Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 1683 - 1707 of 1729
GRADY - Logan dealt with serving errors, playing on the road and a flat performance but still defeated area rival Grady/San Jon 26-24, 25-20, 25-11 during a district volleyball game Thursday. The Lady Longhorns, ranked third in Class A, improved to 13-3 overall and 4-0 in district play. The Lady Bronchos, ranked eighth, fell to 9-7, 1-3. Logan committed 10 serving errors during the first two games and coped with a lack of consistency in its attack game. "We were really fortunate," Logan coach Ro...
Show up, they did. More than 1,100 people crammed into the Tucumcari Convention Center's main ballroom Thursday afternoon to hear Coronado Partners principals and their supporters make their pitch to the New Mexico Racing Commission to award the sixth and final horse-racing license to Tucumcari. The license would lead to an $80 million horse-racing track and casino, called Coronado Park, that would employ 400 people. Commission Chairman Ray Willis announced an official count of 1,140 people...
The city of Tucumcari’s Lodgers Tax Board is taking on more oversight of the operations and marketing efforts of the Tucumcari Convention Center and its director’s job description. Because lodging taxes fund the convention center, board Chairman David Brenner said during the board’s Wednesday meeting it should have “more input” into its operations. Brenner said the convention center needs to beef up marketing efforts to attract more lucrative conventions, such as those by municipal leagues and county officials. To do so, convention center di...
Seth Martinez rushed for 129 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries and added another TD on a 72-yard kickoff return Friday as Tucumcari fended off a fourth-quarter rally by Texico to win the Rattlers' Homecoming game 39-22. Quarterback Alijah Jimenez went 3-for-7 passing for 75 yards and two touchdowns for the Rattlers (2-5). Robbie Hartmann also rushed for 85 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries. Tucumcari's defense allowed just 68 yards rushing by Texico (2-5) and made life miserable for...
Some of the best collegiate rodeo athletes in the Southwest will compete Friday and Saturday during the Mesalands Community College Grand Canyon Region Intercollegiate Fall Rodeo at the Quay County Fairgrounds rodeo arena in Tucumcari. The Grand Canyon Region encompasses nine colleges or universities in New Mexico and Arizona. About 250 to 300 athletes will compete for prize money and a trophy buckle during the weekend. Host Mesalands is bringing 23 athletes to the event, including the No. 3 bull rider in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys...
A Virginia-based energy company plans a wind farm near Grady that will generate about 150 jobs in Quay County when it tentatively goes online in 2020. The Quay County Commission learned of the development during a presentation Monday by Marc Sydnor, a developer with Apex Clean Energy based in Charlottesville, Virginia, that has an office in Denver. The privately held company since 2009 has developed 3,000 megawatts of solar and wind power — enough for 1 million homes. This would be its first development in New Mexico. Sydnor said Apex has s...
Despite incomplete data, the Fired Up festival Saturday in downtown Tucumcari surpassed its goal of 4,000 people attending. Tucumcari MainStreet executive director Gail Houser said the official total stood at a record 4,024 on Monday, despite one volunteer's counter that went at least temporarily missing over the weekend. The organization stations volunteers with clicker counters at three entrance points and counts each person walking into the festival area. The previous Fired Up attendance...
More than 100 people attended an informational meeting Sept. 25 at the Tucumcari Convention Center to hear Coronado Partners frontman Warren Frost answer questions from residents about a proposed $80 million horse-racing track and casino in Tucumcari. Frost said after the meeting the number of people attending was "double" from a similar informational meeting 10 years ago, when his investor group tried to land a "racino" in Tucumcari that was awarded to Raton but never built. Extra chairs were...
Tucumcari's recent inability to score on drives deep in enemy territory may have proved decisive during a 28-20 loss Friday against state-ranked (Las Vegas) Robertson at Rattler Stadium. On the game's first possession, the Rattlers drove 60 yards in 14 plays and had a first down on the Cardinals' 8-yard line. But two Tucumcari running plays were stopped for a loss, and a pass play fell incomplete. On fourth down, Robbie Hartmann caught a pass up the middle but tackled on the 2-yard line, giving...
The Tucumcari volleyball team notched its biggest victory of the season with a come-from-behind 24-26, 15-25, 25-14, 25-21, 15-9 win at seventh-ranked Raton on Thursday. The Lady Rattlers (2-12) for a while looked as if they would knock off their second ranked team in a week Saturday, but they fell to No. 2 Santa Fe Indian School by a 23-25, 9-25, 22-25 score. Raton, ranked in Class 3A, fell to 5-3 overall. "We had a great game," Tucumcari coach Dena Benavidez said of the victory over the...
LOGAN - Logan defeated top-ranked and previously unbeaten Melrose 20-25, 25-17, 21-25, 25-19, 15-10 in a District 6-1A volleyball match Friday that took nearly two hours to decide. The Lady Longhorns, 11-4 and ranked fourth in Class A before Friday's clash, knocked off the Lady Buffaloes (10-1) primarily because of blocking. Logan scored at least 13 points on blocks and blunted Melrose's attack. "That's the best we've blocked this season," Logan coach Robert Young said. "(Melrose) is a really...
The number of cyclists participating in Saturday’s third annual Wheels on Fire 100 surged past the century mark, and a Rattler alum won the race in less than 4 1/2 hours. John Frey, 59, a national-champion cyclist and Tucumcari native who lives in Albuquerque, finished the 100-mile loop from the Tucumcari Convention Center to San Jon, Grady and Ragland and back in 4 hours, 27 minutes and 13.41 seconds — the best time in the event’s young history. That was an average speed of 22.5 miles per h...
