Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 120, No. 244 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
STOCKS SOAR ON EUROPEAN PLEDGE
NEW YORK (AP) — Just last week, a bear market seemed inevitable. Since then stocks have surged four out of the past five days, bringing the S&P 500 index up 8.7 percent. The latest jump came Monday after the leaders of France... - PAGE A7
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
October 11, 2011
Six injured in school bus accident
JESSICA PALMER RECORD STAFF WRITER A pregnant woman and five children were injured as a result of a traffic accident between a car and Independent Roswell School District school bus. The accident took place at the intersection of South Main and Poe streets, around 3 p.m., after children were released from school, on Monday. “None of the occupants of the school bus were injured,” Roswell Fire Department Chief James
TUESDAY
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Salas said. The emergency services implemented mass casualty protocols, “which automatically sends units to the scene,” said Salas. He listed their conditions as moderate, due to the cause of the injuries. The six casualties were sent to Eastern New Mexico Medical Center for treatment. Salas said the ages of the juvenile passengers of the Chevy Cavalier ranged from a small infant to 7 or 8 years of age. He noted that not all occupants of the
vehicle were wearing restraints. Officer Scott Stevenson said the Cavalier was travelling south on Main Street and the bus attempted to make a left to go west on Poe Street. “We talked to two witnesses. They said the car had a green light. The bus had a yield. The bus did not yield.” Damages to the Cavalier were severe. The New Mexico State Police are investigating the cause of the accident. j.palmer@roswell-record.com
Jessica Palmer Photo
The Cavalier was travelling south on Main Street and the bus travelling north. The bus attempted to make a left to go west on Poe Street without yielding to oncoming traffic.
Something for everyone at RMAC Block Party
JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• Jazz events entertain, edu cate • Jazz Festival gets under way • Blessing of Animals set for Sunday • Bands and food and rides and all kinds of fun • Anaya batters Carlsbad ‘D,’ Rockets roll
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
Matthew Herbert, 10, has the final touches applied to his new peacock hair-do at the Chalk Art Festival and Block Party Saturday behind the Roswell Museum and Art Center.
Mayor challenges students to develop healthy lifestyle
FOOTBALL: PLAYOFF CHANCES
Week 8 in high school football means the start of district play for most of the area’s team, so let’s once again look at the playoff chances for all the teams in Chaves County. The Demons needed to win last week against Tucumcari and I think that is a huge blow to their... - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES • Jesse Cade Justus • Odie Mildred Smith
- PAGE A7
HIGH ...82˚ LOW ....51˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B5 COMICS.................B4 ENTERTAINMENT.....B5 FINANCIAL .............B3 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........B5 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
INDEX
Roswell Regional, ENMMC to be owned by common parent corporation
JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER Mayor Del Jur ney challenged third-graders at Del Norte Elementary School Monday morning to develop healthy eating and fitness habits. Jurney is asking all thirdgraders in the Roswell Independent School District to take the 5-2-1-0 physical fitness and nutrition challenge for 21 days. The New Mexico childhood obesity profile is alar ming with 13.2 percent of kindergarten and 22.6 percent of third grade students obese, according to a press release about the challenge. Goddard High School FFA students and Healthy Kids Chaves County helped the mayor with his presentation, and RISD Food Services provided fruit samples to the students. Based on recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the challenge asks students to con-
sume five or more fruits and vegetables a day; restrict video game time to two hours a day; complete at least one hour of physical activity; and eliminate sugar sweetened beverages from their diet.
