Robert and Friends at Camp

Mountain View Christian Camp, Alto, NM.

A Scientific Ghost Town

From the Associated Press:

Hobbs, NM, picked as site of scientific ghost town
By JERI CLAUSING, Associated Press

(Hobbs is about 60 miles north of Kermit, soz ya know. - DK)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A scientific ghost town in the heart of southeastern New Mexico oil and gas country will hum with the latest next-generation technology — but no people.

A $1 billion city without residents will be developed in Lea County near Hobbs, officials said Tuesday, to help researchers test everything from intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks to automated washing machines and self-flushing toilets.

Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb said the unique research facility that looks like an empty city will be a key for diversifying the economy of the nearby community, which after the oil bust of the 1980s saw bumper stickers asking the last person to leave to turn out the lights.

"It brings so many great opportunities and puts us on a world stage," Cobb told The Associated Press before the announcement.

Pegasus Holdings and its New Mexico subsidiary, CITE Development, said Hobbs and Lea County beat out Las Cruces, for the Center for Innovation, Technology and Testing.

The CITE project is being billed as a first-of-its kind smart city, or ghost town of sorts, that will be developed on about 15 square miles west of Hobbs.

Bob Brumley, senior managing director of Pegasus Holdings, said the town will be modeled after the real city of Rock Hill, S.C., complete with highways, houses and commercial buildings, old and new. No one will live there, although they could as houses will include all the necessities, like appliances and plumbing.

The point of the town is to enable researchers to test new technologies on existing infrastructure without interfering in everyday life. For instance, while some researchers will be testing smart technologies on old grids, others might be using the streets to test self-driving cars.

"The only thing we won't be doing is destructive testing, blowing things up — I hope," said Brumley.

Not far from the Texas border, Hobbs has seen new growth in recent years but local leaders have been pushing to expand the area's reputation to include economic development ventures beyond the staple of oil and gas.

The investors developing CITE were looking for open spaces. Brumley said his group scoured the country for potential sites, "but we kept coming back to New Mexico. New Mexico is unique in so many ways."

One big plus for New Mexico was its federal research facilities like White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico and Los Alamos and Sandia national labs.

Gov. Susana Martinez joined officials in announcing final site selection for the project, which she hailed as "one of the most unique and innovative" economic development projects the state has seen. She noted that no tax breaks were given for the development. "The only thing they have asked for is guidance," she said.

Brumley said plans are to break ground on the town by June 30. The initial development cost is estimated at $400 million, although Brumley estimates the overall investment in the project to top $1 billion.

The project is expected to create 350 permanent jobs and about 3,500 indirect jobs in its design, development, construction and ongoing operational phases.

Hobbs, a community of about 43,000 people, currently has two non-stop flights from Houston each day and is working on getting daily service to Albuquerque and Denver.

The mayor said discussions for the new flights have just started but having the research center may bolster efforts to connect Hobbs to more cities.

Follow Jeri Clausing on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jericlausing

Robert's Week at Camp!

Robert went to the second session of Mountain View Christian Camp near Ruidoso, NM.  He is featured about three times in this video:

His mom and dad spent the week at home.  Cool!

Could a Three-Inch Lizard Shut Down the West Texas Oil Industry?

(Hannity opened his radio show with this West Texas story the other day.)

From mywestexas.com:
Mella McEwen
Midland Reporter-Telegram

A three-inch lizard that thrives in desert conditions could shut down oil and gas operations in portions of Southeast New Mexico and in West Texas, including the state's top two oil producing counties.

Called the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, it is being considered for inclusion on the federal Endangered Species listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A public rally to oppose this move is being sponsored by the Permian Basin Petroleum Association on Tuesday, April 26 at Midland Center beginning at 5 p.m. Congressman Mike Conaway will speak, as will Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson; other public officials have been invited. (Here's a story about the rally.)

"We are very concerned about the Fish and Wildlife Service listing," said Ben Shepperd, president of the PBPA, noting the service also has proposed listing the Lesser Prairie Chicken next year. "The wolf at the door is the lizard; we're concerned listing it would shut down drilling activity for a minimum of two years and as many as five years while the service determines what habitat is needed for the lizard. That means no drilling, no seismic surveys, no roads built, no electric lines."

The move would impact activity in Andrews, Crane, Gaines, Ward and Winkler counties in Texas and Chaves, Eddy, Lea and Roosevelt counties in New Mexico.

