Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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First, my wife approved of this article. We attend church in Logan, and typical of many happy couples, I drive while my wife applies her makeup. Probably everyone traveling regularly between Tucumcari and Logan on U.S. 54 knows about the perpetual bumpy spot. I learned early in our marriage that to have fewer hiccups in the harmony, it’s my job to warn my wife about upcoming bumps so whatever makeup she’s applying goes where she wants it. The eyeliner pencil poke in her eye was more traumatic for me than her. Hence, when I noticed there’s a sin...
Father’s Day is sneaking up on me. Since my dad died, there is a hint of sadness tied in with the gratitude I feel remembering my dad. This year, it’s compounded by the passing of my father-in-law George Head, who died a day before the fifth anniversary of my own dad’s passing. And about a month and a half before that, my brother-in-law George died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. This past weekend, generations of family gathered in Kingman, Ariz., to celebrate the lives of both Georges. As these things go, there were equal amounts...
He has been an outspoken and persistent critic of the COVID-19 vaccine. Mainstream media have described his views on the issue as misleading and dangerous. Instagram kicked him off its platform, accusing him of spreading misinformation about the vaccine. He once suggested vaccines and mask requirements were something Nazis would have implemented during the pandemic. He’s been known to associate with Donald Trump allies Roger Stone and Steve Bannon. And he’s an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden. “I just disagree fundamentally with him o...
Tina Turner, who died last month, was a pioneer and an artist who personified the word innovative. Like her contemporary, Little Richard, Tina Turner brought an uncompromised strand of Black Southern music, the sound of the Chitlin’ Circuit itself, into the lives of teenagers and adults around the globe. She garnered appeal across racial boundaries at a time when the nation was highly segregated, and she helped pave the way for future female artists including Gloria Gaynor, Beyonce, Melissa Etheridge, Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston, Mariah C...
Context. Perspective. Background. It’s not news to anyone that the major media consistently fail to provide any of those things when covering the burning political issues of the moment. Take, for example, the compromise the House of Representatives and the White House just made to settle the federal budget and debt-ceiling crisis. We know from the media that it will lift the debt ceiling for two years, make some minor spending cuts and avert a financial apocalypse that supposedly would have destroyed the U.S. dollar, crippled our economy and ca...
Is there a calling on your life? In my own denominational setting, that question is about two things specifically. Do you feel drawn in some way to pastoral ministry, or do you sense that God is calling you to be a foreign missionary? When Southern Baptists talk about being “called” that’s generally what we mean, and I wish we’d stop it. I wish we’d expand our vision. Full time Gospel ministry is a thing that God calls people to. But that’s uncommon. What about all the rest of the folks? Has God not called them? Of course. But here’s the...
I almost forgot cattle could swim until I saw their feed lot under water in Hereford last weekend. They weren't the only ones surprised to see so much water. We were all reminded why Running Water Draw northwest of Clovis has that name. And why Ned Houk Park needs a dam. And if you really want to see the power Mother Nature unleashed on us, take a look at the video on the Quay County Sun's Facebook page -- a bridge under construction between San Jon and Endee was destroyed by flash flooding...
The Jezebel of the Republican Party is at it again. Just when you thought she could not get any more disingenuous and despicable, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene engaged in some wild intellectual dishonesty by accusing New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of calling her the equivalent of the N-word. She also accused him of being “physically threatening” and deviously concocted an entire slew of falsehoods. For those of who are unaware, this month both Bowman and Greene engaged in what could be most aptly described as a verbal political spi...
What did you do to celebrate Memorial Day? How did you honor the soldiers, sailors and airmen who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep America safe, free and great for more than 240 years? My son Cameron, as usual, planned to take his daughters to a military cemetery and remind them who those fallen soldiers were and why America was worth fighting and dying for. Cameron’s kids – my grandkids – will be taught what I taught him and my daughter Ashley and what my father drilled into me. I remember how I first learned about the greatness of Ameri...
Monday is Memorial Day, when we remember those who’ve gone on leaving precious memories. We erect tombstones and statues to remember the great people in our lives and history, and since there’s little, if any new knowledge about history, we should respect history for what it is, learn from it and thereby move on to a brighter future. God is big on memorials for us to remember the good and the bad, and that bad can and will be overcome, so those who turn to the good will have the brightest of futures (Jeremiah 29:13-14, I love this passage as...
She married her high school sweetheart and best friend on June 23, 1948. Hundreds of people came to her wedding. Most of them had to buy a ticket. The event attracted a fair amount of media coverage. “More than1,900 baseball fans jammed Bell Park Wednesday night to see the Clovis Pioneers win their sixth straight game … and to witness the marriage of Pioneer center fielder Wilcy Moore to Miss Mary Arnold of Muleshoe,” the Clovis News-Journal reported. “The wedding ceremony at home plate was scheduled to get under way at 7:15, but at the tim...
My unsolicited advice for this year’s graduates is simple: Move slow and fix things. In 2014, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg coined the phrase “move fast and break things” to describe the mentality of our new 20-year-old tech-sector corporate leaders who believed all human knowledge gained over the centuries had been made obsolete by quantum computing. “The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough,” Zuckerberg explained. He expounded on the idea during a college lecture. “A lot of times people are ju...
The 2023 New Mexico legislative session was generally disappointing for New Mexicans who wish to see much-needed K-12 education reform. However, it was not a total loss. In fact, one bill did pass that could help thousands of New Mexico families pay for educational options that work best for them. Without a single “no” vote during the 2023 session, HB 342 will soon be the “law of the land.” The bipartisan bill was sponsored in the House by Republican Minority Leader Ryan Lane and by Democrat Majority Leader Peter Wirth in the Senate. It was sig...
