope and resealed.
Officials said they believed someone in Clovis had been tampering with the letters.
1965: A newspaper ad claimed “kids love to take Meltamins Jr. because they taste so good, yet they're sugar free!”
The ad reported Meltamins Jr. contained 11 vitamins with B12, plus iron and “true liver concentrate.”
Cost was $3.29 for a box.
1971: Clovis police had received reports of “spiked” Halloween candy from three different families, but no children had been injured.
The Alford family, who lived in the 600 block of Edwards Street, reported finding a Snicker’s bar with a straight pin inside.
The Akens family, in the 200 block of Torreon, reported receiving small peanut candy bars that had been saturated with rubbing alcohol.
An unnamed family on Sunland Drive told police children had received a Baby Ruth candy bar that had a sewing needle in its center.
Police said they were looking for “hippie type persons” in connection with the incidents.
No arrests were reported in any of the cases.
1972: United States Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz paid a much-heralded visit to Clovis. He was met at the airport by Clovis Mayor Chick Taylor, state Reps. Hoyt Pattison, Joe Hadley, and Pete Domenici, who a few days later would be elected to the U.S. Senate for his first term.
Later in the morning, Butz addressed a Clovis High School gymnasium full of students from Curry County, Roosevelt County, San Jon, and Fort Sumner. He was welcomed to that event by officers from the CHS chapter of the Future Farmers of America, including Jady Bell, president, and John Meador, reporter.
Butz also addressed a noon joint meeting of local civic clubs, before touring the Farmers' and Ranchers' Livestock Auction and Worley Mills.
1973: Sandia Baptist Church in Clovis was celebrating its 10th anniversary. The church began as a mission of First Baptist Church.
1975: The Roosevelt County Fairgrounds was the site of 10 million pounds of grain that had overflowed from full elevators at Worley Mills.
“Properly stacked, there is little risk of damage to the grain in the open,” the Portales News-Tribune reported.
October had ended with .17 inches of moisture -- “perfect for harvesting grain,” the paper reported.
1975: Eastern New Mexico University at Clovis offered an associate of science degree in the field of law enforcement.
The two-year program had 60 students enrolled, including 10 women.
Equipment available to students included fingerprint kits, a paraffin-testing device and infrared marking and identification tools.
Students also had access to a “modern indoor target range,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.
1980: What a weekend for regional football: Clovis beat Carlsbad, 62-20; Portales blanked Lovington, 19-0; and Texas Tech defeated Texas, 24-20.
1982: George Borden, a 98-year-old resident of Broadview, was gearing up to vote in the presidential election the following day, determined, he told the Clovis News-Journal, to not let his age or failing vision and hearing stand in the way of casting a ballot.
Borden cast his first ballot in 1906 in Tyler, Texas, at the age of 22, shortly before he and his father moved to Forrest to homestead on land that was still part of his farm.
He and his wife, Ada, 85, said their favorite president was Woodrow Wilson because he favored prohibition.
Mrs. Borden planned to accompany her husband to the poll to assist as needed.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens and Betty Williamson. Contact:
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