Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday approved a short-term contract with the Tucumcari/Quay County Chamber of Commerce to serve as the city’s events coordinator through June, with the option of a longer-term deal later. The contract with the chamber is prorated at a salary of $1,250 a month from Thursday through June 30, the end of the 2022 fiscal year, with the hope that chamber director Scott Crotzer can organize a festival — tentatively billed as a revival of the long-dormant Pinata Festival — by June 4 in a spot once occupied by the N...
SAN JON — Board members vocally authorized the superintendent of San Jon Municipal Schools to shop for a new bank this summer after she described rude or indifferent treatment by Citizens Bank of Tucumcari to the district’s new business manager and administrative assistant. During the board’s regular meeting April 11, superintendent Janet Gladu said her administrative assistant, Stormi Sena, was “livid” about her treatment at the bank while making deposits from the school carnival. The district’s new business manager, Bryan Runyan of K12 Acco...
A company hired to perform a feasibility study on building a regional mental-health center in eastern New Mexico has envisioned a 35-bed facility that would cost between $15 million to $25 million. Principals for Denver-based Initium Health gave some findings from its study during a Quay County Health Council meeting Thursday. Initium's study involves the cities of Clovis and Portales, village of Fort Sumner and the counties of Quay, Curry, Roosevelt and De Baca. The Quay County Commission in...
Issues of power and authority are inescapably religious. Why do you get to boss me around? What if I don’t comply? How far does your authority extend? What if you command something immoral? How does the example set by Jesus Christ change the power dynamic that is routinely accepted as “normal?” We’re coming out of a time in which new claims of authority were being made pretty regularly. During the darkest days of the pandemic, even previous laws like privacy restrictions were mowed down in service to a new, over-arching ethic. That ethic,...
The New Mexico Environment Department and New Mexico Department of Health will host a free domestic well water testing event April 30 at the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and Natural Sciences Laboratory in Tucumcari. Surveys show the majority of New Mexico’s private well users haven’t had their water tested, though most do not have water treatment systems installed. To save consumers money – tests are valued at about $150 – and to educate the public about safe drinking water, those state agencies are hosting a free well water testing event that da...
Justice C. Shannon Bacon was sworn in last week as chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court. She was elected to the post by her colleagues on the five-member court and will serve a term through April 2024. She succeeds Justice Michael Vigil, who had been chief justice since 2020. The chief justice performs court and administrative duties. In addition to presiding over New Mexico Supreme Court hearings and conferences, the chief justice serves as the administrative authority over personnel, budgets and general operations of all state...
On this date ... 1972: The City of Tucumcari announced it would resubmit an application to the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation for facilities at a new park rodeo area on the city’s west side. The city’s previous application was turned down because it included the building of a grandstand. All other parts of the application that included picnic tables and covers, a concession stand and restrooms had been approved. The new application is requesting bleachers for the complex. • President Richard Nixon proclaimed April 17-23 as Earth Week. Nixon...
Note: Events subject to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic. • Friday-Saturday — 21st annual Chuckwagon Cookoff at Ute Lake State Park, Logan. The Saturday meal is $15. Call Bucky Stone at (575) 403-7860 or (575) 403-8320 for more information or for meal tickets. • April 29-May 1 — Tucumcari Rawhide Days. The event will include a Texas longhorn show on April 30, a film festival, gunfighter show, chuck wagons, Southern Slam Dancers, biscuits-and-gravy breakfast, cowboy church, Tucumcari Historical Museum programs, cattle drive on Route 66 and...
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 schools Wednesday — Breakfast: Bagel, strawberry cream cheese, strawberries, orange juice, skim or 1% milk; Lunch: Ham and cheese chef salad, hot dog, sweet potato fries, fresh broccoli, ranch dressing, fresh mixed fruit, skim, 1% or chocolate skim milk. Thursday — Breakfast: Ham and cheese sandwich bis...
