Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 96 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
April 20, 2014
Schools fear lawsuits by stocking medication
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A new law taking effect this summer requiring New Mexico schools stockpile medicine to treat students for severe allergic reactions or asthma attacks has officials concerned, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Some school districts are hesitant to follow the new law because they can be sued if something goes wrong. Gov. Susana Martinez
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signed Senate Bill 75 into law last month, saying it would save children’s lives. The law, which takes effect July 1, per mits school nurses to administer the medication even to students who don’t have a prescription. But a clause in the bill shielding schools from civil lawsuits was removed. Dick Minzner, an attorney who studied the law, said schools could be sued
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if medicine is incorrectly administered or stored. “I expect there could be a lawsuit in either case, not that it would necessarily prevail,” Minzner said. State Sen. Mark Moores, a Republican from Albuquerque, sponsored the legislation and ceded the legal-immunity provision to get the bill passed. The request was made by the New Mexico T rial Lawyers Association and
Foundation. President Kris Bogardus said lawsuit fears will ensure schools will do a god job when devising how to issue the medicine and store it.
Lisa Patch, a school nurse and president of the New Mexico School Nurses Association, lobbied for the legislation. Before, state law prevented school nurses or trained employees from stepping in. As a result, a child would have
Mark Wilson Photo
Spectators at the Charlie McVay Memorial Softball Complex use umbrellas to fend off the rain while watching girls softball action, Saturday morning.
Health care site flagged in Heartbleed review
WASHINGTON (AP) — People who have accounts on the enrollment website for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law are being told to change their passwords following an administrationwide review of the government’s vulnerability to the confounding Heartbleed Internet security flaw.
Senior administration officials said there is no indication that the HealthCare.gov site has been compromised and the action is being taken out of an abundance of caution. The government’s Heartbleed review is ongoing, the officials said, and users of other websites may also be told to change their passwords in the com-
ing days, including those with accounts on the popular WhiteHouse.gov petitions page.
The Heartbleed programming flaw has caused major security concerns across the Internet and affected a widely used encryption technology that was designed to protect online accounts. Major Internet services have been working to insulate themselves against the problem and are also recommending that users change their website passwords.
Officials said the administration was prioritizing its analysis of websites with heavy traffic and the most sensitive user information.
Joe Hammond, at right, poses with dance partner Beth Rhodes on Thursday at the Roswell Adult Center. Hammond, 98, is an avid square dancer and enjoys the weekly meetings of the Enchanted Squares.
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to wait for an emergency responder to arrive. About a fourth of students suffer life-threatening allergic reactions because of an undiagnosed food allergy, she added. “It’s not the kids with prescriptions I worry about so much. It’s the 25 percent of the students that haven’t had a (severe allergic reaction) before,” Patch said. Carrie Robin Menapace,
a policy analyst for Albuquerque Public Schools, said the lack of immunity and funds for the medication have officials worried. APS board members will discuss the matter more at a meeting, she said.
Moores said some drug companies offer programs where they give medication to schools for free, which would be allowed under this new law.
Group sues over decision not to list prairie dogs
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — An environmental group filed a lawsuit this month over the federal gover nment’s decision not to extend protections for a prairie dog found in four Southwestern states. Threats to the Gunnison’s prairie dog won’t cause the animal to become extinct soon or in the foreseeable future, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Those threats include agriculture, grazing, urbanization and invasive species. WildEarth Guardians, which sued Fish and Wildlife in U.S. District Court in Arizona, said the agency is ignoring dramatic declines in the range and population of the animals, and it is discounting widespread threats. The agency has a policy not to comment on pending litigation. The prairie dogs make
their homes in grasslands and intermountain valleys of northern Arizona, southwestern and south-central Colorado, northwester n New Mexico and southeastern Utah.
WildEarth Guardians and dozens of other organizations and individuals petitioned Fish and Wildlife in 2004 to list the prairie dogs as endangered or threatened. The agency determined the listing wasn’t warranted, but a smaller group that included WildEarth Guardians challenged the finding.
Fish and Wildlife later found that populations in parts of Colorado and New Mexico that are wetter and higher in elevations than prairie land were eligible for protection, primarily because of the effects of sylvatic plague, a fleaborne bacterial disease.
Rogers looks to continue serving the community as magistrate judge JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
Keith “K.C.” Rogers recognized at a young age that good people sometimes do bad things. “That’s something I learned really fast in life, that there’s an awful lot of really good people that make bad decisions,” Rogers said. “It doesn’t make them bad. It just means their decision-making process wasn’t working at the time, or there’s something that causes them to make a decision they nor mally wouldn’t make.” Rogers sits back inside a
quiet courtroom now, as Division 1 Chaves County Magistrate Judge, after already experiencing a career in law enforcement and a starting a successful alternative sentencing program for offenders. At 19 years old, Rogers clipped a gun to his belt and climbed into a New Mexico State Police patrol car. He talked about the time he was the officer on an open highway in the middle of nowhere, unknowingly stopping a suspected armed fugitive. And, he spoke about the years spent investigating drug crimes and criminal behavior.
“My training was designed to assist me in doing my job,” Rogers said. “I think it’s important that people know that my philosophy on things, my life goal is to be of service to people. That’s what I do.”
Rogers was appointed to the bench in August 2013 by Gov. Susana Martinez following the retirement of Judge Eugene De Los Santos. Before that, he was a hearings of ficer for the Courtesy Photo New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, where he Chaves County Magistrate heard cases regarding mis- Judge K.C. Rogers, division conduct by law enforce- 1, a Republican, will face Bobby Arnett in the primary See ROGERS, Page A3 June 3.
98-year-old square dances for fitness RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Randal Seyler Photo
SUNDAY
For more than 40 years, Joe Hammond has been cutting a rug, square dance style. Now at the age of 98, however, he says he’s slowing down. “I’ve seen a lot of people come and go,” Hammond
• JON ALAN MARTIN • MABEL TERRELL • JOSE FRESCAS
says, “and it’s amazing to me that I am still here.” Hammond attributes his longevity to never having taken up the habits of smoking or drinking, and lots of exercise. “I used to swim for my exercise, but I got to where I couldn’t swim, so I started back up with the square dancing.”
• CRESENCIO MENDEZ • RICHARD T. (TIM) COOK • LAWRENCE C. HARRIS
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A native of Terrell, Texas, Hammond was born on April 22, 1916. His parents were also natives of Terrell, although his grandfather hailed from Saline County. He would probably have stayed in Texas, had it not been for his career with the Federal Airway Service, which would become the Federal Aviation Agency in the 1950s. Hammond went to radio school and became a morse code radioman. He also trained in weather observation, and worked
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in the aviation industry before the widespread use of radar. He missed out on the draft in 1942, and before his number came back up, the U.S. had dropped the atomic bombs on Japan and World War II was over, Hammond recalled. “At the time, most of the employees in the Airway Service were women, since all the men had gone off to war.” Hammond worked in See HAMMOND, Page A3
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