HOUSE — New Mexico’s secretary of education paid a visit Wednesday to House Municipal Schools after the district’s elementary students improved from a “D” to its first “A” grade in one year in the state’s school report card. Christopher Ruszkowski, appointed to the secretary of education position by Gov. Susan Martinez in August 2017, and other Public Education Department officials were fanning out across the state on the agency’s New Mexico True Straight A Express to applaud A-graded schools. L...
The number of features at Fired Up grows each year. Thanks to social media and with fingers crossed for good weather, Tucumcari MainStreet’s executive director thinks Saturday’s eighth edition of the free festival also can grow past the 4,000 mark in attendance. Last year’s Fired Up at the historic railroad depot plaza at Second and Main streets in Tucumcari drew almost 3,400 people. Tucumcari MainStreet executive director Gail Houser said he’s hopeful a social-media campaign in the Albuque...
NARA VISA — The annual Nara Visa Cowboy Gathering over the weekend served as a tribute to a changing or disappearing way of life — not just cowboy culture, but Nara Visa itself. About 15 poets or musicians traded prose or songs Saturday afternoon in the auditorium of the Nara Visa Community Center, formerly the town’s school. Proceeds from the event help maintain the 1921 building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. A few poems or tunes brimmed with humor or silliness (incl...
An affiliate of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library soon will offer to mail free books each month to children up to 5 years old in Quay County. Loren and Barbara Nelson of the Silver City-based Imagination Library of Grant County have been named fiscal sponsors of the Quay County book program until a local sponsor — a 501c3 nonprofit group or a school district — is enlisted to take over the program. The couple will run a booth at Saturday’s Fired Up festival in Tucumcari to sign up children for the program. The Nelsons said Quay County familie...
After Tucumcari suffered a 25-20, 19-25, 20-25, 16-25 home loss Thursday to Fort Sumner that dropped the Lady Rattlers to 1-11 on the season, coach Dena Benavidez again said she no longer was fretting about her team’s regular-season win-loss record. Fort Sumner’s coach can relate. Vixens coach Michelle Bonds said in the last week, she no longer knew what her team’s record was (it’s 3-4) and instead told her players to consider upcoming matches as if they were season-openers. “We had a rough str...
Santa Rosa’s Stephen Sanchez ran for four touchdowns and more than 200 yards — mostly in the first half — as the Lions drubbed rival Tucumcari 46-0 on Friday night at Rattlers Stadium. The Lions, 4-1 and ranked third in Class 2A, totaled 386 yards rushing and didn’t throw a pass except for a broken play on a two-point conversion attempt. Elijah Velasquez added 94 yards rushing and two touchdowns for the Lions. Santa Rosa made six running plays of 25 yards or more. The Rattlers (1-4) let a good...
Political candidates at a Sept. 18 forum hosted by the Tucumcari Convention Center frequently agreed on state and national issues but just as often diverged with their proposed approaches. The two-hour forum, sponsored by the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation and the Coalition of Renewable Landowners Associations, allowed candidates to give brief statements and answer written questions from about 30 people. Attending were: n Jack Chatfield, a Republican from Mosquero, and Mark...
Is the state or county responsible for repairs on a damaged cattle guard near a U.S. highway? That was the subject of discussion during the Quay County board of commissioners meeting Monday. District 1 commissioner Sue Dowell brought up the issue after a resident told her about a recently damaged cattle guard on County Road AF on state right-of-way near U.S. 54. She described the inability for an entity to take responsibility for the repairs as “a standoff.” County manager Richard Primrose said the county maintains all cattle guards it ins...
Mesalands Community College likely will buy the closed New Mexico Army National Guard armory building adjacent to its campus for $1 later this month. After a 25-minute executive session, the college’s board of trustees on Sept. 11 passed a resolution that directs college President John Groesbeck to be the agent who presents a final sale agreement for the property later to the state’s armory board. The Tucumcari armory at 1200 S. 11th St., just south of the Mesalands campus, closed several yea...
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Sept. 12 unanimously rejected a late-season bid by the secretary of state to reimpose straight-party voting. Bottom line: Straight-party voting won’t appear on the November general-election ballot in Quay County and the rest of New Mexico. Quay County Clerk Ellen White said during the county commission’s regular meeting Sept. 10 the return of straight-party voting would be “detrimental” to passage of the county’s hospital gross-receipts tax-renewal question on the Nov. 6 ballot. White said she feared straight-tic...
Just show up. That's the single biggest piece of advice to Quay County residents from the frontman of an investment group that will make its pitch for a Tucumcari horse-racing track at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Tucumcari Convention Center at 1500 W. Route 66. Coronado Partners, led by Logan attorney Warren Frost, wants to build an $80 million track and casino sandwiched between Interstate 40 and Route 66 on Tucumcari's east side. But to build the facility, the New Mexico Racing Commission must...
When the Castelli brothers bought the Empty Saddle RV Park on Tucumcari's east side in April, one of the first things they did was change the name. That's because the facility since 2009 mostly had lived up to its name - empty. So a ceremonial ribbon-cutting Friday by the Tucumcari-Quay County Chamber of Commerce served more as a celebration the long-moribund site - now the Blaze-in-Saddle RV Park - had been revived. Silvio Castelli, who'd lived in Nevada in the construction and X-ray...
Raton’s Aden Vanderwater proved to be a one-man wrecking crew against Tucumcari, scoring five touchdowns and making four interceptions during a 35-14 football victory Friday night at Raton. Vanderwater also kicked all five extra-points for the Tigers (2-2). The turnovers and a 17-play drive in the first quarter that stalled spoiled a solid rushing attack for the visiting Rattlers (1-3). Seth Martinez led Tucumcari with 127 yards on 23 carries. TJ Lampkin rushed for 71 yards on 13 carries and threw for a 38-yard touchdown during a halfback p...