Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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General price inflation and a recent flareup of COVID-19 cases in the region blunted attendance last week at the annual Rattler Reunion for Tucumcari High School alums. If there was ever a doubt the number of people at the event was lower, those would have been dispelled by Edna Blasingame. A member of THS' Class of 1955, the Amarillo resident has attended every Rattler Reunion since it began in the early 1970s. "This is the smallest attendance I've ever seen," Blasingame said Saturday night as...
Quay County commissioners on Monday approved an Infrastructure Capital Improvements Plan from 2024 to 2028 that includes a $25 million request to fund a new hospital in Tucumcari at the top of the priority list. The list goes on to the New Mexico Legislature for its consideration in its January session for capital outlay funds or an outright allocation from state lawmakers. County leaders anticipate they will use a combination of federal and state money to replace the nearly 60-year-old Dr. Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital. Best-case scenario,...
It look nearly 80 years, but little Jimmie Rudolfo Solano finally has a headstone at his grave in Tucumcari Memorial Park cemetery. Jimmie, who was less than six months old, died on Aug. 31, 1944, while suffering from a fever and was buried at the cemetery without a marker. Thanks to the efforts of his older sister and other relatives, they raised money to commission a gravestone and placed it there a few weeks ago. On Saturday morning, about two dozen of Jimmie's relatives gathered as the Rev....
The Quay County Fair in Tucumcari resumes this week as it has for more than a century in Tucumcari, but this will be the third straight year it will lack a carnival. The fair on the city’s west side didn’t have a carnival in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions, and other fair events also were curtailed during that time. Justin Knight, vice president of the fair board, said the fair’s previous carnival vendor, Arizona-based Sun Valley Rides, usually plans its schedule a year in advance. “We did not get him booked,” Knight said. “We could...
WNBA player Brittney Griner has been sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia on drug charges, including the possession of marijuana. From the standpoint of biblical principles, this is an unjust sentence for a couple reasons. For one, in God’s law, given through Moses, prison is never commanded or authorized as a punishment for crime. In the rest of the Bible, it is only ever the pagans and the tyrants who lock people in prisons. For civil offenses, the authorized punishments are of two kinds: either against the person of the criminal, o...
Due to redistricting making the 3rd Congressional District more conservative-friendly, the National Republican Congressional Committee is pumping more money into a race to unseat incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of Las Vegas. Her GOP foe, Alexis Martinez Johnson, apparently is leaving no stone unturned in her campaign. She made stops Saturday at three restaurants in Tucumcari and greeted people who lined Route 66 during the Rattler Reunion parade. She campaigned in Clovis...
On this date ... 1972: A total of 32 school bus drivers from Quay County participated in the annual New Mexico Transportation Institute this week. Drivers from Tucumcari included Ernest Arguello, D.C. Bowerman, Pauline Bowerman, Betty Jo Foote, Margurite Hodges, Lou Nell Mask, Martha Mae Riddle, Don Shook, Opal Smith, Alma Ward, Ruth Webb, Betty White and Floyd Yahn. • The Tucumcari school district announced school lunches would be 30 cents for elementary school pupils and 35 cents for middle school and high school students. Lunches would be p...
Note: Events subject to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic. • Wednesday-Saturday — Quay County Fair. Livestock shows will run daily, and home-arts entries will be accepted from 8 a.m. to noon on Aug. 10. Children’s events on Saturday include the Itty Bitty Rodeo, pet parade and quarter toss. Area clubs will cook hamburgers, hot dogs and baked potatoes at the concession stand. Quay County Fairgrounds, Tucumcari. • Saturday — Meet the Republican Candidates. The Pow Wow restaurant is hoping a pancake breakfast sponsored by the Quay County Re...
The Tucumcari Senior Center and Logan Senior Center also offer grab-and-go meals to those who qualify. Those interested should call the Tucumcari facility at 575-461-2307 or the Logan facility at 575-487-2287 for more information. Tucumcari Senior Center Wednesday — Chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce, baked beans, Chateau vegetables, biscuit with margarine, mixed fruit. Thursday — Beef and papas, pinto beans, green chile, chuckwagon veggies, tortilla, yogurt. Friday — Chili cheese dog, peppers with onions, coleslaw, applesauce. Monday — Barbec...
Quay County and New Mexico last week each displayed signs of a slowdown with the latest surge of coronavirus cases. Quay County recorded 26 confirmed cases of COVID-19 last week. That compares to 30 cases reported during the previous week. It was the fifth consecutive week more than 25 cases were reported in the county. The COVID Act Now website on Friday lowered Quay County’s community risk of spread of the disease from to “medium” after it had been lodged in the “high” risk area for several weeks. Neighboring San Miguel, De Baca, Harding and...
How angry are some Republicans at what they see as betrayal by a centrist Democrat? Angry enough to betray sick military veterans, apparently. That’s the only rational explanation for the sudden about-face by two dozen Senate Republicans, including Missouri’s Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley, who opposed legislation they previously supported to make it easier for cancer-stricken veterans to get help from the government. Facing ferocious public pushback, Blunt, Hawley and the other GOP senators who about-faced quickly about-faced again last week, resum...
An American basketball player was recently arrested and imprisoned in Russia for possession of cannabis. Some people are outraged over this; others claim she deserved to be arrested because she broke Russian law -- a “law” without any ethical basis; a fake law that goes against natural law, as does most legislation. The Russian government imprisoning an American for marijuana possession isn’t more wrong than the U.S. government encouraging local governments in America to do the same. Wrong is wrong. The basketball player may get more atten...
