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Local News

  • Learning 24/7

    After her first trip to Nicaragua, Lillian Gorman, director of Spanish as a Heritage Language summer program at Highlands University, said she was hooked on the cultural connections between northern New Mexico and the Latin American country.

    Gorman, a Highlands professor who is working on her doctorate at the University of New Mexico, has taken five groups of students to Nicaragua, where they are immersed in the language and where host families speak no English. This year, Gorman took 12 students, the largest contingent so far.

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  • Reina pageant to kick off Fiestas de Las Vegas

    The 120th annual Fiestas de Las Vegas will start today with the Reina de Las Vegas pageant.

    The event is set for 7 p.m. at Ilfeld Auditorium.

    Four young women are vying to assume the crown from Alyssa Moya:

    • Jackie Conway, 23, a 2003 graduate of Robertson High School and a 2007 graduate of the University of New Mexico.

    • Rita Raya, 17, a Robertson High School student.

    • Carmela Montoya, 19, a Luna Community College student.

    • June Duran, 24, a 2002 graduate of Robertson High School and a 2007 graduate of Luna.

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  • Bus contracts discussed in secret

    The West Las Vegas school board took its discussion about bus contracts behind closed doors last week.

    Almost half of the district’s bus drivers are under contract. The biggest contractor, which runs seven buses for the district, is RV Transportation, which is owned by state Rep. Richard Vigil, D-Ribera, officials said.

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  • Candidate challenges trustee election

    A candidate for a seat on an electric cooperative board has sued the utility, claiming that it failed to follow its own bylaws and discriminated against him.

    In May, Louis Clayton lost by one vote to Daniel Romero in the San Juan-based District 4 race for trustee for the Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative board. Romero took 34 votes to Clayton’s 33.

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  • Program praised as affordable

    As a young girl, Anastacia Rivera imagined herself healing people in her native El Pueblo in the Villanueva Valley and thought about medicine as a profession.

    “Since I was little, I always played doctor. I like helping people, and I think being a nurse you’ll always have a job,” Rivera said. She is taking the nursing curriculum at Luna Community College and says she hopes to be on the job in just a few more years.

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  • Leader: Some changes unpopular

    Sigfredo Maestas, Luna Community College’s interim president, says he has changed a number of things in his year at the helm, including the centralizing of purchasing. Such actions have angered some, he acknowledges.

    “I know that as a result of the things I did, I won’t be liked by everyone here,” he said. “I put a stop to a number of things we shouldn’t be doing.”

    But Maestas didn’t want to detail all of his changes out of fear that such information would reflect poorly on Luna officials.

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  • Monument unveiled to public

    A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Sunday for a memorial on Mills Avenue and Second Street dedicated to the memory of the Gonzales-Collins-Garcia family who lost their lives in an accident two years ago.

    They were killed after the car they were riding in was struck head on by a drunken driver, Dana Papst, who was driving the wrong way on Interstate 25 on Nov. 11, 2006.

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  • State hospital administrator honored during event

    Hundreds visited a reception on Friday to honor the state hospital’s retiring interim administrator, Steve Martinez.

    Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil has named the hospital’s deputy administrator, Troy Jones, to replace Martinez, who was the interim administrator for three years.

    Martinez, who is a Mora native, has been at the hospital — known formally as the New Mexico Behavioral Institute — for the last 27 years, working in positions such as administrative budget analyst and deputy hospital administrator.

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  • Utility members call for change

    MORA — By big majorities, members of a cooperative serving northeastern New Mexico made one thing clear at Saturday’s annual meeting: They want change.

    A total of 255 members of the Mora-San Miguel Electric Cooperative showed up at the meeting in Mora to vote on seven proposed bylaw changes. They approved all of them.

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  • Records show girl was victim of abuse

    Jasmine Garcia, the 6-year-old girl killed nearly two weeks ago, lived a short, troubled life, court documents show.

    Over the last few years, her parents, Ruby Sanchez, 25, and Michael Garcia, 29, pleaded guilty to a number of crimes, two of which involved Jasmine as the victim.

    Las Vegas police have yet to charge anyone in Jasmine’s death. Jasmine, who had recently completed her kindergarten year, was sleeping in her mother’s bed at 304 Union St., when a shot ripped through an outside wall facing the street.

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The Las Vegas Optic is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in San Miguel County and Las Vegas, NM, and the surrounding area.