Not only would the move impact oil and gas operations but agriculture, Shepperd noted, shutting down agricultural activities like grazing and farming -- "anything that disturbs the habitat." While the industry is perfectly willing to undertake conservation measures to protect the lizard's habitat, he said, naming it an endangered species "would shut down activity and be devastating not only to Permian Basin economies but to the national economy. We are the one bright spot month after month; in our economic turnaround, the main driver is the oil and gas industry."

The concern is, he said, that the Fish and Wildlife Service lacks enough data to conclude that the tiny lizard is endangered and is basing its action on flawed methodology. "They didn't spend enough time looking for them or the right technique to find them," he said.

In New Mexico, where the lizard can be found on both private and public lands, Shepperd said a number of companies have entered into voluntary agreements to help conserve the lizard's habitat, mitigate threats to the lizard and remediate any damage while continuing to operate. He said he wants the same to happen in Texas. The association favors such joint agreements between the federal government and landowners to protect the lizard's habitat while allowing drilling operations to continue responsibly.

"The point is, we think the best way is for land owners and industry actually on the ground where the lizards are, who know how to protect the lizard, to be in charge instead of the feds putting up 'Do Not Enter' signs on every gatepost," Shepperd said.

A sign of hope is that four counties -- Lea, Andrews, Ward and Winkler, and the town of Monahans, have passed resolutions demanding to have standing during the comment phase, which ends May 16. Under the National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA, Shepperd said, the federal government is required to work with local governmental entities when they make such a request.

"This will enable them to bring in the economic impact," he said. "We feel like the counties demanding to be part of the process should require the Fish and Wildlife Service to work with them to develop a reasonable conservation process that we all can live with."

He said he hopes those attending Tuesday's rally "will be inspired and better prepared to testify at the public hearing" being held by the Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday, April 27. The public hearing will also be at Midland Center, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

The public comment period is scheduled to close May 16, 2011, and the earliest date the Fish and Wildlife Service will make a final listing decision is, as of now, December 15, 2011.

Welcome to New Mexico

From ABC News:
A New Mexico man drove the decomposing body of his paraplegic friend around for three days, unaware that she was dead despite what others described as an overpowering stench and a horde of flies around the body.

Amy Marquez, 33, had been slumped in the passenger side of the car, but her friend Jerry Maestas, 64, assumed she was sleeping, police said. It wasn't until her back began turning blue that Maestas brought Marquez to a hospital, police said.

Lt. Christian Lopez said when he arrived at the parking lot of Espanola Hospital, the odor emanating from the car was overwhelming.

"There were flies all over. I don't know how he didn't know," Lopez said. "He's not all there, I guess. I have no confirmation that he has a mental illness but this guy isn't running on all cylinders."

Police determined Marquez had been dead about 66 hours.

Lopez said Maestas told him that Marquez was fine on Sunday, and had spent the day drinking alcohol with him as he drove around town with no destination in mind. Maestas told the officer that he didn't think anything of Marquez lying still since, as a paraplegic, she cannot move the lower half of her body, Lopez said.

Lopez said Maestas reasoned that because she wore an adult diaper she would not have needed to use a bathroom during her three-day excursion around town.

Maestas, a retired prison guard, admitted to Lopez that he drank alcohol most of Sunday with Marquez and that after she fell asleep, he continued driving around town and would stop to drink alone.

"From the position she was in, and the fact that she was drinking large amounts of alcohol, my guess is that it was a positional asphyxiation," Lopez said. He explained that people who suffer from paralysis don't get signals to their brain alerting them to a body position that may be cutting off their oxygen supply.

Hospital nurses said that when Maestas arrived at the emergency room, he told them his friend was ill and needed a wheelchair, but when they got to the car, they found Marquez's decomposing body.

"We handled the situation as best we could," Cheryl Marita of Espanola Hospital told the ABC affiliate KOAT-TV in Albuquerque.

"There's no way to describe what we're dealing with," Lopez said.

An autopsy was performed Wednesday and there were no preliminary reports of foul play, Lopez said. Toxicology reports will reveal how much alcohol Marquez may have had in her system and whether she had been taking any drugs. The results won't be in for at least four weeks, he said.

They charged Maestas, of Espanola, with failing to report a death, a petty misdemeanor. A judge set a $500 bail, but no one has yet posted a bond for Maestas, Lopez said.

The Jesus Tortilla of Lake Arthur, New Mexico

(I go through the tiny village of Lake Arthur about once every three months, but I first heard about the tortilla in this book.  The tortilla is also the basis for a 2007 movie.)

From roadsideamerica.com:

No one realized at the time, but the 1977 appearance of Jesus Christ on a flour tortilla set the international standard for miracle sightings. Once confined to obscure grotto appearances, the Tortilla was the crossover miracle that put God in the Extra Value Meal of the average American.

