Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 983 - 1007 of 1717
Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board members informally gave the city manager a green light to issue a request for proposals to hire a new marketing firm to oversee the city’s tourism efforts. Members during their regular meeting Wednesday also discussed an official launch of the city’s tourism rebranding efforts, tentatively scheduled for Dec. 18. City Manager Mark Martinez told the board he was inclined to give a one-year marketing contract to the Leighton Moon firm of Alamogordo, which oversaw the city’s recent tourism rebranding effor...
One week after his initial lawsuit was dismissed, the former president of Mesalands Community College filed a new whistleblower and retaliation complaint in Quay County against his former employer. John Groesbeck refiled the lawsuit Dec. 1 in the 10th Judicial Circuit Court in Tucumcari against Mesalands. Circuit Judge Albert Mitchell Jr. has been assigned to the case. Groesbeck initially filed his lawsuit in July in Santa Fe District Court weeks after the college’s board of directors fired him in the spring. The suit was dismissed without p...
The executive director for the Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce is resigning her post in mid-January after a little less than three years. Carmen Runyan said during a telephone interview Thursday her last day would be Jan. 15. The chamber’s Facebook page posted a job opening for her position Wednesday. Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Advisory Board members also briefly discussed Runyan’s imminent departure during their regular meeting Wednesday. Runyan said she would continue to help Tucumcari MainStreet Executive Director Connie Loveland wit...
A National Weather Service hydrologist doesn't see much relief coming this winter from New Mexico's persistent drought. Royce Fontenot, a senior service hydrologist for the agency, said during a webinar last week a La Nina high-pressure system in the northern Pacific Ocean is projected to send the jet stream in a more northernly direction this winter, bringing dryer-than-normal conditions to the parched Southwest. Fontenot said the outlook for December through February is below-normal...
The New Mexico Activities Association last week released another update for its high-school sports calendar, with football being the first sport to begin its season in mid-February. NMAA executive director Sally Marquez acknowledged in a report last week by the Las Cruces Sun-News the revision was “a last-ditch effort” to salvage sports for the 2020-2021 school year. Tucumcari High School athletic director Wayne Ferguson said Thursday he hadn’t updated the school’s team schedules because the NMAA hadn’t given guidance on how many games sho...
New Mexico’s governor and the Department of Health on Friday announced a partial relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions this week and details about a reopening system for counties, but it appeared doubtful Quay County would land in the coveted green zone when the system goes into effect Wednesday. The rating system becomes effective Dec. 2 when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s two-week “reset” of a shutdown of in-person business at non-essential workplaces ends. Counties would be allowed to further reopen their economies based on a per capita...
The New Mexico Legislature easily approved a coronavirus relief bill during a special session last week, but two lawmakers whose districts encompass all or most of Quay County were among those who voted against the measure. District 67 Rep. Jack Chatfield (R-Mosquero) voted against it in part because he said the $330 million package didn't address the growing debt in the state's unemployment insurance fund. District 7 Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview) opposed the bill partly because he said it was...
A Santa Fe County District Court judge last week granted Mesalands Community College’s motion to dismiss a whistleblower lawsuit by the college’s former president. District Judge Maria Sanchez-Gagne ruled in a filing dated Nov. 24 the lawsuit by John Groesbeck was filed at an improper venue. The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, which means Groesbeck could refile an amended lawsuit later. Sanchez-Gagne stated Mesalands is not qualified as a state educational institution under the New Mexico Constitution, nor did it fall under the sta...
The governor’s stay-at-home order and skyrocketing coronavirus cases continued to create ripple effects in Quay County with closed schools, city offices and businesses, plus at least one cease-and-desist order of a business owner that tried to stay open. Tucumcari Public Schools superintendent Aaron McKinney announced in a news release Saturday the district would switch entirely to remote learning starting Monday because of the “unfortunate” rise of COVID-19 cases in Quay County. The district announced the previous day it would go to all-r...
Two principals who are producing "Bands of Enchantment" spent two days in Tucumcari last week to scout possible film locations and gather promotional footage for the planned music television series. Ken C. Peterson and Tyson Chavez of Elkhorn Entertainment said they toured the Tucumcari Convention Center, the historic railroad depot and other possible spots that could be used for performances by New Mexican and Americana music acts. Elkhorn's principals have envisioned the show as a New Mexico...
Tucumcari Public Schools’ assistant superintendent, citing the state’s education chief, said during the school board’s meeting last week about 12,000 children in New Mexico, or nearly 4% of the total, are unaccounted for during the school year as many districts struggle to maintain enrollment numbers in remote-learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, assistant superintendent David Johnson said in follow-up interview that Tucumcari has only three to four such unaccounted-for pupils, or well under 1% of the total of about...
Two area lawmakers said replenishing the state’s depleted unemployment insurance fund would be a high priority during this week’s special session of the New Mexico Legislature. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last week announced her calling of the special session for what she hopes is a $300 million coronavirus aid package for small business grants, housing assistance and jobless benefits. The special session was scheduled to begin Tuesday, which is after the Quay County Sun’s deadlines. State Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview), whose District 7 encom...
A consultant recommended that Mesalands Community College rejigger future course offerings for in-demand trades that include building construction, early childhood education, automobile repair and truck driving. Two members of the college’s board of trustees, however, became skeptical during the Nov. 17 meeting during a recommendation to develop off-campus housing in Tucumcari’s downtown. Sean Garretson of Pegasus Planning and Development, based in Austin, gave a review of findings regarding a possible update to the college’s master plan....
