Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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First, let me congratulate Democrats for taking the U.S. House of Representatives from the Republicans. Whether that is good news, however, depends on what the party whose standard bearer is not a septuagenarian pre-adolescent does with its new-found power. I would request that the Democrats do not use their new-found hammer to take revenge, even if that means putting a lid on U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, who has shown herself to be as immoderate as a leftist as the near-extremists on the right who are emboldened by President Donald...
Health and safety actions dominated the agenda Thursday at a regular meeting of the Tucumcari City Commission. Tucumcari Fire Chief Doug Hogan got the go-ahead from the commission Thursday to apply for about $43,500 to purchase three portable, automated cardio-pulmonary resuscitation devices — one for each of the city’s ambulances — through a grant from the New Mexico Department of Health. The devices deliver automated chest compressions even in difficult situations for sudden heart-attack victims, he said “They will improve our overall...
The city of Tucumcari’s liability insurance rates jumped 20 percent this year, City Manager Britt Lusk told the Tucumcari City Commission on Oct. 30, and the budget-stressed city will cover the additional cost with contingency funds. Lusk announced the rate increase at a special public work session of the commission, and commissioners went along with the rate increase with minimal discussion. The increase amounts to about $60,000, he said, as the city’s liability insurance rate increased from about $110,000 to about $170,000. Lusk said the mai...
Between the end of World War II and my birth date in 1950 lies a period of which I know little. My birth year marked the start of the Korean conflict and another new era. I was able last week to get a look at a little of the interm period when a friend gave me some Time magazines from the year 1946. That was back when for 15 cents Time offered 104 pages a week of densely packed news and analysis in long-essay form. For readers it was a joy. Time has always had its own somewhat irreverent style in presenting events in its own perspective. An...
The Public Broadcasting Company last week announced America’s 100 favorite books of all time, at least among readers of today, according to an extensive survey they engineered. I was a little disappointed that I had only read 30 of them. One of those was the top winner, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, which should be somewhere on everybody’s reading list, especially now when we need strong reminders of the early days of the civil rights movement and the steely courage it required. After “To Kill a Mockingbird” stand Diana Gabaldon’s...
In public relations, our job was to make the company look good, to cast the company in a good light. When I worked for “house organs” — or employee publications — I learned they gave the company complete control over what messages were sent and the context in which they were stated. I started thinking of such publications as “management’s makeup mirror.” A makeup mirror allows its users to control not only their reflection but the light in which they view themselves. Employee publications allow managers to perpetuate the fantasy they are univ...
The three candidates to serve out the term of District 4 Tucumcari City Commissioner Robert Lumpkin, who died July 17, were interviewed by the four current city commissioners in public Thursday during a commission work session. Commissioners plan to announce their decision at the Oct. 27 regular commission meeting. The candidates include Chris Arias, manager of Tucumcari's Dollar General Store; Nicholas Bradfield, a 21-year Navy veteran who is manager of maintenance at Dan C. Trigg Memorial...
The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday took action that brings closer increased water supply coming into the city and the final disposal of wastewater going out. The commission approved a letter that commits the city to put up $375,000 toward the $1.5 million needed to replace the 165,000-gallon Hoover tank west of the city and install water supply lines from city wells to the tank, and transmission lines from the tank to the city. The rest of the funding, $1.125 million, will come from the New Mexico Finance Authority's Drinking Water...
Take two people who are decent, long-serving public servants and have them compete for political office, and what do you get? You get two scheming, reprehensible, back-stabbing scoundrels who are consciously trying to hurt voters and taxpayers by pocketing their tax money or giving it to rich cronies. That’s what campaigning in America has become, especially in the final weeks before an election. So what is it? Are they all good guys and gals doing the best they can, or are they all on the take? That’s the choice that sinister attack ads try...
At the risk of alienating real or potential readers in various parts of the state, I am using my space this week to advocate for my home town Tucumcari as the site of the state’s next racetrack-casino, or “racino.” Officially, of course, it’s an alliance of businesses called Coronado Partners that has applied for the license. The 1,100 Quay County residents who attended Thursday’s New Mexico Racing Commission hearing in Tucumcari on Coronado’s very professionally presented proposal, however, made it plain that Tucumcari and Quay County have...
The three applicants to fill the District 4 commission seat on the Tucumcari City Commission held by the late Robert Lumpkin will face public interviews with the four current commissioners Oct. 11 in city commission chambers, the commission decided Thursday. The commissioners also decided they would make their choice among the candidates at their regular meeting Oct. 27. The interview work session will begin at 3 p.m. Oct. 11. The candidate in alphabetical order are Chris Arias, manager of...
It’s funny what can happen after testimony from a credible accuser is weighed against a Supreme Court nominee’s partisan bombast and flat denials of allegations from credible witnesses about some of his apparently serious misbehavior. A sure-thing confirmation can become an appeal for an FBI background investigation. That’s what the Republican-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee did Friday after hearing from both an accuser and an alleged aggressor who has been nominated to be a U.S. Supreme Court justice. I wrote last week that the nomin...
