Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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A storm system Monday evening produced several reports of severe weather in Quay County, including at least one tornado. Trained spotters for the National Weather Service reported a tornado six miles north of Melrose, near the Curry-Quay County line, and another tornado sighting eight miles south-southwest of Nara Visa in northeast Quay County. Several photos of a twister were posted on social media by the Logan Fire Department. It reported the tornado touched the ground for about five minutes...
The Tucumcari baseball team was hanging tough, trailing visiting Santa Rosa 6-3 after six innings. Then the Rattlers were forced to change pitchers, and the roof fell in. After Tucumcari coach Dennis Dysart lifted starting hurler Johnathan Blea after 6 1/3 innings during a May 11 game because of a mounting pitch count, the Lions scored 11 runs, mostly against Rattler position players who'd never pitched before. Santa Rosa's lead ballooned to 17-3, which turned out to be the final score. In the...
The Tucumcari Public Schools board will hold a special meeting Monday evening after its regular meeting was rescheduled due to incorrect information about that meeting's teleconference platform. The special meeting will be streamed at 6 p.m. Monday via Google Meets at https://meet.google.com/beo-frhd-gve. Superintendent Aaron McKinney passed along the special meeting information Tuesday afternoon. School board member Jerry Lopez, with the concurrence of at least one other board member, insisted Monday evening the meeting be rescheduled after...
On a 3-2 vote, the Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday cut the city's allowance for the salary of Patrick Vanderpool, executive director of the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation, nearly in half and shortened the contract between the city and the EDC to one year. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya, District 2 Commissioner Paul Villanueva and District 4 Commissioner Christopher Arias voted to reduce the salary allowance. Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield and Mayor Pro Tem Todd...
The New Mexico Department of Health announced on Friday that vaccinated individuals no longer will be required to wear masks in indoor or outdoor settings. Schools remain an exception because many children are not yet eligible to receive the vaccine. The announcement came one day after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued similar guidance regarding fully vaccinated people. Those not yet fully vaccinated still are required under public health orders to wear masks in public settings. People are considered fully vaccinated...
A neon sign that once hung on the now-defunct Vorenberg Hotel in downtown Tucumcari recently was recovered by the Tucumcari Historical Museum and is back on display there after it was misplaced and apparently forgotten for more than a decade. An official with the museum hopes to have the sign's neon tubing replaced so it can glow again. Cindy Lathrom, a treasurer of the Tucumcari Historical Research Institute that runs the museum, said she discovered an item about the sign while researching...
A Logan school board member, irked by the boys basketball team’s failure to qualify for the state tournament partly due to COVID-19-related game cancellations, advocated the school flouting the state’s mask mandate and vented against other state restrictions during the board’s meeting last week. Board member Kyle Perez indicated during his comments at the May 10 meeting the pandemic was being prolonged by state-mandated safeguards at schools. “The longer they keep us restricted like we are and keep us masked up, this disease isn’t going away,...
“OK, men. Today’s the last game of the season, and we’re about to take the field against the Canaan Giants. Now, these guys are huge. They’re faster, stronger and tougher than we are, and it’s not even close. We’ll try hard, but let’s be honest. We’re about to go get our lunches handed to us. We simply haven’t been given what it would take for us to win this. We’re not even supposed to win. But take heart: There’s a state-of-the-art ambulance waiting to rush you to the emergency room when you get injured. (And you will get injured.) Our vic...
Quay County showed tentative signs late last week that a nearly month-long spike of coronavirus cases was diminishing. The county recorded only one confirmed COVID-19 case both Thursday and Friday. Both were in the Tucumcari ZIP code. The total number of cases in the county since the pandemic began last spring rose past the 500 mark last week. At one point, Quay County had averaged four daily cases in the seven-day rolling average. It has recorded 75 since mid-April. In the April 19 to May 3 period, Quay County had the second-worst daily case...
Note: Events subject to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic. • Friday — Fired Up Friday. This downtown event replaces the canceled Fired Up Festival. There will be a chuckwagon demonstration with a book signing by Vince Smith. Food trucks will operate from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. or until the food runs out. Tucumcari Historic Railroad Plaza at Second and Main streets. • Saturday — Tucumcari Historical Research Institute Hot Dog Food and Field Trip. The field trip will be to the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Tucumca...
The Tucumcari Senior Center and Logan Senior Center remain closed to the public indefinitely but will deliver meals to those who qualify. Those interested in meal deliveries should call the Tucumcari facility at 461-2307 or the Logan facility at 487-2287 for more information. Tucumcari schools No information available. Tucumcari Senior Center Wednesday — Hot turkey sandwich, mashed potatoes, buttered green beans, sugar cookie. Thursday — Meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, carrots, whole-wheat roll, Jell-O with fruit. Friday — Italian pork chop,...
May 19 On this date ... 1971: The Carden-Johnson Circus will bring its three performance rings and 42 acts to the Tucumcari High School football stadium for two performances in one day later this month. The event is a fundraiser for Tucumcari Shriners, who will funnel the money to Shriners Hospitals for crippled children. • The New Mexico Aviation Board awarded a $20,912 to Conchas Lake Airport. The money will be used for several improvements, including extending the tiedown apron, c...