The Arch Hurley Conservancy District last week began its second straight growing season of not allocating water to its irrigation system due to persistent drought. The district’s board of directors on April 12 officially voted to not allocate water “at this time” after hearing manager Franklin McCasland’s monthly report on the levels of Conchas Lake, which supplies the irrigation system. The lake dropped a half-foot from the previous month, to 4,160.5 feet as of that morning. Arch Hurley typically does not discharge water until the lake le...
There may have been a time when lawmakers could look at the source of a shipment of imported uranium and ignore it. But that’s ancient history now. Nearly 50 percent of the uranium used at U.S. nuclear power plants is imported from Russia and two of its closest allies, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. These imports, should they continue, will have dramatic consequences for our politics and society -- but only if our government does nothing about it. With Russia’s murderous invasion of Ukraine -- and the possibility that Vladimir Putin could retaliate...
Tolerance has a proper time and place, but this time and place isn’t all the time nor is it everywhere. Nor does everything have to be tolerated. Even the most tolerant person won’t tolerate everything. I was always a fairly tolerant person. I was never too interested in making someone conform to what I thought they “should” do. As long as they didn’t try to force their ways on me or on my friends, I didn’t try to stop them from doing whatever they were doing even if I thought it was “icky.” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown even more tolerant....
One of the most uplifting things to receive, and rewarding things to give, is mentoring. It’s certainly been an important part of my career. I was in my 30s when I met my first journalism mentor. Bill Rutherford was the page-one editor for the Arkansas Gazette who taught college classes on the side when I was pursuing my undergrad degree at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He was the best kind of journalism instructor, in large part because he was living it every day. He taught me the basics of good reporting, and he set the bar h...
Tucumcari sophomore Amaya Infante smacked a game-winning RBI single with two out in the last inning to give her softball team a 20-19 come-from-behind victory against Mora on Saturday. The comeback occurred in the late innings after it appeared the Lady Rattlers (7-6) might go down to defeat by the 10-run mercy rule. Tucumcari trailed as much as 14-3 after four innings and 16-3 midway through the fifth. “Our pitcher (Mia Estrada) struggled early but settled in late,” Tucumcari coach CJ Oglesby said. “We had some field errors early in the game...
The Logan baseball team handed host Grady its first losses of the season with consecutive no-hitters during a district-opening doubleheader on Thursday. The Longhorns blanked the Bronchos by scores of 10-0 and 12-0 — with both games shortened by the mercy rule — to improve to 11-2 overall and 2-0 in District 3. Grady fell to 7-2-1, 0-2. “Our pitchers threw a lot of strikes,” Logan coach Kyle Griffiths said. “The defense backed them up when they needed to. Grady has a good team, and so I was pleased how our team performed offensively and defen...
Sandia Prep's baseball team rose to the No. 1 ranking in Class 3A a few days before its district matchup at Tucumcari, and it played like a top-ranked squad during a doubleheader sweep of the Rattlers on April 12. The Sundevils (13-4) cruised to 20-6 and 15-5 victories over the Rattlers (1-13), with both games shortened by the mercy rule. Sandia Prep, winners of eight in a row, also stayed in first place in District 4/5 with a 6-0 mark. The Sundevils put on a clinic in the opener. Their bats...
The San Jon school board voted last week to let its boys basketball team play only junior-varsity games during the 2022-2023 season in effort to rebuild the program. The Coyotes amassed a 1-18 record last season, with their only victory against a junior-varsity squad in Texas. During those losses, San Jon scored just over 10 points a game and suffered an average margin of defeat of more than 50 points. The Coyotes’ inexperienced varsity team this past season had no seniors, three juniors, one sophomore, one freshman and four eighth-graders. D...
