Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 1033 - 1057 of 1717
The first domino fell on New Mexico’s fall high school sports season Wednesday, and the rest fell Thursday. The New Mexico Activities Association announced Wednesday the fall season's first prep sports events scheduled for Saturday were canceled because Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham hadn't signed off on them. The next day, citing a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases statewide, Lujan Grisham said she wouldn't update the state's public health order regarding high-school sports, thus effectively delaying all fall games until at least early 2021. One d...
Quay County commissioners and the commission’s lobbyist on Monday discussed state legislative priorities for the upcoming 60-day session in January, including the possibility of scaling back the governor’s powers during public health emergencies. Kathy Elliott, a lobbyist at Clinton D. Harden & Associates of Clovis, said she wanted to hear counties’ concerns earlier than normal because of additional difficulties in contacting legislators during the COVID-19 pandemic. Harden is a former state senator. County commissioner Sue Dowell said state...
Vaquero Asador served its first dinner Friday night - a culmination of bringing back a restaurant at the Quality Inn hotel in Tucumcari after its predecessor, The Branding Iron, closed in January. Todd Duplantis, who also owns Cornerstone First Edition and Kix on 66 restaurants in Tucumcari and serves as a city commissioner, acknowledged keeping a low profile for the restaurant for several weeks while gradually reopening it at the hotel at 3716 E. Tucumcari Blvd. The restaurant's name...
Many judges often breeze to retention during their elections. That may not be the case for Judge Albert Mitchell Jr. of the 10th Judicial District, which oversees cases in Quay, Harding and De Baca counties. He faces such a retention vote during the general election Nov. 3. County Clerk Ellen White said Mitchell needs a simple majority that favors retention to keep his post. Not only have voters decided to not retain Mitchell before, but also the New Mexico Supreme Court censured him in April...
Tucumcari, Logan and House public schools announced they would expand in-person classes to fifth grade this week after Quay County landed in the green zone last week for the state's school-reopening criteria. Logan Municipal Schools superintendent Dennis Roch announced on the district's website Thursday it would welcome back all prekindergarten through fifth-grade students Monday except for those who had chosen to learn online during the first semester. Tucumcari Public Schools announced in a Facebook post at midday Friday it would begin a...
Northern Quay County voters will have to an unfamiliar sight when they receive their ballots for the November election — an opponent for longtime District 8 Sen. Pete Campos. Campos (D-Las Vegas), who has served in the New Mexico Legislature since 1991, drew his first foe in a general election in 30 years in Melissa Fryzel, a Republican from Taos. Fryzel, a graduate in psychology from the University of Texas-Permian Basin, has seven children with her husband, Josh, a wireline engineer. She is a state secretary and data collector for the Republi...
A Tucumcari Elementary School staff member has tested positive for COVID-19. The state's Department of Education reported Monday the afflicted staff member hadn't been on school grounds since Sept. 30. All staff members, parents and guardians of students have been notified. The state's COVID-19 rapid-response team database, which tracks businesses and entities that report cases, identified a case Monday at Tucumcari Elementary School. The PED stated all “close contacts” of the case will be instructed to quarantine for 14 days. Affected cla...
Threatening to write a citation for “inciting an event” during the coronavirus pandemic, New Mexico State Police on Saturday shut down the Tabletop Cooperative Harvest Fest at Tucumcari’s Wailes Park. The festival would have served as a fundraiser for the organization that seeks to guide or recruit beginning farmers and ranchers for the region. Saturday’s event was scheduled to host three food trucks, two music acts and a New Mexico chile cookout in conjunction with the weekly Tucumcari Farmers Market at the park. Harvest Fest also drew at...
Jerry Koile of rural Tucumcari is older than many of his fellow rodeo competitors, and he competes in only two events. That didn't stop him from winning the all-around world title in the men's age 60-and-up division in the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association this year. Koile, 79, also won the circuit's season championship in tiedown roping and finished second overall in breakaway roping in the same age group. Though one rodeo event remained in a season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic,...
Coaches who lead high-school volleyball programs in Quay County all are expecting to rebuild their teams as they tentatively begin their COVID-delayed seasons this week, barring any last-minute delays because of the pandemic. San Jon faces as big of a reconstruction project as any. The school district voted in December to end its two-year sports cooperative agreement with Grady. That means the Coyotes are going it alone without help from Grady athletes. Worse yet, they’re without San Jon standout Teryn Foote and her 254 kills for Grady-San J...
The state’s leading disease expert acknowledged last week that negative COVID-19 tests of Quay County residents administered outside of the state aren’t reported in a timely fashion, which could negatively affect test-positivity rates and possibly keep public schools from expanding in-person teaching. The admission confirmed the suspicions of two school superintendents and at least one school board member who said they’d heard New Mexico wasn’t receiving negative coronavirus tests from Texas. The revelation calls into question the accuracy of t...
The Quay County Commission on Monday unanimously approved a resolution that declared a state of emergency due to drought conditions and urged other counties, municipalities and state government to do the same. The U.S. Drought Monitor map for Sept. 22 shows Quay County to be in a “moderate” drought except for the southwest corner, which is deemed as “severe.” Parts of northern, southeast and southwest New Mexico are in “extreme drought,” the second-worst rating. Commissioners, who had hinted the map understates the severity, requested the resol...
The Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board during a special meeting Thursday voted to prioritize spending almost $40,000 toward renovations at the Tucumcari Convention Center, a new visitors guide, print advertisements in magazines and securing at least two new tourism billboards. The board also recommended its executive committee give $10,000 to $12,000 to a producer who wants to film his proposed “Bands of Enchantment” music television show in Tucumcari and another $3,000 to Fast TV Network, which is producing a Route 66 documentary on how Tuc...
Tucumcari Public Schools’ superintendent said he didn’t plan to exact any punishment for employees who refuse to undergo random COVID-19 testing as recommended by the state. School board member Heather Gonzales during the board’s Sept. 21 meeting asked whether faculty or staff would be reprimanded if they refused to take a test. The New Mexico Public Education Department in early September issued new guidelines that requires 5% of employees to be randomly tested for the virus. Superintendent Aaron McKinney said such employees have the right...
Quay County businesses, nonprofit organizations and civic groups should know by Friday how to apply for reimbursement of their COVID-19 expenses. The county recently was authorized to receive to $372,750 from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to cover those entities’ expenses during coronavirus pandemic. County manager Richard Primrose and other officials throughout the state watched a videoconference Wednesday hosted by the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration that clarified some details about d...
Mesalands Community College likely will enter into a partnership with Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico to foster wild horses for adoption and use them to help bolster the college's farrier and animal science programs. Acting college president Natalie Gillard talked about the imminent pact during a regular board of trustees meeting Sept. 15. She said Mesalands had been talking about fostering wild horses for years and indicated she would present a finalized agreement to the board as...
Quay County's coronavirus numbers improved during the first half of September, but not enough to expand in-person classes in the region's public schools this week. It was the second time the county failed to meet state benchmarks. Quay County improved from the red zone in the latter half of August to yellow this month — short of the desired green zone. To be in the green zone, the county needed its daily COVID-19 cases to drop below 8 per 100,000 people and below a 5% test-positivity rate from Sept. 2 to Sept. 15. Quay County met the c...
The superintendent and board of education for Logan Municipal Schools voiced consternation for the state’s new COVID-19 guidelines about face coverings, class sizes, random testing and climate-control air filters announced days before the start of the school year. The Public Education Department issued new school re-entry guidelines and a COVID-19 Toolkit Assurance plan Sept. 3, just before Logan was scheduled to begin school Sept. 8, said superintendent Dennis Roch at the board’s regular meeting last week. Logan schools delayed the start of th...
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced during a Thursday health briefing that overnight camping would be allowed for New Mexico residents in state parks starting Oct. 1 and that youth sports practices in groups of 10 athletes or fewer would be permitted. Lujan Grisham unveiled the new guidelines to the public health order that would remain in effect until mid-October. They are: • Youth sports conditioning and skills development, with no more than 10 people in any one group, in accordance with COVID-Safe Practices, will be permitted. Competitive...
A Tucumcari man held without bond on a murder charge told state police he shot his friend accidentally in his home and previously had pointed a firearm at the man. Those details and others emerged last week as Joshua Braziel, 30, was arraigned Thursday on counts of first-degree murder and felony possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) after Bryan Youman, 19, of Tucumcari died of a gunshot wound to his head Sept. 4. District Judge Albert Mitchell on Monday afternoon ordered...
The Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board on Wednesday expressed enthusiasm Wednesday to a marketing manager's formal proposal of music television series, "Bands of Enchantment," based primarily in Tucumcari that would be broadcast nationally. Vincent Chavez of La Tewa Media, based in Sapello, said eight to 10 30-minute episodes of "Bands of Enchantment" would air on New Mexico Public Broadcast Service stations and on cable channel RFD-TV. New Mexico PBS reaches 750,000 households; RFD-TV...
Quay County Commissioners on Monday discussed how to distribute more than $370,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for local businesses. The county itself also received $152,550 from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to cover expenses for disinfectant foggers, wipes, shields and other expenses due to the pandemic. He said that money also can be used for other COVID-19 expenses incurred through Dec. 31. County manager Richard Primrose said state officials recommended the county apply for the federal funds. He...
Three more confirmed cases of coronavirus were reported Friday in the Logan ZIP code by the New Mexico Department of Health. With that, Logan has exceeded the number of cases (33) since the pandemic began to Tucumcari's 32, despite the population of the Logan ZIP code being less than one-fifth of Tucumcari's. The San Jon ZIP code has five total cases. The total number of cases in Quay County by ZIP code is 70, which is a discrepancy from the DOH's overall reported total of 69. The latest cases were two people age 60 to 69 and one age 70 to 79,...
Flush with nearly $40,000 of money unused from the previous fiscal year or unspent from festivals canceled because of COVID-19, the Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board used much of its meeting Wednesday discussing how to spend those funds for new billboards that would publicize the city. The board will hold a special meeting at 10 a.m. Sept. 24 to make final recommendations to the city commission. The board long had planned to send a revised budget to the city in September after the fiscal effects of the pandemic were more fully known. In...
One of the officers of the Tucumcari Zia Club that's applied for a liquor license for the former Cooper's Cleaners building expressed confidence the club would be granted that license and the club would be an asset to the community. The application for a liquor license at 428 S. Second St. by the Tucumcari Zia Club was made public during a recent Tucumcari city commission meeting. Two neighbors complained to the commission about what the license could mean with late-night music or drunken...