I’m continuing from my last column, examining modern transgender ideology. At the outset, let me stress that I’m not attacking individuals. As far as I’m concerned, you do you. I wish you the best. I’m critiquing the ideology that encourages so-called “transitioning” for children. I wrote that the modern movement is based on a neo-platonic idea that the physical world we live in does not define “reality.” It’s what you feel in your heart or choose to believe. That’s what’s really real. This is true even when the idea in your head is flatly c...
We lost a legend last week. Bill Kelly, one of our region’s best offensive-minded college football coaches of all time, died Saturday. The Amarillo Globe-News reported Kelly, 75, died in Amarillo after an extended bout with pneumonia. The North Carolina native will be most remembered by many for his three seasons coaching at then-West Texas State University, from 1985 to 1987. His Buffs went 18-13-1 before Kelly stunned many in the sports world by switching careers at age 40. He spent his last four decades as a criminal defense attorney. I...
Ute Pipeline not a long-term solution I have analyzed the effects that the Ute Lake pipeline would have had on the water available in Ute Lake using the actual historical daily United States Geological Survey data from the year 2007 to 2023. I am a Texas certified public accountant with many, many years of data analysis experience. The ENMWUA proposes to draw 16,415-acre feet through the pipeline each year. Using the 16,415-acre feet a year is equivalent to 44.97-acre feet per day. I simply calculated what each day’s lake reading would have bee...
AOC and her Green New Deal buddies in the Biden government are not just winning their crusade against fossil fuels. They’re also wrecking the country – appliance by appliance. Our washing machines, refrigerators and microwaves have already been made less efficient and more expensive because of new federal standards pushed by fanatical environmentalists who think like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Not long ago, government regulators were caught planning to outlaw gas kitchen stoves in new homes and apartments because they make climate change wor...
Springtime has arrived as indicated leaves on the mesquites, which also means that it’s planting time for summer crops. After the great flood, God promised that as long as the Earth endures, seedtime and harvest would continue (Genesis 8:22). For that to come about, God provides all we need to grow crops, including sunshine, rain, the seed and even the agricultural knowledge (Matthew 5:45; Deuteronomy 11:10-16; 2 Corinthians 9:10; Isaiah 28:23-29). No matter how busy we get, we must never forget God’s providence and generate a return on tha...
I’m told ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that can answer questions. So I gave it a try. Me: Who is David Stevens, publisher of The Eastern New Mexico News? ChatGPT: David Stevens is a journalist and the publisher of the Eastern New Mexico News, a daily newspaper based in Clovis, New Mexico. He has been with the newspaper since 1998 and has served as publisher since 2011. Fact check: The Eastern New Mexico News is not a daily paper. It publishes twice a week. I started working here in 2001, not 1998. I became publisher in November 2...
In the campaign commercial President Joe Biden released to announce his re-election campaign, there was one individual who was prominently displayed – Kamala Harris. Since the moment Biden selected her as his running mate in July 2020, there has been no shortage of commentary about Harris and her role as vice president. No honest person can dismiss the fact that being a woman of color has been a political handicap for her. As a woman of color and a biracial one at that, Harris has to deal with the twin evils of “Jim Crow and Jane Crow.” The ter...
Haven’t we seen this never-ending story before? It’s just that the politics have flipped. When we had Democrats in power in the House, all we heard were bad stories about Donald Trump. All we heard from Democrats and their parrots in the major media was how Trump supposedly broke a bunch of laws and should be impeached, imprisoned or hanged for things like colluding with the Russians, dodging his taxes and golfing too much. One by one, those fake stories would fizzle out and nothing would happen. Then congressman Adam Schiff – my representative...
File this one under “Nothing new under the sun.” An ancient idea has resurfaced in the current cultural phenomenon of transgenderism. I’m not seeking to insult individual people, dealing with serious issues, who have been made in the image of God and thus deserve to be treated as neighbors. As Christ taught, let’s love them like ourselves. I’m looking at the ideology that is argued for on college campuses and social media, like TikTok. This is the argument that everyone should accept transgenderism as good, normal, and worthy of great sup...
This has been a tough year for losses. In February, my husband Wayne lost his brother, George, to Alzheimer’s. Then, a day before the fifth anniversary of my dad’s passing, Wayne’s dad, George Jeston Head, died, leaving us mired in a pit of grief. There are so many similarities between our two fathers. Both had very distinct visions of right and wrong. Both served their countries proudly, without question. Both were spiritual men of honor and integrity, who loved their families without hesitation. Often, Wayne would look at his father, and s...
You can tell how seriously someone takes property rights by whether they support “code enforcement.” “Code enforcement” is a euphemism for government violating residents’ property rights. It’s an inexcusable justification for government to steal property or to violate other rights. Government has no rights and can never be a victim, so government isn’t owed anything for a violation. A “fine” is nothing but legalized theft used to punish. Yes, it’s a common practice but “common” can’t make it right. This sort of behavior has no place in...
A spate of recent shootings serve as a depressing reminder that accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell, driving to an incorrect residence, or mistakenly getting into the incorrect vehicle can be deadly. In Kansas City, 16-year-old honors student Ralph Yarl mistakenly arrived at the wrong home while looking for his younger siblings. There he was shot and severely wounded by 84-year-old Andrew Lester, a chain of events that shocked residents and sent citizens and the country on edge. Lester stated he was intimidated by the young teen’s size and...