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Features

  • Footsteps of the faithful

    Holy Week begins Sunday with an event chronicled in all four Gospels — Palm Sunday, a remembrance of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when people lining the road pressed their best cloaks, pressed branches of small trees into the dry earth before him in a gesture of admiration and respect.

    Today, Catholics hold stark green blessed palm fronds, or boughs of native trees, during Palm Sunday Mass as they participate in the Lord’s Passion, a recital of Jesus’ last steps before death and resurrection.

  • At this age...

    A good friend of mine often says that anything is possible, but not everything is possible. This will probably never be as clear as it is at 17 and 18. Let me explain.

  • State funding for specialty crops

    New Mexico Department of Agriculture (NMDA) announced today that funding will be available under the New Mexico Specialty Crops Program. Funds are available to New Mexico organizations and individuals that have a long-term commitment to improving the economic viability of New Mexico’s rural economy or have projects with a significant value-added potential.

  • The Mobile Matanza

    The Taos County Economic Development Corporation, or TCEDC, has a mobile Matanza which slaughters beef, pigs and sheep for ranchers and can have them packaged for sale to consumers. The Matanza will travel as far south as Las Vegas, and can slaughter and hang up to 16 head of beef at a time.

  • NMHU students perform

    Four New Mexico Highlands music students will perform in the Thomas Mishler Scholarship Recital at 3 p.m. March 9 in Kennedy Lounge.

    Each year, music students compete for this esteemed scholarship by submitting a resume of their musical experience and an essay describing what music means to them. References from professors and other community members are included in the application. Members of the music department, along with Professor Robert Mishler and his wife Ann, review the candidates and make their selections.

  • comedian Tig Notaro on stage at...

    The first time Tig Notaro stood in front of a microphone, she didn’t consider the likely possibility the audience would be laughing.

    “I was just trying to get through what I had memorized,” Notaro said. “I was nervous, that’s for sure.”

    The possibility of laughter would mean, for most performers, exit, stage right, don’t come back. For Notaro, it meant the beginning of a successful career with performances in comedy club icons like The Improv, The Punchline, Catch a Rising Star and The Comedy Store.

  • Something for every traveler

    Teresa Victor stood, feet planted on the rugged slopes of Cuzco, the capital of the sun-worshiping Inca empire, the spot on earth with the highest ultraviolet light level. This was her third trip to Peru. On a previous trip, she hiked the Inca Trail, the twenty-eight mile ancient road to Macchu Piccu, in nearly impassable terrain high above the Urubamba River canyon cloud forest.

  • Unplanned stops can make the trip

    My family and I traveled to El Paso for a tennis tournament, but it is the memories of other adventures that I brought back to Las Vegas. We left to El Paso on Friday afternoon and immediately encountered a metal forest. Actually, just west of Santa Rosa, there are about 100 gigantic windmills. They looked like the giant machines from War of the Worlds. It was surreal. We stopped in Vaughn and I had one of the best root beer floats at this restaurant, which looked like an aluminum travel trailer.

  • Migrating birds of the central...

    Snow tries to break the sky, but the clouds hold firm, hold back everything but a dusting of flurries. An armful of ducks dodge the snowflakes, sending a series of rhythmic quacks against thawing ground.

    Spring sends her first hints through feathered messengers, through the choreographed movements of birds traveling home. This Sunday, the Friends of the Las Vegas Wildlife Refuge are sponsoring a free lecture and slideshow on the coming fury of the skies, “Migrating Birds of the Central Flyway.”

  • It's Oscar, Friendo

    Douglas Avenue changed overnight. The Coen Brothers’ film crew fixed simple red and white plastic lettering to a vacant office building, adding geriatric walkers, tightly wound ACE bandages, and the promise of pharmacological discount in a carefully orchestrated window display.

  • The phone is a fine invention

    Two years ago, I was a high school sophomore with no cell phone. Almost everyone I knew had one, but I wasn’t terribly jealous. I lived in a small town and went to a small school. It wasn’t difficult to get a hold of me, and I didn’t think I really needed a cell phone.

  • RIck Mobbs draws on his intuitions

    Four people float in a rain-reminiscent sky, simple grins lighting round faces, arms extended past swollen bodies the colors of spring grass.

    They fly in harmony, in silly joyous formation, a family of Macy’s Parade balloons, perhaps, or a collection of free-wheeling cartoon thought bubbles. Rick Mobbs’ study in watercolors, “Flying,” offers a glimpse into captured serenity, but the artist’s vocation began in a place far from calm.

  • Students prepare to fly the nest

    Some days the relentless negative news blaring from the television or computer screen taunts the viewer: the country’s gone crazy! Lunatics are running the world. Days like that, what’s a sane person to do?

  • Noche de la Trova showcases local...

    Joshua Sandoval grins, microphone in small hand. The tiny Los Ninos Elementary School student struts around the stage as if owns it, as if he carries no fear.

    He sings a traditional Latino song with confidence, with an inner peace so fierce, so radiantly happy, his audience can’t help but smile with him. Sandoval, along with other members of the Las Vegas community, will be on the bill for Casa de Cultura’s first Noche de la Trova talent night, Thursday, Feb. 21, at Joe’s Ringside Bar on Grand Avenue.

  • On the history of New Mexican folk...

    New Mexico Highlands University student Juan Archuleta will be giving a presentation, Thursday, Feb. 21 at the Las Vegas Citizen's Committee for Historic Preservation, about folk music of New Mexico. The talk presents a historical and ancestral interpretation of New Mexico folk music, including rancheras, corridos, romances, and Inditas. Many of these songs originated in Spain and traveled to the New World with the Spanish.

  • Students shine in art competition

    A skeleton struts, his feathered hat jauntily tipped over eye socket, along a gallery wall at NMHU’s Burris Hall. He stands before three simple stone-marked graves, one littered with rose petals and a bodiless bony wrist.

  • The writing's on the wall

    A large part of my life has been spent at my dad’s office, next to Allsup’s and Pete’s Fitness. According to my mom, we practically lived there. I had my own little desk (which was actually just a small filing cabinet), and a blanket and pillow that I would use when I passed out on the floor.

  • The great backyard bird count

    Sonya Berg plans to focus her attention on Las Vegas’ winged creatures this Feb. 15-18, as an active participant in the 11th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count. A member of the Friends of Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, Berg realizes how important citizen science can be.

  • Painted Faith

    Margarito Mondragn pressed gravel into upturned ground, spread asphalt, worked the bulldozers, scrapers, tampers that molded New Mexico’s roads until he shifted gears 13 years ago, retiring from the State Highway Department to become an artist like his grandfather and great-grandfather, both well-known santeros.

  • It's about moments...

    Two weeks ago, a friend and I drove to Santa Fe to see “Cloverfield.” The movie is about a monster that attacks New York City, killing many unsuspecting victims, including every important character in the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t be angry with me. Just believe me when I say I haven’t ruined it for you.

Copyright © 2013

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.