I found inspiration at a burn scar recently. It was in California, which has been burning for years now as Exhibit A for the onset of climate change. I had driven into the state to pick up my daughter Maya at LAX, after she had traveled back in time (thanks to the international date line) from Japan to the U.S. After embracing in the same space-time continuum, we spent a few hours under the smog of Los Angeles, then made our way into Sequoia National Forest, where some of the biggest trees on earth stand. This is not to be confused with another...
The Tucumcari City Commission during a special meeting last week approved a contract for legal services with an attorney who helped make corrections with the city’s cannabis ordinance earlier this year. During the Aug. 1 meeting, City Clerk Angelica Gray said an evaluation committee looked over the lone proposal from Santa Fe attorney Jared Najjar in the city’s request for legal services. She said the committee determined it scored 90.8 out of 100 in its grading criteria. The commission unanimously approved the recommendation of the committee,...
Cannabis sales hit record level of more than $40 million in July in New Mexico, and Tucumcari saw record numbers, as well. A news release Thursday from a spokeswoman for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham stated July sales numbers surpassed every previous month since legal recreational marijuana sales began on April 1. It stated New Mexico’s adult-use cannabis sales totaled nearly $23.5 million in July, with medical marijuana sale at $16.8 million that month. Tucumcari’s sales in July totaled over $352,000, also a record. About $297,500 of that came i...
A total of 56 4-H members from more than a dozen New Mexico counties, including Quay County, participated on July 29-30 in the Quay County 4-H Rodeo at the Quay County Fairgrounds in Tucumcari. Prizes, provided through donations from Quay County businesses, ranged from saddles for the overall top winners, All-Around buckles for the runners-up, and buckles for event winners in each age division. Points earned qualify participants for the state rodeo finals in September. Listed are the winners in each division: Novice Division — Goat tying, M...
Nearly 50 people attended the annual Field Day last week at the New Mexico State University Rex E. Kirksey Agricultural Science Center in northeast Tucumcari despite temperatures that reached 102 degrees. The Field Day provides ag producers a chance to catch up on the center's latest research projects. Attendees boarded wagons for a hay ride to hear presentations about ongoing projects that are irrigated with treated wastewater from the Tucumcari wastewater treatment plant, plus other topics....
A second Nara Visa motorcyclist has died in three days in separate traffic accidents. According to a news release from New Mexico State Police, officers were dispatched about 9 p.m. Aug. 1 to milepost 98 of Highway 104 north of Tucumcari in San Miguel County. The initial investigation indicated a 2002 Harley Davidson, driven by Robert S. Evans, 60, of Nara Visa, was traveling east when it struck a deer on the roadway. Evans suffered fatal injuries, the release stated. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead by the Office of the...
The Tucumcari Public Schools board during a special meeting last week chose to let the district’s revised dress code stand after hearing from coaches and other sponsors of extra-curricular activities. The board voted to approve the amended dress code during its regular meeting in July that clarified new rules about clothing, piercings and tattoos. However, at least one board member indicated he wanted the dress code to apply equally to students in extracurricular activities, including sports. The revised dress code states in part in its last p...
New place, new name. Wellborn Pharmacy last Monday closed its South Second Street location of about 60 years near downtown, moved to a bigger site on South First Street and renamed it Mesa Winds Healthmart Pharmacy when it reopened the next day. Brian Wilson, owner of the pharmacy now at 1923 S. First St., said in a telephone interview last Tuesday that moving all the equipment about a mile south went smoothly, but staff were busy filling prescriptions that piled up during the drugstore's brief...
Barbara Copeland is 88 years old, suffers from diabetes, is fitted with a pacemaker for her heart and admits she's fighting the effects of old age. Few likely would object if she took it easy to take care of herself. However, just last month, she and other family members emptied a lakeside house in Logan owned by her deceased mother and father and hauled the furniture, kitchen appliances, utensils, clothing, artwork and other items in two livestock trailers to a Las Vegas organization that's...
These individuals were booked into the Quay County Detention Center from Aug. 1 to Aug. 7: — Lisa Greenwood, 61, Tucumcari, resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, concealing identity and battery upon a peace officer. — Michael Sena, 18, Logan, felony contempt of court. — Jesse Ray Lunn, 34, Tucumcari, felony contempt of court. — Isaac Torres, 19, Hatch, contempt of court. — Ahmad Hicks, 41, Clovis, contempt of court. — Santos Preciado, 30, Tucumcari, three counts of contempt of court. — Toby Jarmillo, 65, Tucumcari, contempt of c...
These calls were made to the Tucumcari-Quay Regional Emergency Communications Center from July 25 to Aug. 7: July 25 — 4:16 a.m.: Prowler ion 1100 block of South Fourth Street, Tucumcari. — 5:07 a.m.: Noise complaint in 300 block of East Smith Avenue, Tucumcari. — 9:27 a.m.: Vandalism in 1200 block of South Fifth Street, Tucumcari. — 11:51 a.m.: Arrest warrant in 700 block of North Third Street, Tucumcari. — 1:11 p.m.: Utility problem in 400 block of West Charles Avenue, Tucumcari. — 3:57 p.m.: Breaking and entering in 500 block of South Adams...
An Oklahoma man drowned at Ute Lake State Park in Logan on Saturday afternoon while trying to rescue his 11-year-old son who was struggling in the waters. A good Samaritan saved the child. Sebastian Perez-Gonzales, 36, of Guymon, Oklahoma, was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:47 p.m. Saturday by the Office of the Medical Examiner about 30 minutes after he failed to resurface in the lake. According to a New Mexico State Police news release, Perez-Gonzales’ son was in the lake in an inner tube near the park’s Cottonwood Campground when the tub...