Now, no object is too outrageous for an Almighty (or Virgin Mary) cameo. He's materialized on a Pizza Hut billboard in a plate of spaghetti; on a bowling alley chimney; reflected from a porch light onto a car bumper (until the light was turned off and the car moved); on a diner place mat; and even on a dead priest's shoe.

But the Miracle Tortilla was the first to fully wrap around the collective pop subconscious.

In October of 1977, Maria Rubio was rolling up a burrito for her husband Eduardo's breakfast, when she noticed a thumb-sized configuration of skillet burns on the tortilla that resembled the face of Jesus. Needless to say, Eduardo went hungry that meal as Maria told family and neighbors of the miraculous event. It happened in the small town of Lake Arthur, New Mexico, 40 minutes south of Roswell.

Space Alien fever had yet to infect the state, and visitations were of a predominantly religious nature. NM's historic Santuario de Chimayo, with its miracle dirt pit, drew thousands of annual visitors looking for spiritual connection to the miraculous cross that burst from the hillside in 1810. Elsewhere, statues occasionally shed a tear, or passing clouds took on the shape of the Blessed Mother.

Wide-eyed believers call them "signs."

Cranky skeptics ascribe them to a human faculty for delusion called "pareidolia," a perception of pattern and meaning from natural randomness. At the same time, scientists believe humans are hardwired to recognize facial patterns, our hunkered fore-apes' need to quickly identify foe, friend or mate. We'll perceive a familiar face in an unfamiliar place, before seeing, say, a locomotive or a cotton gin.

Despite the braying of scientists and skeptics, the Holy Tortilla quickly developed a solid fan base. By 1979, over 35,000 people had visited, bringing flowers and photos of sick loved ones.

Mrs. Rubio quit her job as a maid to attend full-time to the hastily constructed "Shrine of the Holy Tortilla" in her home. When away, she'd leave the door unlocked so that no one would be denied access.

She mounted the Tex-Mex Relic in a wooden frame under glass, a puffy wad of cotton along the bottom making it appear as if Tortilla Christ was suspended just inside the Pearly Gates.

In the wake of this first Tortilla visitation, all heaven broke loose. November 1977 -- a competing Miracle Tortilla appeared in the skillet of Phoenix housewife Ramona Barreras. It was the face of Jesus, this time accompanied by the letters K, J, C, and B, which Ramona believed stood for "King Jesus is Coming Back." According to the Phoenix New Times in 1997, the Barreras Miracle Tortilla "rests in a Plexiglas box in a kitchen drawer."

In March 1983, housewife Paula Rivera claimed the image of Jesus appeared on a corn tortilla she was making in Hidalgo Texas. She created her own "Shrine of the Holy Tortilla."

In the meantime, the faithful still traveled to Lake Arthur to see the original. Mrs. Rubio eventually moved it to a small wooden shed in the backyard. Years of merciless southwestern heat have literally fried and refried the tortilla. The image, once recognizable even in photographs, has faded to a half dozen brown spots and a wiggly burnt blotch.

There are no signs that any healings have happened recently -- no leftover crutches -- so perhaps this miracle has run its course. But Mrs. Rubio's family is perfectly happy to open up the shrine for any and all visitors....

UPDATE - December 2006: Disaster! In 2005, Mrs. Rubio's granddaughter took the Miracle Tortilla into school for Show and Tell, and it was dropped and broken! The shed shrine has been closed and the remains retired to a drawer in the Rubios' home.

Our First Tea Party

I got a funny e-mail about tea parties, and I may still use it, but first I thought I would show you actual photos of the Odessa Tea Party held on April 17 of 2010, to give you an idea of what a tea party is like, at least in my neighborhood.  Your experiences and your mileage may vary.



Robert claims this park for the United States of America.

  It was cold and misty on this day.  Glad the planet is warming up, or it might have been much colder.

Sleepless in Midland's blog has another review of the event, plus he took better pictures than I did.

I did not see anyone carrying a plunger.  However, we were in Roswell the previous month and just barely missed seeing Joe the Plumber.

I didn't see anyone throwing crumpled dollar bills at any disabled person, or any other act of cruelty.

I didn't see or hear any racist remarks.  I didn't see any police presence at all.

Liz was interviewed by a reporter for the Midland paper.

Here's the man we mostly came to see.  His name is Mark Williamson, founder of Federal Intercessors, and he also happens to be our preacher's son.

Above: Here is Mr. Williamson on February 17 of this year, leading the opening prayer before the U. S. House of Representatives. (You don't have to watch all 16 hours and 10 minutes of the video.)

