Today's News

By Allen G. Breed and Denise Lavoie
The Associated Press

BOSTON — Just hours before one of the Boston Marathon suspects and his brother allegedly gunned down a campus police officer, authorities say he exchanged a series of text messages with a friend who’d become suspicious after seeing what looked like a familiar face being flashed on television.

Dias Kadyrbayev, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, texted his college buddy Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying he looked like one of the bombing suspects.

The Mora Chamber of Commerce held its seventh annual banquet on April 20 at the VFW Hall. It was well attended.

The main speaker for this year’s banquet was Dora Dominguez of the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

In addition to Dominguez’s presentation, there was a silent auction with a representation of the work and art of the members. Donations were also made by chamber merchants.

During the banquet, awards were presented to deserving citizens of the community. New members and new businesses were also recognized.

Once in a while I run into a photograph that makes me stop and stare, then burst out laughing. That surely is the case this time. Imagine having that old box camera ready to shoot just as the action takes place. I’d say that photographer should have been given an award of some kind.

Yes that is my mother, Alice Gellenthien, helping a lady mount a horse. The lady (I don’t know who she is) was probably short, possibly “portly” as my mother would say, and was probably visiting from a far away place, such as Chicago.

Submitted to the Optic

Eight San Miguel County students have won scholarships from the Los Alamos National Laboratory Employees’ Scholarship Fund. The fund awarded $411,500 to 73 students in Northern New Mexico to realize their dreams of attending college.

Winning $10,000 awards: