Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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Clovis Police Chief Roy Rice is facing harsh criticism for his handling of criminal allegations against a former cop. From here, it looks like Rice is not the only one to blame for justice delayed. The trouble began in February 2023 when a burglary suspect told Clovis police investigators she “knew some information about a cop who was providing her with information and drugs,” court records show. Eighteen months later, that Clovis police officer, Frank Careri, was arrested on charges that include drug trafficking and accessory to res...
CLOVIS — The man arrested Monday for killing two Texico women had called the FBI last October and threatened to “murder a bunch of children” if they didn’t help find his missing daughter. The FBI made contact with Alek Isaiah Collins and he was placed in a mental facility at that time. Collins told agents he “does not want to kill people” but felt the threat was the only way “in getting the FBI to assist him.” The information is included in an affidavit for arrest warrant filed in 9th Judicial Court last Tuesday against Alex Isaiah Collins....
An anonymous reader sent a letter last week reprimanding the newspaper because it “refuses to publish” an important story. “There is a big cover up,” the letter read. Our reader is referencing a lawsuit settled in February by the state’s Children, Youth and Families Department. The lawsuit alleged improper handling of a 2020 case in which a Clovis child was placed in her father’s home after her mother died. The father, Juan Lerma, subsequently killed the child, Samantha Rubino, and left her body in a garbage can. Our newspaper reported on...
Two emails caught my attention last week – one about the future, the other about the past. The future came from Mario Caswell. He’s a proud dad whose daughter will likely be seeing her name in the newspaper a lot these next few years. Caswell tells us: “My daughter Janaeh Caswell is an eighth-grader at Yucca Middle school. “They had a game Thursday against Lovington. They fell short, 33-31. But my daughter had an amazing game. “I’m a youth coach and also have coached at the Freshman Academy so I record her games and stats. “This game she fini...
I remember the first time I met Jerry Seidenwurm. He told me the saddest baseball story I think I’ve ever heard. Jerry was maybe 10 years old, growing up a Giants fan in New York in the mid-1950s. His dad was drinking buddies with Giants Owner Horace Stoneham. When Jerry learned that his dad knew Stoneham, he made it his mission to speak with the team boss so he could ask him about a dream held by every baseball-obsessed young man: Could he be a batboy for the Giants? Stoneham sized him up and asked if he were serious, because a batboy had a l...
This has been a pretty good month for interaction with readers … A sampling: Ron Mask read a report in the Quay County Sun that New Mexico State’s interim president has decided this “is not a good time” for a merger with Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari. This pleases Mask, who prefers Mesalands link up with Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. “NMSU's decision is heaven sent,” he wrote in an email. “ENMU is a much more logical partner for Mesalands Community College students who wish to further their education at a four-year sch...
Have you ever Googled yourself? Mostly you don’t find yourself. David Stevens has over 35 years of experience in the mortgage banking industry. David Stevens is an American politician and a former Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives. Highly skilled 168-pounder David Stevens scored a wild last-second KO of Sean Hemphill in January. None of those David Stevens are me. There’s a David Stevens on a wrestling roster, a David Stevens on a football roster, a lawyer named David Stevens who specializes in bankruptcy, a David Ste...
New Mexico’s governor last week issued an “emergency health order” that bans firearms in all public places in Albuquerque. The only people exempt from the ban are police and security officers. And criminals, of course. Criminals don’t follow laws, so this nonsense does not apply to them either. Michelle Lujan Grisham herself said she expects opposition from those who care about liberty and the U.S. Constitution. She was right. New Mexico’s House and Senate Republicans immediately announced plans to file a federal lawsuit. “It is unacceptable th...
CLOVIS — Twice the previous weekend, police had eyes on Jimmy Guillen, a person of interest now tied to the Sept. 3 Walmart fire. Twice, they let him go. In both cases, officers did the right thing, Police Chief Roy Rice said. “We didn’t have anything to hold him on. If we knew then what we know right now ... they would have placed him under arrest,” Rice said. Going into this weekend, police were actively searching for the 59-year-old California man believed to be transient. “I think he’s still in the area,” Rice said. “Why assume he’s lef...
In May 2005, a federal committee charged with reducing the nation’s military installations recommended that Cannon Air Force Base be closed. Local, state and federal lawmakers joined the community to rally behind the base in hopes of saving it. Area residents wrote hundreds of letters and thousands lined the streets of the city when the federal Base Closure and Realignment Committee came to town for a public hearing. If the local efforts had a vocal leader, his name was Bill Richardson. New Mexico’s governor never claimed he saved Cannon, but...
Before he played the bouncer in “Road House” … before he was the focus in the documentary “Beyond the Mat” … before he was elected to five wrestling hall of fames … before he retired from the sport the first time in 1983 ... Terry Funk was a legend across eastern New Mexico and the High Plains. If you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you were a Funk fan, whether watching him wrestle on television or seeing him in person in Clovis, Portales and other small-town venues. We lost the legend last week following a two-year struggle with dementia. He...
You’ve probably heard the story by now. A small-town Kansas newspaper on Aug. 11 was raided by police who seized the paper’s computers and other electronic equipment. Newspaper officials claim the raid occurred because they had been looking into the background of the local police chief and other leaders in the county of about 12,000 people. Police claimed they had information that the newspaper was gathering information illegally and invading individuals’ privacy. Ironically, the newspaper reported little of the information it gathered in its p...
The answer is yes. I am ready for some football. The high school season starts this week. I started liking football in 1967 when the first game I can clearly remember played out on my granddad’s color TV set – the Dallas Cowboys played the Green Bay Packers in the “Ice Bowl.” The temperature was 15 degrees below zero. Most fans considered it pro football’s championship game, though the Super Bowl was still to be played. My granddad was for the Cowboys because … Tom Landry, I think. Everybody in Texas loved the Cowboys coach in those days...