After about an hour, we were ready to leave.  We needed to go shopping and find adequate facilities.  Meanwhile, Robert and two boys were staging a lightsaber fight on the hill.

Robert was decidedly not ready to leave.

Meet Our Endangered Lizard!

From KQRE:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing endangered species listing for a small lizard found only in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas.

The dunes sagebrush lizard is in danger of extinction throughout its entire range and faces significant threats due to oil and gas activities and herbicides, the agency said.

The light brown lizard, less than 3 inches long, lives in a small area of shinnery oak dunes in northeastern Chaves County, Roosevelt County, eastern Eddy and southern Lea counties in New Mexico and in a narrow band of the dunes in Gaines, Ward, Winkler and Andrews counties in Texas.



Yes, these are oaks.  This is how tall they get.

 The lizard has been affected by habitat loss and fragmentation from oil and gas development due to the removal of shinnery oak and the building of roads and pads, pipelines and power lines, Fish and Wildlife officials said.

The executive director of WildEarth Guardians in Santa Fe, John Horning, said he's cautiously optimistic about the Monday decision. He noted Fish and Wildlife officials propose to list the lizard under the Endangered Species Act, rather than saying a listing is warranted but precluded at this time, as it has done for other species.

The Endangered Species Act makes it illegal to kill or harm a listed species. It requires federal agencies to minimize the impact of their activities on listed species and directs Fish and Wildlife to develop and carry out recovery efforts for those species.

In just the last two days, the agency said the Sonoran desert tortoise in the Southwest and the wolverine found in several western states warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act but won't be listed because of higher priorities - other species considered to be in greater danger.

Horning said he hoped the lizard could be listed in about six months. The final decision will be made by the Interior Department secretary.

"This is getting closer to the day the species will be afforded the protection the agency itself has said it has needed for a decade now," Horning said.

Fish and Wildlife will take comments on the listing through Feb. 14.

Steve Henke, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, said his organization was disappointed by the listing decision but not surprised.

"Anytime you're dealing with an endangered species on existing oil and gas leases, it creates additional challenges," Henke said.

The federal agency placed the lizard on the candidate list for endangered species protection in October 2001.

WildEarth Guardians said scientists warned 13 years ago it may be too late to save the lizard from extinction.

Horning said the species has declined since then and "faces an urgent situation."

(See also the Pecos Pupfish.)

The Frozen Man of Carlsbad

From the Carlsbad Current-Argus:
Woman allegedly froze husband's body, kept receiving his retirement
By Matlin Smith
Current-Argus Staff Writer
Posted: 01/26/2011 04:14:32 PM MST


CARLSBAD, New Mexico — Investigators with the Eddy County Sheriff's Office have released bizarre details in the case of the man's body found Monday evening in the freezer of a home south of town.  (Video here)

According to information from Capt. Jeff Zuniga, at 7:50 p.m. Monday, the body of a human male was discovered in a chest-type freezer at a residence on the 1200 block of Haston Road.

The body was discovered by a daughter and son-in-law who were cleaning out the home of their mother, Barbara Sharpe, who passed away in November 2010.

Upon finding the body, the pair loaded the freezer into the back of a pickup truck and transported it to the Carlsbad Police Department. After determining that the incident occurred in the county, the CPD turned the investigation over to the sheriff's department.

"The body located within the freezer may be that of James Sharpe of Carlsbad, who has been unaccounted for since 1997," said Zuniga.

James Sharpe was known to be the husband of the late Barbara Sharpe, who died of health complications at the age of 63.

Before her death, Barbara Sharpe most recently went by Barbara Campbell, after assuming the last name of a male companion who came into the picture a few years after Sharpe's death.

According to investigators, at this point in the investigation nothing has surfaced to indicate that the companion was aware of the body in the freezer. Prior to its discovery, the freezer reportedly was in Barbara Sharpe's bedroom on Haston Road.

Investigators say information uncovered so far leans towards the possibility that James Sharpe may have died due to a terminal health condition in 1997; he would have been in his early 70s then.

"Barbara had mentioned to a health care worker prior to her death that she had stored her late husband in a freezer. The health care worker dismissed the statement due to Barbara Sharpe's grave condition," Zuniga stated.

The health care worker is the only person who has come forward with any knowledge of the body thus far, said Zuniga.

Additionally, documentation allegedly drafted by Barbara Sharpe was found in her personal property explaining why her husband was in the freezer.

The documentation reportedly indicated that she was remorseful, but couldn't afford to survive without his retirement income.

