Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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Wal-Mart recently bought Lord & Taylor. That has renewed predictions of the end for America’s middle class. Wal-Mart caters to the growing ranks of the underpaid poor, while Lord & Taylor offers pricey items to the rich, whose ranks are also increasing. Who else would pay $200 for a pair of work boots? Wal-Mart is even receiving praise from the profit-minded for their strategy of cutting out the middle. Meanwhile, stores like Macy’s, Toys R Us and Radio Shack, which have depended on an economically healthy middle class, are facing ban...
The Tucumcari City Commission Thursday decided to buy an ambulance and authorize an agreement for state and local funding of an expanded-capacity water line to Mountain Road and Interstate 40 in order to accommodate business expansion there. The new ambulance will raise the number of ambulances the city's Emergency Medical Services group operates to four, Fire Chief Doug Hogan told the commission. The new ambulance would be used mostly for patient transfers to hospitals in Lubbock, Amarillo and Albuquerque, where advanced care is available,...
Did Hillary Clinton surrender 20 percent of U.S. uranium to the Russians, endangering us all, while she was the U.S. secretary of state? I don’t think so. I think what we have is yet another conspiracy theory that adds an apple, an orange and a pineapple and comes up with dubious traitors to America. Here’s the apple: As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton signed off on a deal that allowed the Russian government’s uranium mining organization to purchase control of a Canadian mining company, Uranium One. Uranium One had recently acquired a U.S...
I stopped at "hub-jumping." I was wearing the harness and could secure one of its life-line lanyards to the safety rail with a "lobster claw," but my brain would not let me crawl down the hub. That's the nose-cone in front of the turbine blades of Mesalands Community College's wind turbine generator. It would have involved looking directly down to the miniaturized desert landscape 254 feet below. I wasn't about to stand up, either. My rational brain said I was tied down and secure, but the part...
When all was said and done, City Manager Jared Langenegger received a 2-percent raise in his pay Thursday at the hands of the Tucumcari City Commission. On a 4-to-1 vote, the commission decided to award the raise. Fourth District Commissioner Robert Lumpkin was the lone holdout. Earlier in the meeting, Lumpkin had asked the commission to hold another executive session before awarding Langenegger the raise. He made this request despite an executive session to discuss Langenegger that was held at the Oct. 12 commission meeting. “I heard some c...
As Congress, whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans, considers tax reforms, it pays for individual wage earners to keep their hands on their wallets and their eyes on the news. With his usual self-effacing modesty, President Donald Trump has announced we will get the “biggest tax cut in history.” Everybody? I don’t think so. The Republicans want to cut the corporate tax rate, but the jury is out on the impact that will have on government revenues or on relief to other taxpayers. Corporations stand to have their maximum tax rates reduc...
A website called Quora allows users to ask questions and have them answered by their peers. Usually the questions are undergraduate queries like, “If Darth Vader were your father, how would you get away with staying out past midnight?” The other day, someone posed the question “What’s the difference between a liberal and a conservative?” That one is interesting. I didn’t see any of the responses, but that won’t stop me from coming up with one of my own. My first distinction is this: Liberals don’t mind if the government taps your wallet but...
Amid the graffiti burglars left on the walls at Tucumcari's Center Methodist Church on the night of Oct. 8 was a taunt: "You'll never catch us." The Tucumcari Police Department believes it's proven otherwise. Early Friday, TPD officers arrested two Tucumcari men and a juvenile and recovered many of the computers, electronic devices and even musical instruments stolen in that burglary and two others in Tucumcari on the nights of Oct. 7, 8 and 10. The three burglaries included: • the Methodist c...
Tucumcari's rustic new 18-hole disc golf course shone in its debut event, officially titled "Shootout at Six-Shooter Siding," Saturday and Sunday at Five Mile Park. Six-Shooter Siding was a name assigned to a 19th Century railroad camp on the site where Tucumcari now stands. In the weekend's Shootout event, which was a tournament sanctioned by the New Mexico chapter of the national Professional Disc Golf Association, 45 disc golfers hurled and tossed flying discs all over the golf course's tall...
From 1949 to 1987, the federal government required broadcast stations to cover — and balance their coverage of — current issues. This rule was called “the Fairness Doctrine.” There are natural limits on broadcast frequencies so the government assigned and licensed them. With the licenses, of course, came restrictions and rules. This, after all, was the federal government. It was conservative pressure during the President Ronald Reagan years that brought down the Fairness Doctrine as a breach of free speech. Now, however, Republican President Do...
A request Thursday to increase leave time that Tucumcari city emergency medical employees may accumulate became a discussion of how hard it has become to hire and retain public safety employees. Tucumcari Fire Chief Doug Hogan said the additional allowance for accumulated leave time has become necessary because of manpower shortages on ambulance crews. His request led Tucumcari city commissioners at a public workshop into a discussion of shortages of qualified applicants for police and emergency medical positions. The workshop was held before T...
One Mesaland Community College rodeo athlete managed ornery animals well enough to qualify for championship rounds Saturday, but even he did not score in Saturday night's deciding contests as Mesalands hosted the Grand Canyon Region Intercollegiate Fall Rodeo Friday and Saturday. A second Mesalands rodeo team member unofficially scored what would have been one of the best bull rides during informal competition Saturday between Mesalands and New Mexico State University (NMSU). Scotty Bevins of...
