Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's public health order regarding coronavirus is scheduled to expire after Friday, more than three years after the pandemic started. "While we're still seeing COVID cases, our preparedness and collaborative work have helped turn a once-in-a-century public health emergency into a manageable situation," she said earlier this month while also urging elderly and immunocompromised people to get vaccinated or their booster shots. COVID-19 killed 70 residents of Quay County...
A Tucumcari resident during the public comment portion of Monday’s Quay County Commission meeting praised county manager Daniel Zamora’s efforts to find funding to build a new Dr. Daniel C. Trigg Memorial Hospital. The county learned earlier this month the New Mexico Legislature did not fulfill its request for up to $30 million to build a new hospital. During the commission’s previous meeting, it approved a request of $32.2 million in federal funds for the project. Joe Szaloy, a licensed physical therapist at the hospital, said the current 60-y...
LOGAN - In a rematch of the last two Class A baseball championship games, Logan earned a convincing doubleheader sweep Friday against Gateway Christian in the Longhorns' home opener. The Longhorns (3-0) prevailed 13-3 in the opener and 10-0 in the nightcap, with both games shortened by the mercy rule. In the first game, Logan ace Kaeden Stoner struck out 15, walked five, allowed two hits and was credited with only one earned run allowed in six innings. With the bat, Stoner also went 3-for-4 with...
The Mesalands Community College board of trustees on Thursday approved making Allen Moss the college's interim president, effective immediately, during the board's first in-person meeting in three years. Moss, formerly executive director of corrections and dual enrollment at the college, was appointed ass acting president in mid-February after the previous president, Gregory Busch, left town following no-confidence votes by the executive team, faculty senate and staff senate. The board didn't...
Quay County commissioners apparently couldn’t resist the prospect of a 2-for-1 situation in hiring an assessor. Commissioners on March 13 unanimously chose the county’s geographic information system mapper, Dana Leonard, as its next assessor. They interviewed five candidates for the position. Leonard, interviewed in his office the day after he was hired, said he would continue to hold down his mapping duties when he takes over the assessor position in June. Leonard noted Daniel Zamora previously held his spot and as emergency manager bef...
The Arch Hurley Conservancy District board of directors voted last week to not allocate water into its irrigation canals for now but remained hopeful they might do so after rainier weather this spring. Board Chairman Robert Lopez said during the March 14 meeting the water-allocation vote was a formality for crop-insurance purposes, though a lack of water had been apparent for months. District manager Franklin McCasland reported Conchas Lake’s water elevation that morning was 4,162.4 feet, which was 0.2 feet lower than the previous month. The d...
The Tucumcari Public Schools board last week accepted a state grant of up to $34,303.96 to help the district form a five-year facilities master plan. The district’s share of the plan would be $28,066.88, with the total cost to not exceed $62,370.84, according to a letter from the New Mexico Public School Capital Outlay Council. During the board’s March 13 meeting, superintendent Aaron McKinney said having a five-year plan in place is required for the district to receive capital-outlay money and other funds. McKinney also said the plan also hel...
Tucumcari city commissioners during a work session Thursday seemed receptive to a long-range proposal by the city’s senior center director to plan for a multipurpose building that would include a senior center, a public pool and a recreation center for all city residents. Tucumcari Senior Center director Clara Rey said the design and engineering for such a facility would be part of the center’s infrastructure capital improvement plan for fiscal-year 2027. She said she didn’t know where such a facility would be constructed or how much it would...
The acting president of Mesalands Community College clarified to Tucumcari city commissioners on Thursday what he hoped to see in the near future for the financially distressed college. Allen Moss, appointed as acting president by the board of trustees last month after previous president Gregory Busch left town and took medical leave amid no-confidence votes by staff and faculty, told city commissioners during their regular meeting “we feel very good” about Mesalands continuing to operate, though he admitted “the hard decisions aren’t done ye...
Quay County commissioners on Monday approved a resolution opposing a federal listing of the lesser prairie chicken as an endangered species, fearing the economic impact. County manager Daniel Zamora said the Natural Resources Committee recommended the passage of the resolution, saying the county needs more information from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the implications and regulations to landowners if the bird is listed. The resolution states the chicken’s habitat includes New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma. It states the...
Tucumcari's baseball team notched a victory on its first weekend of the season, matching the wins it totaled last season. One day after an 11-5 loss Friday against visiting Raton, the Rattlers earned a 14-3 victory in five innings at Estancia during the Bears' season-opener. "Today was a perfect rebound game for us after mentally breaking down yesterday against Raton," Tucumcari coach George Montano said after Saturday's win. "We stayed in front of the ball, we had quality at-bats, and we...
A letter from the leader of the New Mexico Higher Education Department to the state’s attorney general and auditor detailed concerns that officials at Mesalands Community College may have broken laws and created “a higher risk for fraud, waste and abuse at the college.” The Feb. 15 letter from HED Cabinet Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez specifically names Mesalands President Gregory Busch and former board of trustees chairman Jim Streetman, who resigned from his post last week after more than three decades with the board. Busch, who took a medic...
The director of the local chamber of commerce was hired last year to organize three events, but he said he was having difficulty organizing even one because of an inability to book musical acts. Scott Crotzer, director of the Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce, told the city’s Lodgers Tax Advisory Board on Wednesday he also was more motivated to improve the finances of his office than organizing events. Noting the lack of funding from the city and county in 2020 and 2021, he said the chamber’s coffers have not bounced back suf...
