Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 1158 - 1182 of 1717
Though Mesalands Community College’s president was fired in April, the college will continue to pay his $170,000 yearly salary through June 30, according to information from a public records request by the Quay County Sun. The college’s board of trustees unanimously terminated John Groesbeck’s contract April 21 without discussion after they placed him on paid administrative leave in March. The college has declined to give a reason for Groesbeck’s firing, saying it is a personnel matter. According to an email Saturday from Josh McVey, the colleg...
A vacant century-old house once owned by one of Tucumcari's founding fathers, its former mayor and Quay County's first sheriff, burned to the ground Wednesday morning. Tucumcari firefighter Dustin Hight, who was there at the Alex Street Home at 523 E. Main St. about noon Wednesday to make sure the smoldering remains didn't blaze up again, said fire was reported shortly before 4 a.m. that day. Tucumcari Fire Chief Doug Hogan stated in an email that firefighters arriving at the scene found the hou...
A property owner near Logan and Quay County commissioners on Monday expressed discontent with what they described as overly stringent restrictions at Ute Lake State Park. Ute Lake State Park partially reopened May 1 but for day use only. Ute Lake’s south-side boat ramps remain closed. Conchas Lake State Park northwest of Tucumcari remains closed until at least May 16 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Sid Strebeck, who with his son, Layne, is developing an airpark subdivision near Ute Lake’s south side, suggested the commission consult wit...
The promoter for the Rockin’ Route 66 festival in June canceled the event Monday after Tucumcari’s acting city manager recommended doing so during last week’s Lodgers Tax Board meeting. Acting city manager Mark Martinez said after examining the governor’s COVID-19 plan to reopen the state’s economy this summer, he concluded it would be nearly impossible to hold the Rockin’ Route 66 festival on June 25-28 and would recommend canceling it this year. He told the board at its Wednesday meeting that through July 1, the state would allow the full or...
A random check of Tucumcari restaurants along the Route 66 corridor at lunchtime Thursday found employees at six of seven restaurants weren't following the governor's day-old mandate to wear protective masks against the coronavirus pandemic. Those contacted by the Quay County Sun indicated they weren't being deliberate scofflaws. Several apparently misinterpreted a poorly constructed sentence during Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's press briefing about the new rules for restaurants. Others said...
Tucumcari resident Levi Mericle has landed his second songwriting honor since 2018. Mericle's composition, "All Mama Does Is Cry," was one of nine runner-ups in the Demo Your Lyrics category of the 2019 International Songwriting Competition. Winners were announced Wednesday. "It's a heartbreak country song," he said during a telephone interview Friday. "I've had friends who've had hardships in life, where their family situation isn't exactly a good one. That's what the song is about. The father...
The number of COVID-19 cases in Quay County remained stable, but the total kept rising in two prominent areas along Interstate 40. McKinley County, where Gallup was under a state-mandated lockdown for nine days, hiked its total of confirmed coronavirus cases to 1,585 on Monday, by far the most in New Mexico. It also reported four deaths Monday. The northwest part of New Mexico has one of the highest concentrations of COVID-19 in the country. San Juan County in that region totaled more than 1,100 cases Monday. In Amarillo, the city’s Public H...
Early voting began last week at the Quay County Courthouse for the June 2 primary election, but it was not your typical early voting. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, County Clerk Ellen White and her staff dealt with a batch of new protocols and safeguards when early voting officially began the morning of May 5. Voters were asked to use hand sanitizer from a dispenser outside the clerk's office and don a disposable protective mask before entering. Painter's tape on the floor marked where...
Melissa Morrison knew something had changed when she started receiving phone calls Thursday afternoon almost until midnight. That's because her business, K-9 Design Grooming and Boarding, and a few others in the area had been cleared by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to reopen Friday morning after being closed for weeks by the state's emergency health order to combat the coronavirus pandemic. People were calling her to make appointments to groom their dogs. "It feels like I'm a brand-new groomer...
Less than one-fifth of customers at several businesses - including Tucumcari's only grocery - observed by the Quay County Sun last week wore protective masks to slow the spread of coronavirus, despite weeks-old recommendations from state and federal health officials to wear them. Out of 15 employees seen at those stores, one was seen wearing a mask. Tucumcari's mayor and an assistant manager at the grocery also expressed frustration last week at some residents for failing to consistently use...
An estimated 40 people participated Saturday morning in the Freedom Ride in Tucumcari that saluted small, nonessential businesses closed by the governor's emergency health order and advocated for their reopening. Organizers were reluctant to call it a parade because they didn't have a city permit or insurance policy for that. Instead, they called it a cruise down old Route 66, Main Street and First Street along with a few side trips to salute businesses shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic. Abo...
Board members of the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corp. last week discussed ways the region could recover quicker in the COVID-19 era, including its wide-open spaces offering opportunities for crowded urban-dwellers and the city’s airport providing a safer alternative for travelers. They also briefly discussed a long-term plan by the Southern Rural Development Center, but Tucumcari Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield cited the need to “come up with something now” for businesses that soon will reopen — especially with a lack of protect...
Don't think the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum is gathering dust during its coronavirus-mandated closing. Museum director Loni Monahan and Axel Hungerbuehler, its curator and a natural sciences faculty member at the college, have been busy during the museum's down time making overdue upgrades, including a new display of 350 rare or colorful minerals from a renowned collector. "We had the opportunity to paint all the public spaces for the first time in 20 years," Monahan said in her office last week....