"The ECSO Special Investigations Unit will continue to work closely with the Office of the Medical Investigator to confirm the official identity of the decedent as well as the cause and manner of death," said Zuniga.

OTHER BLOGS THAT CARRIED THIS STORY INCLUDE:

• A funeral blog for people who don't plan to die.
• A freezer site.
• A Cthulhu/Lovecraft blog.

Two Churches Fight in Roswell

From God Discussion:

Members of two different churches in Roswell, New Mexico, are fighting over who interprets scriptures correctly.

Armed with signs, Bibles, and a camera, members of Old Paths Baptist Church showed up in front of the Church on the Move on November 28 to proclaim that Church on the Move's members were headed to hell.

This weekend, KOB Eyewitness News released a video of the ensuing shouting match and physical fights. Associate Pastor Savino Sanchez, 63, of the Church on the Move was taken to the ground by members of Old Paths Baptist Church. Three members of Old Paths Baptist Church, including their leader, street preacher Jeremy De Los Santos, were charged for the incident. Members of Old Paths had been in at least two other incidents around the city just a day earlier.

"They may not like our method, they may think or method is too confrontational, nevertheless its our right to preach in public," proclaimed De Los Santos.

The Hobbs Grinch

Holiday Grinch Turns Himself In
By Geena Martinez
NewsWest 9

HOBBS, N.M. - Hobbs Police got an early Christmas present on Thursday afternoon.

A man they said stole cans from a little girl and then cashed them in for money turned himself in but he said he's innocent and wants people to hear his side of the story.

"I came to turn myself in man, I'm getting charged with a crime I didn't do," Roque Castillo said.

He's known as 'the Grinch' who stole Christmas, but 28-year-old Roque Castillo says he's innocent and the only reason he turned himself in Friday is to begin the process of clearing his name.

"Guess my name's Grinch, guess it fell at the right time at Christmas," he said. "But I ain't guilty. I'm not going to plead guilty to a crime I didn't do."

Hobbs Police said Castillo stole cans from a little girl who was saving them to earn money for Christmas presents.

Then they said he brought the cans to a local metal shop for the money, but Castillo said he was just doing a favor.

He said a friend brought him the cans and asked Castillo to cash them in for him because he didn't have an ID.

"I was at the house with my kids that day, getting ready for Christmas," Castillo said. "I just did it for a friend, I was trying to help him out because it's Christmas time."

Castillo is no stranger to the law but he said those days are behind him.

"You think I'd take something stolen over there with my ID?" he said. "C'mon on man, let's be real, I am a criminal. I live right now, you know I got kids. I don't do nothing wrong anymore."

Friends and family of Castillo held signs in support of their 'Grinch' as he made his way to the police department. Castillo's mother, Janie, said it's all a big misunderstanding and his tattoo just happened to make good timing for all the headlines.

"They're playing off the whole grinch thing because it fell around Christmas. You know the Grinch who stole Christmas," Janie said. "My son didn't steal Christmas. He's got two little girls and he wouldn't do that."

The family said they've got an attorney and their next step is legal action for what they call slander in the newspaper.

And as for Castillo, he said he hasn't heard from the friend since.

"Ever since then, I ain't seen him," he said.

Castillo did bail out of jail on a $529 bond.

Biggest Moth in the World?

More news from slightly north of me:

From Fox News:

HOBBS, N.M. – The discovery of what could be a complete mammoth skeleton in Lea County has local archeologists excited.

The New Mexico Natural History Museum Foundation will hold a special event at the Western Heritage Museum next week during which Executive Director Calvin Smith will announce the historic find.

"It is a major discovery," Smith told the Hobbs News-Sun. "We usually find pieces and parts, but if this is a complete skeleton, it is very important."

So far, amateur archaeologists have unearthed a femur, tibia, fibula and a carpal.

Smith helped excavate more than 20 mammoths at a dig site near Waco, Texas, and has found the remains of five mammoths in Lea County, but this could be the first complete skeleton.

"It is a significant find and one that deserves a lot of attention," he said. "If we are on the bottom of it, we are through, if we are on the top of it, we have another year's work."

How important it could be for Lea County is yet to be seen, but the potential is huge, Smith said.

"When I was at Baylor, I heard about the mammoths found out in (the Waco) ravine," he said. "There were five found. My first trip I found three more eroding out of the bank. We ended up with 23 mammoths and they are building a $4 million building over the site and it is being approved to become part of the National Parks system.

"I am not saying this is what will happen, but it is certainly a possibility."

The mammoth was discovered last year by Lea County resident Delbert Sanderson, who saw the femur bone fossil sticking up out of the middle of a two-track road in the desert.

