Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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A house fire Friday claimed the lives of a Tucumcari couple that was supposed to move their son’s home in Clovis later this month. Richard Urioste Sr., 75, and Ann Urioste, 74, died in a blaze that gutted their home at 1910 S. Rock Island St. on Friday afternoon, said their son, Richard Urioste Jr. of Clovis. He was at the remains of the house Saturday afternoon to retrieve his parents’ personal papers and other belongings. Quay County Sheriff Russell Shafer on Friday afternoon confirmed at lea...
The Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce banquet Saturday showed significant changes its director hopes leads to bigger and better event next year and beyond. With the banquet back after a one-year hiatus, the Viva Las Tucumcari event at the Tucumcari Convention Center featured a casino theme for attendees' own amusement instead of watching live entertainment, plus a serve-yourself Taste of Tucumcari food from four vendors instead of a catered meal. Chamber Director Carmen Runyan,...
This week, registered voters in the Tucumcari School District will receive in the mail a ballot for a proposed $3 million bond issue by the district to redevelop its baseball and softball diamonds. County Clerk Ellen White said the ballots should arrive in voters’ mailboxes by Thursday or Friday. The ballots must be mailed back a few days before the Feb. 18 election, or voters can bring them in person to the clerk’s office at 300 S. Third St. in Tucumcari before 7 p.m. that day. Under the plan, three ball diamonds owned by the city would be...
ENDEE - A couple from Minnesota has a tale to tell their granddaughter when they visit her in Arizona - they were named the 1 millionth customer at Russell's Travel Center since its opening a decade ago. Arlo and Pat Sell of Windom, Minnesota, were feted at the truck stop's classic-car museum Friday afternoon with a balloon drop, a free Russell's T-shirt and ballcap, a certificate to mark the occasion and a free steak-and-shrimp dinner from its diner. The Sells, who said they had ventured into...
Anticipating a tough game against Clayton, the Tucumcari girls basketball team instead took firm control by the second quarter during a commanding 61-21 win Friday at its Homecoming. The victory at the Snake Pit was made more impressive because the Lady Rattlers lacked a starter. Senior forward Aaliyah Brown suffered a severely sprained ankle early in the Raton game three days before and probably will be sidelined at least a week. "That's the first game where we've played a full ballgame," a...
The Tucumcari boys basketball team won its third straight game and helped give its fans a happy Homecoming with a commanding 83-61 win Friday over Clayton. Jesus Ramos led a balanced Rattler scoring attack with 26 points, including a 15-of-20 performance from the free-throw line. Andrew Henderson-Clark added 20, mostly after offensive rebounds. Robbie Hartmann and Alexander Lujan each scored 13 as Tucumcari improved to 6-8. The game at a crowded Snake Pit was rescheduled from Thursday because...
Quay County Commissioners on Monday approved an amendment from the New Mexico Department of Transportation that waives the county’s $162,182.37 cost share of a project to replace a 1931 bridge on Old Route 66 east of San Jon. County road superintendent Larry Moore presented the contract from the state’s Local Government Transportation Project that waives the county’s 5% cost to replace Historic Route 66 Bridget No. 1625 that spans Trujillo Creek. The county learned in August it received a $3.08 million grant from the state’s Local Governm...
Several business owners expressed dissatisfaction with the city’s tourism marketer during the Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board meeting Wednesday, and the representative of a Colorado firm said she’d be willing to take over those duties if the city declined to renew the marketer’s contact in the coming weeks. The discontent went public during the meeting when Loni Monahan, director of the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum, mentioned during public comments that new billboards touting the museum had increased visitor numbers there by one-third. The c...
How did you spend your New Year's Day? Whatever the activity was, it probably wasn't as exciting as what two Tucumcari High School cheerleaders did in London. Senior Mariah Ruvalcaba-Vasquez, also the school's cheer captain, and sophomore Alan Jimenez were part of a large group of American cheerleaders called Varsity Spirit that performed at London's New Year's Day Parade in front of an estimated 10,000 people. Ruvalcaba-Vasquez and Jimenez said they qualified to be a part of the London team...
The Tucumcari boys basketball team surprised visiting state-ranked Raton 61-49 on Jan. 7, but Rattlers coach John Span wasn't quite willing to call it an upset. At the same time, Span said he saw an opportunity for his squad against a Tigers team ranked seventh in the Class 3A coaches poll and second in MaxPreps.com with a 9-1 record going to the game at the Snake Pit. Tucumcari was 3-8. "They haven't played the teams that we've played," he said. "I'm not bad-mouthing them, because their record...
The man who shot and killed a manager of a Tucumcari restaurant last month apologized to customers after the attack and said no harm would come to them before he fatally turned the gun on himself in the parking lot. Two friends of the assailant said he found out earlier that day his girlfriend had been “cheating” on him with the manager and was going to drive to the restaurant to confront him. The friends spent 30 minutes trying to persuade him to “not do anything stupid” and took away his vehicle keys, but he called another friend who picked...
The man who nearly three years ago bought a section of Tucumcari Mountain said he's resistant to efforts to revitalize the fading big "T" on the mesa's north face but remains open to a one-day effort to do so by a professional contractor. Ronald Mueller, who said he purchased the road-access portion of the mesa in February 2017, gave his side of the story during a recent phone interview on why he tightened access to Tucumcari Mountain. "We did it because of damage to personal property and...