You’ve got your standard New Mexico centennial license plate, your standard red and yellow plate and your standard chile plate. That last one’s really pretty and it won the America’s Best License Plate Award in 2017. But did you know the Land of Enchantment has almost five dozen sanctioned license plates, including one that just hit the road last month? Travel with me here … There’s the standard centennial personalized plate, the red and yellow prestige vanity plate, and the Las Cruces plate, because, well, we all know about Las Cruces dr...
The weekend brought news that several hundred Cannon Air Force Base personnel and seven MC-130J aircraft are transferring to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. That’s supposed to happen “in the upcoming fiscal years,” according to a news release from New Mexico’s congressional delegation. But Mayor Mike Morris said the announcement is no reason to worry about Cannon’s future. “(A)ny news that the Air Force is moving a squadron from CAFB is definitely troubling,” Morris said. “However, I understand that force structure and personnel numbers do tend t...
These song lyrics are the latest dividing line in the culture wars: “Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk “Carjack an old lady at a red light “Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store “… Well, try that in a small town “See how far ya make it down the road,” Jason Aldean sings. Aldean’s critics include rocker Sheryl Crow. “I’m from a small town,” Crow tweeted. “Even people in small towns are sick of violence. There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence. … This is not American or small town-like. It’s just lame.” But Aldean...
CLOVIS — One month after Clovis’ mayor accused him of lying about attending a taxpayer-funded training session in Santa Fe, Clovis City Commissioner David Bryant has responded to the allegations. “Yes,” Bryant wrote in a Facebook message to The News, “I attended” the seminar hosted June 5-7 by the New Mexico Municipal League. Bryant also suggested he is looking into legal action regarding the mayor’s accusation. “I’ve contacted legal with the City and outside legal as well on the matter,” he wrote in his statement. “I’ve been downgrad...
Did he or didn’t he? Only David Bryant knows for sure if he attended that Municipal League training last month. Bryant said he did. Clovis Mayor Mike Morris still says he didn’t and he wants Bryant to resign and pay back the city about $650 it spent on sending Bryant to Santa Fe. Bryant’s statement last week was not exactly clear about how much time he spent at the seminar. “I’ve attended every session of the program over my attendance at two separate offerings,” he wrote. … Huh? But Morris can’t prove Bryant wasn’t there. Nobody can, unles...
Did you know the region’s average high temperature was 95.3 degrees from June 18 through June 30? We exceeded 100 degrees twice in that spell, and hit 90 degrees or more on 12 consecutive days. Those are the numbers recorded at the Agricultural Science Center north of Clovis anyway. Halfway through our weather year, here’s a quiz: What’s the hottest temperature recorded this year at the Clovis ag center? a. 108 b. 103 c. 100 How many times has the temperature reached 100 degrees or more this year at the Tucumcari ag center? a. 3 b. 4 c. 6 Wha...
The vermin that vandalized the Portales Islamic Center five times last month are probably not our community's high achievers. Statistics show they are not "focused on long-term goals (or) imbued with grit and determination," according to the Dolan Consulting Group, which provides training for police across the country. The research, according to Dolan, shows that most vandals are thrill-seekers, looking for an "emotional rush of the risk, and to lash out at authority. ... (M)ost are generally...
Some of us remember it as the greatest football game ever played. Danny Villanueva was a big part of it. The Dallas Cowboys led the Green Bay Packers, 17-14, in that NFL Championship game of Dec. 31, 1967, that’s come to be known as the Ice Bowl. Gametime temperature was 15-below zero. The wind-chill factor was 48-below. One fan died of exposure to those elements. Players and fans suffered frostbite that plagued them the rest of their lives. Villanueva, the Cowboys veteran kicker, was the difference in his team’s lead with a 29-yard field goa...
CLOVIS — Mayor Mike Morris on Friday called for the resignation of City Commissioner David Bryant, accusing Bryant of “misuse, if not theft, of public funds.” Bryant did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The News. His Facebook page said he was “going off the grid today.” Text messages and phone calls also were not returned. In emails to Bryant obtained by The News, Morris accused the commissioner of being “dishonest” about attending a recent New Mexico Municipal League training. “I believe you lied to your fellow commissioners a...
This is not a space that routinely applauds government intervention. If it doesn’t involve securing the blessings of liberty, government needs to back off. The recent actions of the city of Portales’ animal control department clearly fall within the U.S. Constitution’s introduction for how “We the people …” will consent to be governed. Nobody’s happy that city officials are planning to euthanize more stray dogs in a shorter amount of time. But we don’t need another Tucumcari incident in our communities. “People have been complaining about...
Seventy-five years ago this week, Clovis’ most famous athlete was settling in for a relaxing summer with family. He could not have imagined the challenges he would soon encounter. Jerry Nuzum had been away at college where he was the star halfback at New Mexico A&M in Las Cruces. Late in 1947, he’d decided on a career field. But first, the 1941 Clovis High School graduate was spending time in his hometown. “Mrs. Jerry (Mary) Nuzum and small daughters, Jerry Jan and Sandra, have arrived from State College, N.M., to spend the summer visiting in t...
He has been an outspoken and persistent critic of the COVID-19 vaccine. Mainstream media have described his views on the issue as misleading and dangerous. Instagram kicked him off its platform, accusing him of spreading misinformation about the vaccine. He once suggested vaccines and mask requirements were something Nazis would have implemented during the pandemic. He’s been known to associate with Donald Trump allies Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. And he’s an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden. “I just disagree fundamentally with him o...