Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On this date ...
1903: Famed buffalo hunter George Causey, suffering from chronic pain after being thrown by a mustang a year earlier, shot himself in the head with a pistol at his home near Kenna.
The Handbook of Texas reports Causey was responsible for killing 40,000 buffalo from 1874 to 1882, including the last herd on the Llano Estacado, near Seminole, Texas.
The village of Causey in Roosevelt County is named for brothers George and John Causey because their lives “influenced and symbolized American exploration and settlement of the Llano Estacado,” according to “The Place Names of New Mexico.”
1931: About two dozen Grady school children were recovering from injuries suffered the day before in a school bus accident that left one teenage girl dead.
Cletis Culpepper, 16, a Grady High sophomore, was killed. Several children suffered broken arms and legs, officials said.
Bus driver E.C. Ashby said he was driving about 35 mph in the center of the rural road when the wheels of the bus “locked,” sending the bus rolling into a ditch 3 miles east of Grady.
The top of the bus was “torn off and hurled several feet from the wreck,” the Portales Valley News reported. “The body of the Culpepper girl was found near the top.”
Ashby was among those seriously injured with one hand badly cut, but he succeeded in freeing two children trapped under the bus before help arrived. Ashby refused treatment until all the children were taken to area hospitals, the Clovis Evening News-Journal reported.
Officials said commencement exercises had already been held at Grady, but classes continued to make up for two days lost during snow storms early in the year.
A coroner’s inquest was held two days after the wreck and Ashby was absolved of blame.
“More than 20 witnesses were questioned in the inquest and their testimony was that the accident was unavoidable and that Ashby was in no way to blame,” the Clovis paper reported.
1950: A truck loaded with 2,400 gallons of ice cream mix and condensed milk overturned in Poker Flat, just west of Portales.
The driver was not hurt.
Walter Jentgen, manager of Price’s Creamery, said he didn’t know how much of the load was lost, but milk was running into the ditch.
1955: Melrose was recovering from a tornado that struck about noon the day before, scattering debris from a broomcorn storage warehouse over two miles.
Witnesses in Growdon’s Cafe, about 50 yards away, reported seeing the tornado lift the warehouse about 20 feet off the ground before tearing it to splinters.
1961: Much of eastern New Mexico and west Texas had received rain for the first time since April 7, but the storm also brought damaging hail.
In Clovis, the rain “fell in torrents,” the Clovis News-Journal reported, with measurements near 3/4 of an inch.
“The hail storm was brief, but for about five or ten minutes Clovis was peppered with moth ball size stones,” the paper reported.
Bovina may have been hit hardest. G.D. Anderson reported hail piled up 8-10 inches deep on the highway between Bovina and Farwell, and some windshields were knocked from cars. “It’s one of the most devastating hails I’ve seen,” Anderson said.
The newspaper reported hail across Parmer County was the size of hen eggs, damaging wheat and cotton crops. Bovina saw a “one-hour deluge” of rain and water stood “several inches deep” in farmers’ fields.
1962: Area residents were preparing to celebrate Armed Forces Day with an open house at Cannon Air Force Base.
Local businesses helping promote the event included:
n Ealy Furniture, at 209 Main in Clovis, was home to 14,000 square foot of furniture displays.
n Mitchell’s Conoco, at 1400 Thornton St., claimed it had “the hottest brand going.”
n Red’s Boat and Motor Shop was “your water sports headquarters” at 201 E. First St.
1966: Native American dancers from four tribes were scheduled to perform at Greyhound Stadium.
Admission was $1 for adults and 50 cents for children.
The gathering’s guest of honor was to be Annie Wauneka, recipient of the highest civilian peacetime award in the nation. A member of the Navajo Tribal Council, Wauneka had been nominated by President Kennedy to receive the Presidential Medal for her efforts to improve living conditions among the Navajo.
1971: Burglars ripped open a skylight above Town and Country Men’s Store at 308 Main in Clovis and stole about $10,000 worth of clothes.
Officials said a security patrolman chased suspects from the scene.
Clovis Police Detective Lance Somers said the burglars probably used a tire tool to pry open the skylight.
Clothes were scattered throughout the floor of the building and fiberglass insulation hung from the ceiling. Police said a cash drawer that had contained $50 was empty.
Store owner Homer Tankersley was out of town when the burglars hit.
1976: Funding and instructors were in place; the only thing holding up the start of a DWI school in eastern New Mexico was lack of students.
Michael McGinnis, designated to head the school in Clovis, said students had to come from courts that made DWI school a condition of retaining a driver’s license.
After completion of the course, convictions would be dismissed. Magistrate Judge Jesse Porter of Portales said he opposed dismissals and that was one reason he had not sentenced anyone to take the course.
1978: Valedictorians from classes 52 years apart posed for a photo in the Clovis News-Journal following Texico High School graduation ceremonies the evening before.
Herman Moore, who had graduated at the top of his class in 1926 from THS, was in town visiting his mother at a Farwell rest home.
The Medford, Ore., resident attended graduation at his alma mater, taking time to offer congratulations to the 1978 class valedictorian, Christi Harrington, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Harrington.
Moore had moved away from eastern New Mexico in 1939.
1988: Members of the New Mexico Highway Commission and local officials gathered for a ground-breaking to mark the start of construction on the Prince Street overpass in south Clovis.
Highway Commission Chairman Dewey Lonsberry and Clovis Mayor James Moss had the honor of tossing the first two shovels of dirt for the project that converted the area where Prince Street crossed the railroads from an underpass to an overpass.
The $1.5 million project by the State Highway Department was given an 18-month to two-year projected completion time.
Pages Past is compiled by David Stevens and Betty Williamson. Contact:
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