A Tucumcari woman is raising money for banner portraits of the high school's 58 graduating seniors that will be installed the city's light poles. Michelle Jaynes has been using local fundraising and a GoFundMe.com page at gofundme.com/f/class-of-2020-salute to collect money for the effort. The estimated cost is $4,500 for the banners and bracket repairs or parts needed to install them. She said she's collected about $2,200 in pledges and about $850 in GoFundMe donations as of Monday morning....
Voters in Quay County can make a decision in the coming weeks on two contested seats for county commission for the June 2 primary election, and those candidates have weighed in with their stances about issues facing the county. In District 1, Daniel Garcia, 78, a retiree, is competing against Robert Lopez, 56, a farmer and business owner, for the Democratic nomination for the seat. No Republican filed for candidacy in for that slot. The winner would replace current county commissioner Sue Dowell, who is term-limited, if an independent...
A Tucumcari man was booked into the county jail on two felonies after being accused of fleeing police in a car on city streets at speeds approaching 100 mph while a child was inside the vehicle. Dillon Carmichael, 20, was charged with aggravated fleeing a law-enforcement office, abuse of a child (first offense; placed in a dangerous situation), speeding, no insurance, driving while license suspended and failure to register vehicle. The child-abuse count is a third-degree felony that can lead to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The...
A Tucumcari man awaiting a second jury trial this summer on an animal cruelty charge was booked into the county jail last week after being accused of abusing a second dog and resisting police during his arrest. Ralph Fletcher Jr., 30, is charged with extreme cruelty to animals and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer (fleeing, evading or attempting to evade). The cruelty count, which alleges Fletcher “did intentionally or maliciously torture” an animal, is a fourth-degree felony that can lead up to 18 months in prison or a $5,000 fin...
A Tucumcari man was booked into the county jail last week on a felony charge after being accused of drunkenly pointing a gun at a teenaged boy. Matthew Hart, 37, was charged with abuse of a child (first offense; placed in a dangerous situation) and negligent use of a deadly weapon while under the influence of an intoxicant or narcotic. The child-abuse charge is a third-degree felony that can lead up to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The negligence charge is a petty misdemeanor. According to a complaint filed in magistrate court by Tuc...
The Quay County Commission on Monday unanimously approved a resolution urging the governor and state to “reopen immediately” non-essential businesses that implement the same coronavirus safeguards as essential businesses and demanded rules that “recognize different situations” during the pandemic. The nonbinding resolution states “no one rule … is appropriate” for every geographic area of New Mexico, and “the harm to the county …. under current blanket restrictions are as great as the threat posed by the virus.” The Tucumcari City Comm...
New Mexico's governor said last week she would extend the coronavirus public health emergency to May 15 and laid out a tentative, phased-in plan to reopen the state's economy. Meanwhile, a fourth COVID-19 case was reported Thursday in Quay County on by the New Mexico Department of Health as the state’s death toll surpassed 100 on Monday. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said during a briefing Wednesday she would extend the emergency and its restrictions — which began in mid-March and were tightened in early April — to mid-May. She also laid out a...
The Mesalands Community College board of trustees fired its president April 21 and hired its vice president of academic affairs as an interim replacement. After a closed executive session of less than 10 minutes near the start of its regular meeting, the board without discussion unanimously voted to terminate John Groesbeck's contract after less than two years at the helm of the college. Groesbeck had been placed on paid administrative leave at the end of the board's regularly scheduled March 17 meeting. After the closed session, board member...
So I got tested Wednesday for COVID-19. I don't know whether I'm positive or negative for the virus. I won't know until after deadline this week. I hadn't planned on being tested. I'd been healthy the entire winter and spring. The impetus for the test came due to an misunderstanding involving Tucumcari's mayor. Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield was interviewed earlier in the week on the local radio station. She misspoke or there was a misunderstanding of what she said on the air. Regardless of what...
Administrators and staffers at Tucumcari Public Schools detailed recent efforts to convert to online learning during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic at the school board’s April 20 meeting. The meeting wasn’t held at the district’s unit office, but online through Google Hangouts, a voice conferencing program. Though the meeting went mostly smoothly, it accentuated technical challenges faced by administrators with occasional glitches, audio feedback and volume drop-offs. The district’s technology director, Patrick Benavidez, said 81 househo...
The Quay County Commission during its April 27 meeting will consider a nonbinding resolution urging New Mexico’s governor to “reopen immediately” nonessential businesses ordered closed weeks ago as the coronavirus pandemic began. One day after the resolution was announced on social media, a second Quay County resident tested positive for the disease, and another who had contracted COVID-19 died in a Florida hospital. A third case was reported by the state Monday. Quay County Clerk Ellen White...
Tucumcari's motels, long a vital part of the city's sector with Route 66 with its famous "Tucumcari Tonite" motto, are feeling the pinch of the governor's 25% occupancy limits to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The situation has become grim enough that city commissioner Todd Duplantis directed acting city manager Mark Martinez to see whether he can come up with an aid package for the city's motels. The Tucumcari City Commission is scheduled to meet Thursday evening. An email to Mart...