Former Tucumcari Fire Chief Shane Warner, 41, is facing eight felony counts, including allegations of sexual penetration in commission of a felony, Quay County magistrate court records show. Warner is also charged with two counts of intent to distribute controlled substances, three counts of tampering with evidence, one count of extortion and one count of embezzling more than $2,500 but less than $20,000. Tenth Judicial District Attorney Tim Rose declined to comment on Warner's case. Attempts to...
Two Tucumcari churches were burglarized over the weekend, and one was heavily vandalized with graffiti and enchilada sauce, among other things. Musical and electronic equipment were stolen from both churches, according to church representatives. The First Presbyterian Church at East Aber and Adams streets was burglarized either Saturday night or Sunday morning. A brick shattered a window and damaged a carpet in the church sanctuary, pastor Amy Popsichal said. A computer and wide-screen television were taken out of a church office, Popsichal...
Two wind energy projects scheduled for Quay County with maximum value of $157.6 million will receive tax benefits through New Mexico industrial revenue bonds (IRB) as a result of ordinances the Quay County Commission approved Monday. Both projects are on NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, wind energy sites located near House. County government and the House school district will share in “payment in lieu of taxes“(PILOT) payments that NextEra will make to replace taxes. According to the texts of the ordinances, the county will receive $261,090 per y...
Community groups united in a big way to make the Sept. 30 Wheels on Fire 100 bicycle race succeed, but the activity centered around one guy. That was Brandon Goldston, a first-rate cyclist in his own right, who is also a heck of an organizer. I know he won’t want me to brag on his behalf, but I’m going to anyway. He got some help from David Brenner, another dedicated cyclist, and me, but the day belonged to Goldston. He arranged and directed volunteer participation and police assistance. He also ordered the prizes and other promotional mat...
Three dilapidated houses and a collapsed building in the downtown area of Tucumcari are destined for leveling, the Tucumcari City Commission decided Thursday. Owners must begin demolishing the buildings themselves within 15 days of receiving notice from the city, according the four resolutions the city the commission approved Thursday . In addition, the owners of the offending properties must complete demolition or demonstrate progress toward demolition within 30 days after beginning the...
Tucumcari put on a great show for visitors on Saturday. And visitors we had. There were the 70-plus bicycle riders from out of town who rode in the second annual Wheels on Fire 100 race or ride, depending on riders’ intentions. The Tucumcari High School band played the “Star Spangled Banner” before the riders lined up and an Air Methods helicopter led them through town as middle-school students holding flags cheered them on down Route 66. Seven riders finished the 100-mile route in less than five hours, which was the winning time last year....
If you can't get patients to health professionals, the providers can consult with patients on two-way video. That's the idea behind a "tele-health" program that Presbyterian Healthcare Services is operating through its Presbyterian Medical Group clinic in Tucumcari to help diabetes patients learn more about managing their condition. Tucumcari's program is assisting 23 patients with advice about managing blood pressure, watching for early warning signs of diabetes complications and proper...
A reorganization of city government that will create one more layer of management and cost the city about $118,000 in salary increases per year received approval Thursday from the Tucumcari City Commission. City manager Jared Langenegger proposed reorganizing the city government at the commission’s Aug. 24 meeting, saying it was too much for him to manage all 18 city departments on a day-to-day basis. The plan he presented to the commission at its public workshop session before Thursday’s commission meeting differed from the one presented Aug....
Mesalands Community College has been ranked ninth in the nation, three levels above last year’s rating, out of 728 community colleges evaluated, by Wallet Hub, an Internet credit rating and reporting firm based in the Washington, D.C., area. The rise in ratings adds to a string of favorable developments at the college in recent years, President Thomas Newsom said. Last year, Wallet Hub listed Mesalands at 12th in the nation. Wallet Hub based its ranking on cost and outcomes. Mesalands’ most favorable scores in Wallet Hub’s ratings were in “s...
Last week, the U.S. and North Korea engaged in brinksmanship and Congressional Republicans struggled to avoid yet another failure to dismantle Obamacare. In addition, two U.S. states and Puerto Rico were reeling from historically devastating hurricanes. After navigating this harrowing week of crises, however, President Donald Trump decided it was just as urgent that he critique the National Football League. He might have played a little football in high school, but meddling with the management of the NFL is way out of his league. It’s like b...
The United States has become more like the rest of the world these days. More Americans are marching, demonstrating, and too often threatening or using violence to make their point. It used to be that Americans would shake their heads and wonder how people in the rest of the world could riot over issues that we would watch Congress debate, saving any of our mild rancor for the ballot box. Declining prospects, however, seem to be driving more Americans to extremes. Only a diminishing number of people, whose fortunes have skyrocketed at the...
As I write this, the latest example of “fake news” was slamming into Naples, Florida, on its way to Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, where its mythical high winds and over-hyped storm surges were causing some very real damage throughout the Florida peninsula. Rush Limbaugh wasn’t there. He decided this threat the media had conjured up just might be real after all and evacuated his Florida home in Miami. On Sept. 5, he implied that the hurricane warnings were being hyped to advance the “climate change” agenda, hinting that the power of the appro...
Disc golf at Tucumcari’s new disc golf course is like regular golf except that: • You carry a set a backpack or cloth case of throwing discs around instead of long, heavy bag of clubs to hit dimpled little balls. • You dress for a hike in the back country, not in cleats for the fairway. • If you did use a vehicle, not recommended, it would be a four-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicle, not a golf cart. Tucumcari’s 18-hole disc golf course has made a favorable impression on professional disc golfers, and the Tucumcari course will host a state pro...