Sanderson was visiting the area to explore a different archaeological find he first noticed as a teenager more than 50 years ago.

"There was this bone running all the way across the road," he said. "I dug at it with my pocket knife and pried a piece out."

Sanderson took the fossil fragment to Smith, who immediately knew what he was seeing.

The announcement of the find was delayed for several reasons, one being worries about thieves. Another was getting permission to keep the fossils in Lea County from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, which has authority over all fossil finds in the state.

Smith petitioned the museum for permission to keep the bones local for an exhibit at the Western Heritage Museum and was granted a loan of fossils previously found in the area that are currently in the state museum's collection.

Smith will be using the fossils to create an exhibit on the Guadalupe Reef, as many of the fossils are of extinct sea animals that lived in a small sea covering what is now southeast New Mexico.

Other mammoth fossils found in Lea County include pieces of a skeleton found south of Jal in the 1940s or 1950s and a piece of tusk found during excavations for building foundations at the Urenco USA site, Smith said.

There are rumors an intact skull has been found in Lea County and, if true, Smith believes the find could be one of the greatest for the area.

"I would like to know more if someone does know of a significant find like that," he said.

No Longer Lost

A touching story from a few miles north of me:

From KQRE and other places:
By Levi Hill

HOBBS, N.M. — Hidden among the prairie grass and mesquite bushes a few miles east of Jal, an old barbed-wire fence and wooden cross were the only evidence four nameless children lost their lives at that spot more than a century ago.

On Oct. 25, 103 years after the children were laid to rest, the names and faces almost lost to history have been returned to Violet, William, Newton and Earl Sparks.

For their nephews, Jack and Frank Sparks, the story began on March 16, 1957.

According to the Sparks family’s oral histories and research by local historian David Minton, that was the day the four children’s mother, Effie Sparks, broke down crying and told a niece she had four children buried somewhere in New Mexico or Texas but had no idea where.

The revelation set Effie’s grandchildren, Frank and Jack, on a quest that would take them more than 50 years.

“It means closure in a sense,” said Jack Sparks, looking across the site where his uncles and aunt were buried. “Our great hope is when we walk through those pearly gates, those children are going to meet us there. If they know what we did now, they are certainly rejoicing. In the hereafter we will certainly be able to share the story.”

The brothers, along with Frank’s son, Joe Bill Sparks, and family members Bobbie Sparks and Marc Bradberry placed a four-foot headstone to honor their long-lost relatives.

Minton, who has placed headstones on unmarked graves across Lea County for years, joined the family in cleaning up the site.

“To me, it is just a great thing that these children are no longer lost to history,” Minton said. “They have been found and remembered.”

The search for his long-buried relatives drew Jack Sparks into the Lea County Assessor’s Office one day in 2008 in search of records on the homestead his grandfather, James Monroe Sparks, claimed near Nadine in 1902.

It was perhaps fate that Sparks told one of the staff the story of the Sparks family just as David Minton walked into the office. The words, “lost graves” sparked Minton’s curiosity and the two began to talk.

It came to Minton’s mind — a Jal resident had told him years ago about an unmarked grave east of the small town that was the final resting place of four children who died of scarlet fever on their way to the doctor.

The story fit with what Spark’s father, Cecil, had told him and a search began.

“It was just so lucky I had walked in the door when he had said that,” Minton said. “It never would have happened otherwise.”

As the story goes, and as Minton writes it, it was 1907 and all six of the Sparks children — Cecil, Violet, William, Newton, Earl and infant Eva Mae — became ill with either diphtheria or scarlet fever.

The family loaded them into a wagon and started for Midland, the closest and best medical help at the time. A rider was sent ahead to get medicine and meet the family on the trail, but along the way four of the children died.

They were buried, and the wagon, bedding and items taken for the trip were burned to prevent the spread of the disease.

James and Effie Sparks returned to Nadine with their surviving children, Cecil and Eva Mae, where they lived until about 1915, when the family returned to Coke County, Texas, along with two new children, Relia and Vera, who had been born in Nadine.

Minton, with the help of Jal area ranchers who still remembered the story passed down from their fathers, found the family grave.

It is unknown who put the barbed-wire fence or a more recent pipe-fence around the site and the marker, a wooden cross tied with barbed-wire, was also added by some unknown Samaritan.

Around the site, pieces of crockery and shards of glass bottles aged by the sun until they have turned purple are still evident. A single nut and bolt, possibly from the burned wagon, was found not far from the grave.

The headstone reads, “In memory of four children lost to scarlet fever in 1907 along this trail trying to get to a doctor.”

