Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Will horses rescue failing abattoir?
Vol. 121, No. 89 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
SATURDAY
www.rdrnews.com
VANESSA KAHIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
PBS’ SUAREZ TO HOST NM TOWN HALL
April 14, 2012
An application to allow the slaughter of horses in Roswell has brought public outcry; but the owner of the slaughterhouse said horsemeat might be the only way to save his failing company. Valley Meat Co., located just east of Roswell on 3845 Cedarvale Road, might be the site of the country’s first horse slaughtering and process-
ing facility since 2006, when Congress stopped providing funds for the USDA inspection of horses for slaughter. “I’m sure we’ll get people against it,” said Rick De Los Santos, owner of Valley Meat. He submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service in December to be able to slaughter horses for human consumption. De Los Santos said that if his application is ap-
De Los Santos said that if his application is approved, the horses slaughtered will be exported to Mexico and be for Mexican consumption.
proved, the horses slaughtered will be exported to Mexico and be for Mexican consumption. He said the exportation of horse carcasses might be a better option than exporting live horses to Mexico, which involves holding the horses at the border. De Los San-
tos also said horse slaughter methods in Mexico may be less humane than in the U.S.
“There’s no regulation as to how they (slaughter horses) in Mexico,” De Los Santos said. “It’s nowhere close to the USDA standards.”
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A teacher town hall in Albuquerque that focuses on New Mexico’s high dropout rates, especially among Latino students, is drawing PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Ray Suarez as part of a campaign to bring national attention to the increasing number of students who don’t graduate. - PAGE B3
TOP 5 WEB For The Past 24 Hours
• Napolitano: Patrol ‘best in the world’ • UFO Fest to get $50K • Skandera visits Sierra’s Career Day • Xcor rolls back to Mojave • Rocket Power
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
Vanguard elm graces Center grounds
From left, Ben Sanchez and Emilio Silva of the Parks Department plant a hybrid variety vanguard elm in front of the Historical Center for Southeast New Mexico, Friday, during a Centennial Arbor Day Tree Planting.
NOAH VERNAU RECORD STAFF WRITER
A vanguard elm was planted in front of the Historical Center for Southeast New Mexico on Friday, celebrating 140
BULLDOGS NIP COYOTES TWICE
The Artesia Lady Bulldogs are the top-ranked team in 4A softball in New Mexico and they showed exactly why on Friday. The Bulldogs swept both ends of a District 4-4A doubleheader with host Roswell, winning Game 1 14-2 and Game 2 13-0. “They could do everything,” said Roswell coach Art Sandoval about the Bulldogs after the nightcap. “They do one heck of a job of hitting the ball. They know how to hit with two strikes, they know how to execute a bunt, they know how to run the bases; ... - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARY
• Loyd Green
- PAGE B3
HIGH ...79˚ LOW ....45˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
years of National Arbor Day. Ken Smith, Parks Department superintendent, said Roswell’s official Centennial Arbor Day tree is a hybrid elm, which will eventually feature large, glossy green leaves as it
matures. He says the vanguard is long-lived and a vigorous grower, getting to be about 40 to 50 feet in height, with a 40-foot spread. A $1,000 grant from Wells Fargo Bank and T ree New Mexico was
Budget woes force NASA to redraw plans to Mars LOS ANGELES (AP) — Know how to go to Mars cheaply? NASA can use your help. The space agency on Friday put out a call for ideas for the next Mars mission in 2018. The fine print: The cost can’t be astronomical and the idea has to move the country closer to landing humans on the red planet in the 2030s. “This is the kickof f,” said NASA sciences chief John Grunsfeld. The race to redraw a new, cheaper road map comes two months after NASA pulled out of a partnership with the European Space Agency on two missions targeted for 2016 and 2018, a move that angered scientists. The 2018 mission represented See MARS, Page A3
AP Photo
The Gale Crater on Mars, the landing site for the rover Curiosity, which is scheduled to touch down near the foot of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater on the red planet in August.
awarded to the city for its outstanding commitment to tree growth, and was used to purchase the elm and 19 other trees. The rest of the trees will be
See ELM, Page A3
De Los Santos said the of ficial number for live American horses exported to other countries to be slaughtered is 100,000; but the figure may be closer to 130,000.
De Los Santos said his company, a 7,290 squarefoot plant on a 10-acre site, has been slaughtering cattle for about 20 years, but has recently been unable to continue doing business because the cost of cattle
6 killed in Syria protests
See HORSES, Page A3
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian forces used live fire, tear gas and clubs to beat back tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets across the country Friday in power ful and often jubilant displays of defiance. But a U.N.-brokered truce largely held up without the widespread, bloody offensives that have pushed the nation toward civil war. Activists said security forces killed at least six people, a lower-than-usual toll. The rallies, described as some of the largest in months, stretched from the suburbs of Damascus to the central province of Hama, Idlib in the north and the southern province of Daraa, where the uprising began in March 2011. The protests might have been far larger had President Bashar Assad’s regime not violated a key aspect of the truce by keeping troops, tanks and snipers in population centers instead of pulling them See SYRIA, Page A3
Failed launch is setback for NKorea’s new leader PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea’s muchtouted satellite launch ended in a nearly $1 billion failure, bringing humiliation to the country’s new young leader and condemnation from a host of nations. The United Nations Security Council deplored the launch but stopped short of imposing new penalties in response. The satellite’s disintegration Friday over the Yellow Sea brought a rare public acknowledgment of failure from Pyongyang, which had hailed the launch as a show of strength amid North Korea’s persistent economic hardship. For the 20-something Kim Jong Un it was to have been a highlight of the celebratory
See LAUNCH, Page A3
AP Photo
North Korea's Unha-3 rocket at the Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea.
Northern NM captured acclaimed artist Dorothy Peterson’s heart VANESSA KAHIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
CLASSIFIEDS..........B6 COMICS.................B4 ENTERTAINMENT.....B6 FINANCIAL .............B5 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ......A10 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ............A10
INDEX
Vanessa Kahin Photo
Dorothy Peterson in front of a painting of her father and his business, the Moriarty Trading Co.
Dorothy Peterson has traveled the world, taking a piece of faraway landscapes with her in the form of her art, or leaving a piece of her art behind in faraway landscapes. But it is the landscape of her native northern New Mexico that has captured this local artist’s heart, and is featured repeatedly in her watercolors, acrylics and oils. Peterson cannot pinpoint when she began to paint.
She said that, at the age of 18 months, she was already drawing figures that could be recognized. Her childhood was steeped in the picturesque life of the villages around the Manzano Mountains in the 1940s and 1950s. It is this era and this place that nursed and nurtured the self-taught artist’s talent.
Originally from Estancia Valley, Peterson, née Hawkins, grew up in Moriarty. Her mother Ethel Hawkins, was a teacher who eventually became the Torrance County School superintendent. Her father Er nest Hawkins, was a rancher and a politician See SPOTLIGHT, Page A3