Jurney said kids need to have help and promotion of good habits, and in encouraging these healthy tendencies kids are bound to be successful. Jur ney told students, “The challenge for the next 21 days is that you develop good habits. Put into your mind the really good things, the good infor mation that these young men [from Goddard High School] shared with you, and make it a part of who you are.” He added, “You also have to have good information about your physical body and who’ll you be when you’re in high school, and who you’ll be when you’re in college, and who you’ll be when you’re a grown-
Although changes are expected to occur under the hospital sale transaction of Roswell Regional Hospital and Eastern New Mexico Medical Center by an affiliate of Community Health Systems, one projected certainty is the creation of an integrated health care delivery system. “We see this as an opportunity to really transform health care in Chaves County,” Rod Schumacher, CEO of Roswell Regional, said. Roswell Regional will join with ENMMC, which is also a Community Health System affiliated hospital, to create the delivery system, which is a full electronic medical record. According to Schumacher, this type of delivery system is going to be required under ObamaCare so the two hospitals See CORPORATION, Page A3
Experts: Ponderosa may be gone
DOME ROAD, SANTA FE NATIONAL FOREST (AP) — This Jemez Mountains landscape - twice logged, twice burned - may never again see ponderosa forests. “This was wall-to-wall trees,” said U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Craig Allen as he surveyed miles of mesa-top landscape literally burned to the ground. Loggers came through twice to cut the big stuff. The Dome Fire in 1996 took some of what remained. And then June 26, the Las Conchas Fire blazed through a 50square-mile patch where now the only signs of movement are gray ashen dust devils. Fire left “ghost logs” scattered across the landscape, lines of white ash that are all that remains of logs laying on the mesa when Las Conchas blew through. For miles along the St. Peter’s Dome Road, there are no birds. “There’s barely even insects,” Allen pointed out. After the Dome Fire destroyed the forest, the big pines were replaced by low, shrubby plants, Gambel oak and other similar
species. A few patches of ponderosa were left, which had the potential to provide seed for a slowly regrowing forest. But those trees burned in Las Conchas. The result is a patch denuded of ponderosa so vast that there is no ponderosa left to provide the nursery stock for a new forest. The only bits of green are tiny shoots of shrubby Gambel oak and New Mexico locust here and there, plants bur ned to the ground but returning from still-living roots after summer rains. “Shrubs own this,” Allen said of the mesa that was once “wall-to-wall trees.” As fires bur n through Southwestern forests with increasing intensity, the ponderosa pines so characteristic of the landscape are increasingly being eaten away, and in some areas have little chance of returning, scientists say. Las Conchas was the sixth and largest of a series of increasingly destructive fires dating to the 1950s on the east side of the Jemez Mountains. While some(asterisk) of the fire
bur ned at low severity, leaving healthy forests behind, more than 150 square miles of the area’s forests have been burned in destructive, standreplacing fires, according to Allen. Much of that forest was ponderosa. The result has scientists and forest managers looking intensely at the area to try to understand what happens next. Ponderosa is only one of the types of forest ecosystem found in the mountains of New Mexico. Piqonjuniper of the lower elevations and the mixed conifer forest found in the Sangre de Cristos above Santa Fe burn differently, resulting in dif ferent patter ns of revegetation. Damage from fires has been far less severe in those forest types. But ponderosa is a special case because of the special ferocity with which it has burned in recent years. Also sometimes called “Western yellow pine,” the ponderosa is characterized by the cracked look of its orange bark and long needles. Natural ponderosa forests once burned regu-
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s ruling military on Monday condemned a surge in deadly violence as an attempt to undermine the state, and warned it will act to safeguard the peace following a night of clashes that drew in Christians, Muslims and security forces.
transition to democracy. Egypt’s Coptic church harshly criticized the government for its actions in crushing the protests and accused it of allowing repeated attacks on Christians to go unpunished. The clashes Sunday night were the worst sectarian violence since the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak eight months ago. The riots laid bare the volatility of Egyptian society a month before the start of parliamentary elections that will help define the
country’s future political landscape. In a statement, the Coptic Church, which represents about 10 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people, accused security forces of failing to stop anti-Christian agitators from turning what started out as a peaceful protest against church attacks into a sectarian riot in which at least 26 people, mostly Christians, were killed. The statement reflected
Egypt’s military vows to get tough after clashes See MAYOR, Page A3
AP Photo
Egyptian relatives of one of the Copts who were killed during clashes with the Egyptian army late Sunday.
The generals’ strong words signaled the governing military council will tighten its grip on power, further infuriating activists who have demanded an end to ar my rule and a
See PONDEROSA, Page A3
See EGYPT, Page A3