Between headlines about back-and-forth name-calling and arguments over which party is engaging in “cancel culture” or “conspiracy mongering,” there has been little attention paid to acknowledging that our national debt is now 28 percent higher than our gross domestic product -- all the stuff we make and the services that we sell. The national debt totaled around $28.3 trillion (that is, thousands of billions, which are thousands of millions) on Sunday, compared with our gross domestic product of $22.1 trillion. In other words, if we put up...
Sometime in 2023, Donald Trump will presumably make the most momentous decision by a single person affecting the fate of the Republican Party in decades. He will decide whether to run for president again, and that will determine who’s the frontrunner (Trump, if he’s a go) and the contours of the race. If Trump runs, he will, one assumes, blot out the sun. Everything will be about him — his record, his pronouncements, his animosities. Much of the conservative mass media will get on board, while the mainstream media — inadvertently aiding...
On Jan. 7, Facebook suspended President Donald Trump, striking a significant blow to his ability to communicate with the public. Banning him permanently from the platform would be a mistake. An independent review board of activists, lawyers and journalists known as the Facebook Oversight Board has been considering the question of whether Trump’s de facto ban was justified and whether he should be permanently excluded or allowed back on the platform. The oversight board has ruled the original suspension was legitimate, but also that s...
Tucumcari was the host school for the season-opening Rattler Relays track and field event, but it was Moriarty that ruled the roost. Both the boys and girls teams from Moriarty took home titles during the nine-team event Saturday at Rattler Stadium. It was the first track and field event for area teams in more than two years after the COVID-19 canceled the 2020 track season. In the boys competition, Moriarty boys finished with 138 points, well ahead of runner-up Logan’s 88. Tucumcari finished fo...
Staff report The Tucumcari softball team captured its first victory of the season Friday with a 24-11 decision at Clayton. Harley McKinney, Sage Knapp and Alexis Ramirez each went 4-for-4 for the Lady Rattlers (1-3) in the top three spots of the batting lineup. Tucumcari starting pitcher Mireya Estrada earned a complete-game victory, with four strikeouts. Tucumcari coach CJ Oglesby noted his team emerged victorious in spite of three starters being out of Friday’s lineup because they were competing in the state cheerleading championships. ...
Staff report The Logan baseball team began its season with a resounding doubleheader victory Friday at Dora, including a combined no-hitter. The Longhorns opened the twinbill with an 11-1 victory that was shortened to five innings, then completed the sweep with 21-0 victory in the second game. It also was the season-opener for Dora. Brock Burns drove in three runs on a double and triple in the first game for Logan. The Longhorns scored in every inning. Logan pitchers Dante Sanchez, Garrett Bollinger and Greyson Bollinger combined to allow just...
Staff report Logan’s boys basketball team saw three players earn all-district honors during recent voting by District 6’s coaches. Dante Sanchez, Kaden Riggs and Garrett Bollinger, all seniors, each earned first-team honors for the Longhorns, which finished third in the district standings to Fort Sumner and eventual Class 1A runner-up Melrose. Seniors Jordan Evans and Wyatt Wright were honorable mentions for Logan. For San Jon, senior Chad Becerra was the lone first-team selection. Eighth-grader Dayson Montoya was an honorable mention for the...
Staff report Logan had three all-district players each in girls basketball and volleyball during recent voting by District 6 coaches. Fort Sumner led the all-district list in girls basketball, with four honorees. Kambry Burns, Karlee Cantrell and Kyra Conway earned all-district honors for the Lady Longhorns hoops program. Rilee Nials and Reece Goldston were honorable mentions for Logan. In volleyball, eventual Class 1A champion Melrose had four first-team selections. In Logan volleyball, Burns, Conway, Goldston and Amanda Conway were...
From staff report A local man on Saturday at the last minute stopped an apparent gift-card fraud where the scammer claimed to be from the Quay County Sheriff’s Department. According to a report from the sheriff’s department, the victim told a deputy he had been contacted by someone from the 505 area code who claimed to be from the Quay County Sheriff’s Department that he had bonds for the victim and if he tried to contact the sheriff’s office, he would be arrested. The victim told the deputy the person on the line instructed him to go to a st...
It appears softball and cross country will be added as extracurricular options during the 2021-2022 school year at San Jon Municipal Schools. The district’s board of trustees voted to add those sports during its regular meeting May 10. Superintendent Janet Gladu said a recent survey of students indicated eight of them expressed interest in softball, eight were interested in baseball and five were interested in cross country. For softball, Gladu said the Coyotes’ likely immediate opponents would be Tucumcari and Logan. She said if not eno...
Mesalands Community College will receive nearly $1.2 million in federal emergency funds from the America Rescue Plan, a COVID-19 relief measure. U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-Las Vegas) announced the funds for Mesalands in a news release last week. A total of $143 million will be given to colleges, universities and students in her 3rd Congressional District. The announcement came shortly after Leger Fernandez and the Mesalands’ new president, Gregory Todd Busch, met. According to a news release from the college, Busch emphasized the n...
Despite recent rains and a light mist falling on the morning of its meeting, the Arch Hurley Conservancy District board last week voted again to not allocate any Conchas Lake water to its irrigation system because of persistent drought. District manager Franklin McCasland reported during the May 11 meeting that Conchas Lake’s water level was 4,158.5 feet that morning. Board President Robert Lopez noted that was about one foot lower than the previous month. McCasland said the lake in April had an intake of 398 acre-feet of water but lost 2...