The Tucumcari girls basketball team didn't rely as much on 3-pointers and press defense during its first-round playoff game Friday against Cuba. This time, the fifth-seeded Lady Rattlers received a big lift from freshman center Kyla Lopez, who scored a game-high 21 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in a 68-41 victory over the 12th-seeded Lady Rams at a crowded Rattler Gymnasium. "She was a game-changer, for sure, just going up there and getting rebounds," Tucumcari coach Patrick Benavidez said. In...
LOGAN - The Longhorns were losing at halftime and needed a boost from an offense stuck in low gear. It got that boost from junior guard Kaeden Stoner, who scored 15 of his game-high 20 points in the third quarter to ignite eighth-seeded Logan to a 46-39 victory Saturday over ninth-seeded Legacy Academy in the first round of the Class 1A boys basketball tournament. The Longhorns (18-11) advanced to the quarterfinals, where they were scheduled to face defending state champion and top-seeded...
The acting interim president of Mesalands Community College told Quay County commissioners on Monday the financially distressed college has reduced its request of emergency state money from $3.7 million to $2 million, though he warned of “hard decisions” ahead even if it is granted. Allen Moss was appointed to as acting president in February after current president Gregg Busch left town in the wake of no-confidence votes from staff and faculty. Busch, citing complications from COVID-19 and Parkinson’s disease, took a medical leave of absen...
Though Mesalands Community College remains cash-strapped, its executive staff and new acting president during a Feb. 21 board of trustees meeting sounded a more optimistic tone than during a testy meeting the previous week. Mesalands earlier that day was authorized to receive $763,000 in state funds to reimplement its Jenzabar program and other moves so it can provide more complete financial statements, acting president Allen Moss said. Moss’ appointment as acting president the previous week was met with dismay primarily from the executive s...
About 20 people braved blustery winds Sunday afternoon to view a tree-planting in memory of a Tucumcari man slain by a pack of dogs several weeks ago. Meanwhile, the city's newest animal control officer during a city commission meeting Thursday explained how he was trying to address stray-dog problems. He also attended a dog-safety seminar Saturday at the Tucumcari Railroad Museum. On Gamble Avenue at a spot about 100 yards east of where Stanley Hartt, 64, died on South 11th Street on Feb. 1...
The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday approved actions to fix a construction mistake at the landfill that will cost the city no additional funds. A previous change order for a new cell at the landfill due to an engineer’s error on the location of a liner had caused consternation at the commission’s previous meeting, especially from Commissioner Mike Cherry. He had insisted the engineer should cough up the money to remedy the mistake. Cherry essentially got his wish. The commission first approved a change order in the project with CBKN Dir...
A bond adviser for Tucumcari Public Schools recommended a two-mill levy renewal election in November, plus issuing an education technology note this year, to access more money for the district and ensure area property tax rates remain stable. The school board during its Feb. 20 meeting didn’t take action on the proposal. That likely would happen at a meeting in April. Regina Gaysina, director of the municipal finance department at RBC Capital Markets in Albuquerque, said she recommended the school district call a two-mill election for about $...
The Tucumcari girls basketball team left no doubt Friday which was the top team in its district. The top-seeded Lady Rattlers took an early double-digit lead and never trailed in their 59-33 home victory over second-seeded Ruidoso in the championship game of the District 3A-4 tournament. Tucumcari's triumph followed a perfect 6-0 record in district play during the regular season. The Lady Rattlers earned a No. 5 seed in the Class 3A tournament and will host 12th-seeded Cuba on Friday. (See...
The Mesalands Community College board of trustees appointed Allen Moss as acting interim president last Tuesday, but not without testy opposition from executive staff who labeled the move as “retaliatory” against them and accused the board of violating its own policies. The board also approved a fiscal solvency plan of salary and program cuts for the troubled college and moved to implement them immediately. The move clears the way for the New Mexico Department of Higher Education’s plan of issuing up to $4.7 million in emergency funds for M...
Animal-complaint calls in Tucumcari nearly doubled since a fatal dog attack in the city earlier in the month. According to records kept by the Tucumcari-Quay Regional Emergency Communications Center from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, the number of animal-problem calls handled by the Tucumcari Police Department totaled 24, plus four stray-dog calls. During the Feb. 6-12 period, a few days after the Feb. 1 attack by five dogs that killed Stanley Hartt of Tucumcari, the total number of animal-problem calls to TPD jumped to 45, with five stray-dog calls....
Arch Hurley Conservancy District’s manager seemed resigned that a minimum-wage bill in the New Mexico Legislature would be enacted, thus increasing the district’s cost at least $50,000 to $60,000 a year and leading to significant hikes in assessments for many landowners. District manager Franklin McCasland told the board of trustees last week that a Labor and Veterans Committee substitute for House Bill 25, known as the Minimum Wage & Indexing Act, would hike the hourly minimum wage from $12 to $13.50 on Jan. 1, 2024, increase it to $15.50 on...
The Tucumcari girls basketball team reeled off three victories last week, securing an undisputed regular-season district title and the No. 1 seed for this week's district tournament. Earning early round byes, the Lady Rattlers (18-6 overall, 6-0 in District 3A-4) will play for the district tourney championship at 6 p.m. Friday at Rattler Gymnasium, aka The Snake Pit. On Saturday, Tucumcari capped the regular season with a dominating 73-27 victory over Dexter in Tucumcari's rescheduled...