Enrollment at Mesalands Community College dropped by nearly one-fifth during the previous school year, according to an annual report presented during the board of trustees’ Nov. 17 meeting. Aaron Kennedy, vice president of student affairs, gave the college’s annual enrollment management report. The report stated Mesalands’ annual headcount enrollment during the 2019-2020 school year was 2,003, a 19% drop from the previous year’s 2,483 and 22% lower from a peak of 2,549 in 2017-2018. The college’s annual full-time equivalent student total was...
New Mexico on Monday began a two-week “reset” of coronavirus restrictions amid skyrocketing rates of the disease. The curbs recalled those ordered by the governor in March. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday also announced a three-tier, county-by-county system for reopening businesses after the two-week period ends Nov. 30. Based on her description, it’s similar to the school-reopening criteria established weeks ago. Lujan Grisham cited a tripling in the number of hospitalizations in the past month and a more than doubling in deaths in th...
Logan Municipal Schools saw a decline in its “alarming” numbers of middle and high-school students failing at least one class in remote-learning environments, reported the district’s superintendent. Superintendent Dennis Roch said during the school board’s October meeting that 43% of middle-school students and 33% of high-schoolers were flunking at least one class during the semester. He said students in online learning environments weren’t completing their coursework on time because they were working or parents weren’t around to supervise....
A draft from the New Mexico Public Education Department offers possible glimpses of how secondary students might return to in-person classes throughout the state. Logan Municipal Schools superintendent Dennis Roch told school board members last week the agency’s COVID Toolkit draft was revealed during a recent meeting of the New Mexico School Superintendents Association. He cautioned the draft “is not gospel; it could change.” In general, the PED is considering options for small-group teaching, or cohorting, at schools for secondary stude...
A Tucumcari woman and a Massachusetts man were jailed on felony charges Sunday after the woman was accused of opening a Tucumcari Police Department squad car door after his initial arrest and let him escape. He was captured minutes later. Maria Renee Apodaca, 19, was charged with assisting escape, conspiracy, criminal damage to property over $1,000 and criminal damage to property under $1,000. The escape count is a third-degree felony that can lead up to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The conspiracy and one of the criminal damage coun...
Students and teachers at San Jon Municipal Schools managed to hold their annual Veterans Day program last week despite ongoing restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. The state's ban on public gatherings of more than five people made usual ceremonies for the holiday impossible, including VFW Post 2525 in Tucumcari. But the San Jon FFA on Veterans Day uploaded a 12-minute YouTube video stitched together from small presentations at the school and students' homes via the Zoom...
A Tucumcari man was jailed last week after being accused of sexually abusing a girl younger than 13. The alleged incidents occurred five times over a 2 1/2-year period. Ramon Talavera, 42, was detained and booked into the Quay County Detention Center on Thursday afternoon. According to online court records, he was charged with five counts of first-degree criminal solicitation to commit criminal sexual penetration with a child younger than 13 and one count of second-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor age 13 to 18. All the charges are...
The Quay County Commission on Monday unanimously approved the official canvass for last week’s general election after the clerk proclaimed it “the easiest we ever had.” County Clerk Ellen White said the election in the county contained no provisional ballots, no late ballots and no ballots that required “curing,” or correction. After previous elections, county commissioners spent time — sometimes up to 45 minutes — during their meeting approving or rejecting provisional ballots. White estimated a portion of an estimated 800 inactive voters woul...
Area voters decided to retain 10th Judicial District Judge Albert Mitchell Jr. to his post, according to unofficial results Tuesday night from Quay, De Baca and Harding counties. Results in conservative-leaning Quay County contrasted the strong finish by Democrats in New Mexico's overall results, including the presidential race and a locally contested state senate seat. Quay County fell just short of a record with 64% turnout at the polls. The record is 65%, set during the 2008 general...
Despite record numbers of early voting, Quay County fell just shy of record overall turnout during this year's general election. A total of exactly 3,900 people cast their ballots in the county. With 6,093 registered voters, that is a turnout of 64% - short of the record of 65% reported during the 2008 general election, according to data kept by County Clerk Ellen White. New Mexico broke a record when more than 920,000 people voted in the general election for a 68% turnout, according to...
New Mexico’s governor didn’t sugarcoat the seriousness of a steep rise in coronavirus cases during a press briefing Thursday and said she might impose “drastic” restrictions this week if the state’s pandemic didn’t show signs of slowing. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said during a Zoom videoconference from the governor’s mansion it was “a hard truth to hear,” but November was shaping up to be “rough on all of us.” On Thursday, the state broke a daily record with 23 COVID-19 deaths. Hospitalizations from the disease have nearly doubled in two...
Officials from New Mexico MainStreet and a graphic designer made a videoconference presentation Wednesday of a late-stage prototype of the city's new tourism logo to the Tucumcari Lodgers Tax Board. New Mexico MainStreet and revitalization specialist Leighton Moon of Alamogordo consulted with Tucumcari MainStreet and surveyed residents on a rebranding of the city's logo and setting up a tourism style guide. New Mexico MainStreet offered the service, which ordinarily would have cost thousands of...