Fast fiber-optic internet service will be available to the entire city of Tucumcari when Plateau completes a plan that begins with its purchase of the assets of Comcast in the city, Plateau’s chief operating officer Vince Tyson told the Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday. Comcast provides cable television service to about 300 customers in the city, Tyson said. Plateau was expected to complete its purchase of Comcast assets Monday, Tyson said. In addition to continuing cable television service with up to 38 channels for Tucumcari r...
I visited my old home state of California, more specifically the Los Angeles area, last week. Here are some of the things I learned: • The Los Angeles area is enjoying a pleasant late summer. It’s cooler and drier than eastern New Mexico. • The crowded freeways can choke to a halt any time of the day. People drive big cars and SUVs on the freeways and they go way too fast. • There were two terrible accidents on the freeways. One involved an illegal street race. Three persons died in that crash. Another, which killed two people, involve...
The next Tucumcari city commissioner from District 4 will be appointed from applicants for the position, the Tucumcari City Commission decided Thursday. The appointee will serve out the remaining two years of a four-year term left vacant with the death July 17 of District 4 Commissioner Robert Lumpkin. Commissioners agreed the city’s current tight finances made a special election, estimated to cost more than $5,000, undesirable. The commission also approved its annual Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP). The plan serves as the b...
The next phase in developing Tucumcari's Five-Mile Park will combine the visions of about 40 Tucumcari residents that landscape architects converted to sketches. The 40 who participated in the planning session Aug. 14 brainstormed ideas ranging from archery ranges in the park's shooting area, to elevated trails for exploration of the park's wildlife, to a stage for major outdoor music events. Pat Vanderpool, director of the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation, said the event's...
As a New York Times subscriber, I am often either amused or annoyed by its headlines that hint of new, knuckle-whitening crises. Here’s one from last week: “Steve Jobs’s Daughter Forgives Him. Should We?” Is she going to wonder whether she should forgive my father? Don’t think so. Here’s another one: “Can I Contact the Grandkids I Discovered on a DNA Website?” Picture this odd old man talking to your kids: “I’m no stranger, I’m your grandpa. See? Look at this DNA!” I would advise all to whom this applies to envision this scene — all five o...
Logan Municipal Schools again led Quay County school systems in the New Mexico Public Education Department’s 2018 annual grading of schools based on student performance and improvement in the 2017-2018 school year. The department announced its grades for all New Mexico schools Friday. None of Quay County’s schools earned overall grades below a C this year. At least one school scored D grades in each of 2017, 2016 and 2015, according to the education department’s figures. The department’s numbers show: • Logan Elementary School scored an A grad...
SANTA ROSA — Two Quay County educators made their voices heard Wednesday morning as the New Mexico Legislature’s Legislative Educational Study Committee (LESC) began a three-day workshop in Santa Rosa. Bonnie Lightfoot, who is entering her second year as superintendent of House Municipal Schools, told the legislators how the House District used Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) grant funding to improve student performance in language arts and mathematics. The district received the funds, she said, because its high school gra...
On Thursday, 300 U.S. newspapers collectively patted themselves on the back and defended themselves against President Donald Trump’s dangerous bellowing about fake news and journalists being the “enemy of the people.” The news media, however, should also be united in giving themselves a big kick in the pants for blowing some really big stories, like failing to see how and why our current president got into the White House in the first place. The news media are right to protest Trump’s autocracy-oriented pronouncements. “Fake news” is a red he...
An open house Friday at Mesalands Community College's North American Wind Research and Training Center drew students, national wind energy industry leaders and elected officials to commemorate American Wind Week. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) sponsored the open house as one of a series of events commemorating American Wind Week at different locations across the U.S., including Cleveland, Ohio; Orlando, Florida: and Portland, Oregon. A ribbon-cutting for a new wind energy...
It’s not a new tax. That is the key message that Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital officials and Quay County Commissioners want voters to hear before they vote on continuing the one-eighth percent gross receipts tax that raises about $200,000 a year to operate the hospital as a county facility. Hospital administrators and county commissioners said they were concerned about the tax measure being misread as a new tax, because the tax will be on the ballot for a general election for the first time since the tax was first approved in a special e...
Tucumcari’s new disc golf course at Five-Mile Park has been officially named for the city commissioner who championed it, Robert Lumpkin, who passed away on July 17. The Tucumcari City Commission voted unanimously Thursday to name the championship-level 18-hole course in Lumpkin’s honor. Lumpkin promoted the idea for the golf course, starting in 2017, and contributed to organizational efforts and even physical labor to clear the way for the disc golf course’s 18 holes and tee-off areas. The commission on Thursday also approved an agree...
Thomas Garcia could be exasperating, frustrating and aggravating at times, but it was seldom that he was anything but cordial, cheerful and persuasive. It was easy to tell that Garcia was most in his element when he was among friends, keeping them entertained with a steady stream of stories, wisecracks and come-back lines. Many of those friends and I, a one-time colleague who learned quickly that supervising Thomas Garcia was akin to herding his famous cats, were shattered to learn Saturday that he had passed away. He’d been ill in recent d...
A program to match apprentice farmers with experienced farmers willing to donate time and land in Quay County is well-timed, according to Jason Lamb, the county's New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension agent. A decade of drought discouraged many young people from entering agriculture or following in their families' footsteps by continuing to farm in Quay County, Lamb said in an interview at an organizing event Friday at the Tucumcari Convention Center for an apprentice farming...