On the other side are lyrics from a song Effie Sparks was believed to have sung to her children as they lay dying — “Dear mother, put my little shoes away.”

I Know Where Demons Live

Dexter, New Mexico - 19 miles southeast of Roswell.

http://demonfit.wordpress.com/

Cavern Threatens to Swallow Carlsbad, New Mexico

Another day, another sinkhole! I thought this Huffington Post article was fascinating because I drive over this very spot about twice a month! Eeeek!
CARLSBAD, N.M. (Nov. 7) --The bright yellow signs on U.S. 285 are the first indication that things aren't right in Carlsbad.

"US 285 south subject to sinkhole 1,000 feet ahead," motorists are warned.

Officials in Carlsbad, N.M., say a cavern that formed under a brine well operation has the potential to swallow part of a New Mexco highway, a church, neighborhood businesses and a trailer park. They fear the site could collapse without warning, just as two wells in nearby towns did last year.

But there is little other evidence that in southeastern New Mexico's oil country, a giant cavern sits beneath the earth, ready to swallow part of the highway and possibly a church, several businesses and a trailer park.

The cavern was formed over three decades as oil field service companies pumped fresh water into a salt layer more than 400 feet below the surface and extracted several million barrels of brine to help with drilling. State regulators flagged it as a potential danger after concluding that it was similar to two wells northwest of Carlsbad that collapsed without warning last year.

Over the past few decades, communities in Texas, Kansas, Michigan, Canada and Europe learned of similar underground danger only after cracks appeared and the ground began to sink. Regulators are trying to determine how to prevent future collapses by better managing a practice that's used throughout the world.

Most brine wells operate far from homes and businesses, but Carlsbad's is unique because it is in a population center — and could prove potentially disastrous.

"It would be a mess. It would be like a bomb going off in the middle of town," said Jim Griswold, a hydrologist with the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division.

The city council and the Eddy County Commission declared a state of emergency Thursday, the first step to free state and federal funds that could be used to figure out a way to stabilize the cavern.

"The public's been warned," Carlsbad Mayor Bob Forrest said. "We've had a heads up, and for us as elected officials to sit here and do nothing is political suicide. We want to move forward."

The city of about 26,000 residents knows caverns well. It is home to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a network of some of the largest natural caverns in North America, where tourists can see both delicate calcite formations and towering stalagmites.

But this man-made salt cavern has residents nervous.

Officials have set up a monitoring system that takes readings from tilt meters and pressure sensors every two seconds and averages them to determine whether there are changes drastic enough to trigger alarms. The alarms are expected to give authorities several hours to evacuate people in advance of a cave-in that could span anywhere from 200 to 500 feet, Griswold said.

I&W Trucking, the oil field service company that owns the site where the cavern is located, contends the state is overreacting because of the previous collapses on state land and criticized the Oil Conservation Division for not doing more tests to establish the size of the brine cavern before forcing it to plug the well.

The agency hired independent consultants to determine the size and shape of the cavern and the risk of collapse.

Eugene Irby, whose family owns I&W Trucking, said the company has always followed the rules and performed annual pressure tests on the cavern. Had the cavern been that unstable, he said, it would have already collapsed, given that more than 2 million pounds of water and heavy trucks were on the surface every day.

"I went to work there every day," Irby said. "I would walk the yard at times and if there were cracks in the ground I would have seen them. There's none."

I&W has given up the brine operation, emptied its tanks and moved down the road.

But trailer park residents Cookie and Ellie Fletcher have been left to wonder what they will do if a sinkhole opens on the other side of the chain-link fence. They are on fixed income and said they could never afford to move.

"It's a nightmare," Ellie Fletcher said, motioning to the wells and tanks in the distance. "I would like to forget about it, but I can't forget about it because it's right there."

It doesn't help that curious friends and acquaintances bombard the Fletchers with questions about the sinkhole each week at church.

At the Circle S Feed Store, next door to the well site, store owner Wally Menuey doesn't need the repeated requests from customers to look at the hole, even though none exists yet.

Menuey said the first thing he looks for when he rounds the corner into the parking lot each morning are the tanks next door. If they're still standing, he knows it's safe to continue on to work. Still, he said, structural cracks have formed in the store.

"It makes you wonder," he said.

The potential sink hole wouldn't just swallow parts of the town. Potential crop damage could total $100 million.

No one knows when the cavern might collapse. But the mayor and other city officials are worried about getting the money they need to tackle the problem in time to stop the worst from happening. State officials said parts of the ground above the well are already heaving while other parts are sinking.