The Logan softball squad fell to a strong Santa Rosa team by a 23-3 score on the road on April 11 in a game shortened to three innings by the mercy rule. Santa Rosa pitcher Daelyn Pacheco allowed just three hits and four walks in the victory, striking out four. The Lady Lions totaled seven hits and 10 walks. Celina Jaramillo clubbed two triples and drove in four runs. Danae Esquibel hit a three-run homer. Santa Rosa improved to 12-4. The Lady Longhorns (0-11) scored their runs in the first and third innings. In the first, Desta Rose led off...
The Logan girls track team finished a distant third behind a dominant Melrose squad during the 19-team Fox/Vixen Relays meet Friday at Fort Sumner. The Lady Buffs steamrolled over the competition by winning eight events and totaling 107 points, more than double of runner-up Gateway Christian’s 51 points. Logan finished with 44 points; Tucumcari totaled 31 to finish sixth. The Lady Longhorns’ 3,200-meter relay team prevailed in its race in 11 minutes, 34.04 seconds. For the Lady Rattlers, Elena Gutierrez won the 300-meter hurdles in 52.74 sec...
The Tucumcari boys golf team took a full contingent to a five-team tournament Thursday at the Lovington Invitational. Though the Rattlers finished fifth with a score of 539, coach Justin Garcia said he saw “tons of improvement” compared to the previous time Tucumcari’s full team competed earlier this month at Roswell. Host Lovington won Thursday’s meet with a team score of 324 on the par-71 Lovington Country Club course. Other schools competing were Artesia, Clovis and Carlsbad. Kayden Brown was the Rattlers’ top golfer, shooting 118. Dyla...
A Logan High School student recently won the state title at the New Mexico American Legion High School Oratorical Constitutional Public Speaking Contest and will compete at the national competition this weekend. Micah Lightfoot recently won the state competition at the American Legion Post 13 in Albuquerque. Lightfoot, a senior at Logan High who lives in rural Tucumcari, will compete at the national level in Indianapolis on Saturday and Sunday. Each contestant delivers a prepared oration as...
Cable television is coming to an end for one carrier in the region. Plateau Telecommunications announced their cable service, Plateau TV and the television Plateau Stream, will cease at 11:59 p.m. June 30. “Plateau is exiting the TV business,” said Jack Nuttall, Plateau’s sales and marketing manager. “The business model for TV is broken,” Nuttall explained. “The only ones gaining anything are the producers. Price increases are built into multi-year contracts of three to five years. Plus they dictate to us the channels we’re going to take as pa...
Kandel's Street Sips Tea Shack and More opened earlier this month in a food trailer in the parking lot of a long-closed Tucumcari gas station on Route 66. A week after the opening, co-owner Rhonda Kandel said Saturday that business was going well. "The community is excited, and they have supported us," she said. Kandel's Street Sips, a few dozen yards east of the Roadrunner Lodge Motel, offers New Mexico-blended tea, along with treats from Tucumcari resident Michael Carlson's Goodies Go Last....
Three more cases of COVID-19 were reported last week in Quay County by the New Mexico Department of Health, raising the official total to exactly 2,000 since the pandemic began two years ago. The total number of the county’s confirmed cases the previous week also was three. Despite low numbers locally and in the state since March, the DOH on Friday renewed its public health order through May 16. The agency stated in a news release the most recent two-week data showed the new Omicron BA.2 variant made up 22.1% of cases in New Mexico and was g...
These individuals were booked into the Quay County Detention Center from April 11 to April 18: — Ernest Lee Arguello Jr., 30, Tucumcari, charge not listed. — Ernest Lee Arguello, 71, Tucumcari, possess or transfer device used to fraudulently obtain telecommunication services. — Matthew Riley Belcher, 24, North Las Vegas, Nevada, probation violation. — Freddy Rudy Brito, 60, Tucumcari, battery. — Ricardo Chavez, 44, Tucumcari, contempt of court. — Ezekiel Arthur Gutierrez, 44, Tucumcari, contempt of court. — Pete Anthony Martinez, 54, Tucumcari...