With its starting center in foul trouble and Logan commanding a height advantage, the Tucumcari girls basketball team looked like it was in big trouble the first half. However, the Lady Rattlers literally wore down their foes during a surprisingly lopsided 64-40 victory Saturday at the Snake Pit. Tucumcari improved to 6-2 and avenged its loss to the Lady Longhorns last season. Logan, ranked second in Class 1A by MaxPreps.com, fell to 9-3. Logan coach Glynna Strand blamed fatigue for her team's l...
Logan erased a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit with an 18-2 run during its 70-60 boys basketball victory at Tucumcari's home opener Saturday. Longhorns coach Kyle Griffiths blamed a lack of defense for his team falling behind and good defense for its big rally. "We got some big defensive stops and picked up our intensity late," he said. "It all started on the defensive end, where we were able to get some easy buckets. Earlier, we got lazy defensively and let them get some easy shots." Logan,...
The Branding Iron Restaurant served its last meals Sunday evening at the Quality Inn hotel in Tucumcari after more than a half-century there. The closing of the dinner-only restaurant 3716 E. Tucumcari Blvd. left five workers without jobs. Sally Maestas, general manager of the hotel, said she received word Dec. 30 the Quality Inn's owner, HK Hospitality LLC of the Houston area, would shut down the restaurant. “It was the owner's decision,” Maestas said during a phone interview Friday. “It's usually slow this season, and the overhead got to be...
The president of a Tucumcari biofuels company said he anticipates construction will begin in February to convert a closed ethanol plant on the city's north side into a methane-gas plant that will create 40 jobs for a one-year period. Robert Hockaday, president of Tucumcari Bio-Energy, said in a phone interview about $5.5 million in financing nearly is in place to begin the conversion of the plant to create flammable methane gas from cattle manure from the region, plus some whey from Tucumcari...
On a wall of the Quay County Clerk's office hangs a 1964 map of ghost towns in New Mexico. The New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources compiled the map, of which copies are available from the office for a fee. In Quay County, the map shows about 20 ghost towns that might be unfamiliar even to longtime residents - towns with names such as Tipton, Revuelto, Canode, Adberg, Ard and Hanley. It turns out the map far underestimated the number of defunct settlements in Quay County. An examinat...
TUCUMCARI - The man who shot and killed a manager of a Tucumcari restaurant last month apologized to customers after the attack and said no harm would come to them before he fatally turned the gun on himself in the parking lot. Two friends of the assailant said he found out earlier that day his girlfriend had been "cheating" on him with the manager and was going to drive to the restaurant to confront him. The friends spent 30 minutes trying to persuade him to "not do anything stupid" and took...
LOGAN - Hundreds of students and several state and local officials gathered Thursday morning in the high school gymnasium for a celebratory presentation of the 2019 National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award to Logan Elementary School. Ryan Stewart, New Mexico's secretary of education, said of 900 schools in New Mexico, Logan was one of only three to receive the Blue Ribbon honor, announced in September. "It's not just an honor for the school, for the state," he said. "You've joined a very...
Two people from a Santa Fe filmmaking company who expressed interest in redeveloping the long-closed Princess Theatre in downtown Tucumcari took a tour inside the dilapidated structure Thursday afternoon with city officials. Using floodlights brought in by the Tucumcari Fire Department and their cellphone flashlights, they gingerly stepped around rotted flooring, fallen ceiling tiles and strewn seating while exploring three levels of the century-old theater. Parts of the ceiling and chandelier...
Tucumcari's wrestling team boasted a reserve champion and a fourth-place finisher Saturday during its perennially tough 13-team Rattler Invitational at the Snake Pit. Joe Martinez, wrestling at 170 pounds for the Rattlers, lost a 5-3 decision to Kansas defending state champion, Tony Rivero of Liberal, during the tournament s championship match. Martinez finished second in New Mexico s state tournament last season. Dyson Clark, wrestling at 220 pounds for Tucumcari, fought his way back to a...
Despite an injury to one of its key players, Tucumcari girls basketball team overwhelmed East Mountain 60-24 on Dec. 17 in the Lady Rattlers' home opener at the Snake Pit. The injury to senior center Jasmine Jones' knee impacted Tucumcari's play during the Citizens Bank Tournament at Texico, where the Lady Rattlers (6-3) lost two of three in her absence. When Jones returns to the lineup remains uncertain. Against East Mountain, Tucumcari received most of its offense from senior point guard...
The Tucumcari school board heard a formal presentation Dec. 16 from a Mesalands Community College official asking the district to deed a piece of land to the college so it can build a dormitory there. Aaron Kennedy, the college’s vice president of the student affairs, said residence halls at a vacant lot at Gamble Avenue and 11th Street that serves as a bonfire site for the high school’s Homecoming game would represent “a nice opportunity” for the college while it remodels an adjacent former armory it acquired earlier this year. Kennedy...
The Tucumcari/Quay Regional Emergency Communications Board passed a resolution last week urging that emergency dispatchers be classified as first responders instead of clerical workers. The resolution stated such dispatchers are “critical” to the public safety, make “life-saving split-second decisions” and “without them, public safety would not be possible.” The document stated dispatchers are not recognized by the federal government as a protected classification and has deemed them clerical staff. A bill, the 911 Saves Act, pending in...
The executive director of the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corp. and several attendees at the board’s Dec. 10 meeting criticized Tucumcari city commissioner Ralph Moya for his statements in a candidate questionnaire to the Quay County Sun before the Nov. 5 election. The comments by Moya, who did not attend the meeting, prompted placement on the meeting’s agenda. The EDC’s executive director, two of Moya’s fellow city commissioners, the Arch Hurley Conservancy District’s manager and Mesalands Community College’s president rapped his...