"The clock is ticking," said Jim Goodbar, a senior cave and karst specialist with the Bureau of Land Management.

Roswell 2008

I can't get enough of this stuff, and I really don't know why. So here we go:

Associated Press - July 8, 2008 9:55 AM ET
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) - International UFO Museum and Research Center officials say attendance at Roswell's annual UFO festival jumped more than 25% this year.

The museum's executive director, Julie Shuster, says 7,216 people attended lectures, workshops, celebrity appearances and other events Thursday through Sunday.

She says she would have been happy if last year's attendance total had been met, especially with the economy the way it is and with gasoline prices rising.

The annual festival marks the anniversary of the Roswell Incident, a purported UFO crash on a nearby ranch in July 1947. The military later said it was a top-secret weather balloon.

Information from: Roswell Daily Record, http://www.roswell-record.com/

Miss New Mexico Galaxy 2008 Joan Marie Yazze-Gallegos and her dog 'Misty' participate in the CBS live broadcast of 'The Early Show' Thursday morning, July 3, 2008, helping kick off the 2008 UFO Festival.(AP Photo/Roswell Daily Record, Mark Wilson)

'Baby,' sporting designer glasses, participates in the pet costume contest held at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center Saturday morning July 5, 2008, during the 2008 Roswell UFO Festival. 'Baby' eventually took the 3rd place prize.(AP Photo/Roswell Daily Record, Mark Wilson)

Roswell Space Center owners Sharon Welz, left, and her husband Larry Welz, are pictured outside their store in Roswell, N.M., Tuesday, May 22, 2007. Sharon Welz said that 'we would welcome something like an alien roller coaster or a theme park, absolutely,' regarding a desire by city officials who want to build a UFO-themed amusement park, complete with an indoor roller coaster that would take passengers on a simulated alien abduction.(AP Photo/Jake Schoellkopf)

Roswell's biggest attraction is the International UFO Museum and Research Center, which has drawn 2.5 million visitors since opening in 1992, seen here along Main Street in downtown Roswell, N.M., Wednesday, May 23, 2007.(AP Photo/Jake Schoellkopf)

Alien eyes adorn a lamp post along Main Street in downtown Roswell, N.M., Wednesday, May 23, 2007.(AP Photo/Jake Schoellkopf)

Hot Links

I haven't had much time to blog lately due to house projects, so here's some miscellaneous reading to keep you occupied in the meantime........

Does politics bring out the worst in Christians?...

This blog was quoted in a Yahoo! answer several weeks ago. (You have to scroll down to the 22nd answer to find it.)

Here's a stupid joke involving Kermit...

A sinkhole in Daisetta, Texas (near Houston) has its own blog! How cool is that?

Wink's Roy Orbison Festival happened this past weekend, but I wasn't able to go...

When frogs fly: Yes, Winkler County has an airport!

And it's time once again for the
Roswell UFO Festival !

Landmark: Cherish Your Freedom!

Ten years ago this metal monument, by an artist unknown to me, appeared beside Highway 18 just south of Eunice, New Mexico. This is about 40 miles north of Kermit. The plane measures probably 14 feet from its nose to its tail. (That is just a guess, of course.)

It was originally painted silver, but was re-painted red white and blue after 9/11.

The sign says:

"Cherish your freedom

It did not come free

Always remember those Americans

who sacrificed so much for it."

Alien Rose Parade Float Wins Prize

From Ufomystic.com :

"The State Tourism Department of New Mexico has just won the award for 'excellence in creative concept and design' from the Pasadena Rose Parade’s Grand Marshal. The entry, titled 'Passport To Our World and Beyond' was designed to draw more tourists to the state.

It’s sort of unfortunate that New Mexico still needs to capitalize on the Roswell Incident to get people to visit. The rest of the state is incredible enough. If you’ve ever been to a ceremonial dance at one of the Indian pueblos in the middle of the winter, skiied at Taos Valley, camped in the redrock canyons of Gila National Forest, or had a heavenly bowl of Hatch red chili you’ll know what I mean."

Hello!

Hi! Glad you could join me for the launch of this blog.

Many blogs that I read are sources of great wisdom. This one is not.

This blog, for the moment anyway, will focus on
odd news.

I may from time to time post stories of offbeat religion news also.

I am especially interested in unusual church of Christ news , and I may post these if I can find any.

I may not attract any actual readers....

I will kick things off with a story about the 60th annual Roswell UFO celebration. I've never been to this event, but I have worked in Roswell on occasions, and I can say with certainty that alcohol was involved .

Next time, I will tell you about Kermit, TX, and how it came to be Frogtown.