CASA of Lea County names Volunteer of the Year Rhonda Phillips, a resident of Lovington, was named CASA of Lea County’s 2017 Ursula Wilcox Volunteer of the Year at CASA’s Annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. CASA of Lea County strives to make Lea County a safer environment for abused and neglected children through trained volunteer advocacy and other child centered programs. …

  The first proposed hours of operation and admission fees for the Center of Recreational Excellence were discussed Monday night during a Hobbs Community Affairs Board meeting. CORE officials presented their proposals to the board to receive input and feedback before moving forward in presenting the fees to be considered by the Hobbs City Commission. “We want to start down …

EUNICE — Fifth-graders can make a loud noise with their joyful singing and jingling of bells, but they brought in healthy contributions for the Salvation Army at the Lowe’s Market in Eunice. The Fifth-grade Ambassadors spent a full day Tuesday singing yuletide jingles and ringing bells to encourage contributions be dropped in the kettle. Speaking over the din, sponsor Laura …

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico education authorities are cutting off authorization and funding for the largest online charter school in the state in response to lagging academic performance among students. A request by New Mexico Connections Academy to renew its charter for the coming school year has been voted down by the Public Education Commission that oversees charter …

After a little more than a year of losing Cooper the CASA dog to cancer, CASA of Lea County welcomed its new canine assistance dog Phillip to its office Monday. Phillip, a one-and-a-half-year-old black English Labrador has been in training for the past several months preparing to work with the children of the CASA of Lea County program and those …

Taylor Memorial Baptist Church will ring down the curtain and strike the set after it presents the gospel in its final performance of “Living Christmas Tree” this weekend. Jeff Fair, worship minister at Taylor Memorial, said the choir will sing at  3:30 p.m. Saturday and during Sunday morning worship, which begins at 10:30 a.m. For the Living Christmas tree scaffolding …

Tuesday morning, the only dogs at the Animal Adoption Center in Hobbs were big dogs who looked as if they might have American bull dog or pit bull in their ancestry. Adult cats in their glass enclosures obviously came from a great variety of ancestors, including plain black, tortoise shell, calico, black and white, orange and white and a variety …

Consuelo Salcido was playing with her godson on the Mills Elementary School playground when she heard someone calling for help. Her response to that call may have saved Sandra Newell’s life. Salcido, who lives in Roswell, was in Hobbs Feb. 17 visiting her sister. Part of that visit was a trip to the Mills playground, a place where she and …

The Ride for Bikes program donated more than 230 kindergarten-size bicycles with a child’s name on it Monday at Llano Elementary School Monday morning in Lovington. Each kindergarten student at Llano Elementary received a bike and a helmet.

Mining to resume at WIPP for 1st time since leak ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Officials at the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository are flipping the switch on an interim ventilation system this week, allowing mining to resume for the first time since a 2014 radiation release contaminated part of the facility. Still, they caution it will take a few …