Andy Brosig/News-Sun Reducing the amount of required data New Mexico schools have to file with the state is at the center of a recently-completed overhaul at the New Mexico Public Education Department. While school administrators in Lea County hope the lightening of the requirements will help, many are still waiting for specifics of the plan. “I don’t think we’ll realize …

Andy Brosig/News-Sun The opening of the Career Technical Education Center Hobbs created vacancies in several rooms at Hobbs High School that once housed classes and-moved to the new facility. Visual arts is one of the programs which benefitted, giving student artists and their instructor, John McMillan, a new place to call home in the former construction and engineering classroom in …

Dorothy Fowler/News-Sun Trey Williams, the new principal at Lovington High School, is a man with several missions. His first, and most important mission, is seeing the Lovington High School Wildcat student body and staff are safe, he said. That mission has any number of moving parts, including overseeing periodic fire drills, calling for lockdowns or shelter in place when emergencies …

Dorothy Fowler/News-Sun Trey Williams, the new principal at Lovington High School, is a man with several missions. His first, and most important mission, is seeing the Lovington High School Wildcat student body and staff are safe, he said. That mission has any number of moving parts, including overseeing periodic fire drills, calling for lockdowns or shelter in place when emergencies …

Curtis Wynne/News-Sun LOVINGTON — At the urging of Lea County Commissioner Rebecca Long, the school zone at College Lane Elementary may soon become safer and less congested. “It’s so dangerous,” Long said at last week’s county commission meeting. She described the scene along College Lane in front of the school at the beginning and end of each school day. “People …

Andy Brosig/News-Sun Student numbers in the Hobbs Municipal Schools are headed in a positive direction with day-one enrollment topping 10,000 students for the first time in three years, administrators said. Gene Strickland, HMS superintendent, told the Board of Education that enrollment is indicating a potential return to pre-pandemic numbers during its regular meeting on Tuesday. HMS, for example, started the …

Andy Brosig/News-Sun Bryan Cheney came full circle when he took over as band director at Houston Middle School in Hobbs some 18 years ago. Houston was where, in seventh grade, he first picked up a set of drumsticks — learning percussion under the tutelage of then band director David Allen. From the start, Cheney said, there was a thrill to …

Dorothy Fowler/News-Sun When newly appointed president of New Mexico Junior College Derek Moore and his wife, Pinkie, came to Hobbs the first time, they flew from their home in El Dorado, Ark. The view of the long, often barren vistas are not as visible from the air as they are from ground level in a car, so it may be …

Andy Brosig/News-Sun Superintendent in the Jal Public Schools Brian Snider figures families typically pay $200 or more at this time of year to stock their children up on school supplies. But, this year, the families of Jal Elementary will get a break on that annual expense, courtesy of the staff of Jal Medical Clinic in town. Clinic staff are supplying …

Andy Brosig/News-Sun Mohammad Moghaddam has been exceeding expectations since his first day of kindergarten. When his parents enrolled him in Hobbs Municipal Schools, teachers questioned his English proficiency, in part because he’s shy and wasn’t a big talker. He was placed in a special program to learn English, but when he came home that first day, he was upset. “We …