Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 120, No. 189 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
MAMMOTH CAVE REVEALS WONDERS
MAMMOTH CAVE NATIONAL PARK, Ky. (AP) — Blasts of cool air offered a welcome reprieve from the scorching summer as a tour group descended into the depths of the world’s longest-known cave. Some visitors donned light jackets for the long hike past panoramic scenes of subterranean wonders. Heading underground at Mammoth Cave National ... - PAGE B6
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• Program trades bikes for exercise • Zoe’s not so small Mouse wins Steer • Go hog wild! • ‘Lead porker comin’ thru! Make way!’ • ‘All right!’
INSIDE SPORTS
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
August 7, 2011
SUNDAY
www.rdrnews.com
Nothin’ like a good ol’ fashioned shoot-out
EMILY RUSSO MILLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Horse carriages in the street. Blacksmiths forging ironworks. Billy the Kid on the loose. For a moment, hundreds of tourists stepped back in time to the days of the American Old West, Friday and Saturday, in Lincoln County’s Historic District to get a taste of what life was like during the Lincoln County War. It’s all part of “Old Lincoln Days,” the annual celebration of the town, tucked away in the mountains about 45 minutes from Roswell, which in its heyday was the largest county in the U.S., and is famed for the violence that broke out in the streets in the late 1870s and early 1880s. On Saturday, kids ate barbecue and red chile buttermilk biscuits, women wore petticoats and corsets and men played in the fiddlers contest. And almost all witnessed firsthand a good ol’ fashioned shoot-out as actors re-enacted scenes from the war and Billy the Kid’s last escape. “Well, I guess you got me,
Mark Wilson Photo
Tim Potts, center, playing Billy the Kid, re-enacts scenes from the Lincoln County War along with his band of Regulators for tourists attending Old Lincoln Days on Saturday afternoon. Below, Civil War re-enactment actors portray soldiers of the 1st New Mexico Volunteer Infantry during Fort Stanton Live!
Fair animals go for big NM gun store bucks at Livestock Auction owner challenges new ATF rule See LINCOLN, Page A3
ADAM SCOTT ON TOP AT BRIDGESTONE
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — Ryo Ishikawa amazed even his peers in a charity-driven sport when he pledged in March to donate his entire earnings on the golf course to the tsunami relief fund in his native Japan. He could double the donation Sunday in a World Golf Championship that is surprising even him. - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Isabel Medina • Wilma Jean Handwerk Williams - PAGE B6
HIGH .102˚ LOW ....71˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........D1 COMICS.................C4 ENTERTAINMENT.....D2 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
INDEX
VANESSA KAHIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
Farming and ranching children saw the fruits of their labor during the 2011 Chaves County 4-H and FFA Fair Junior Livestock Sale, Friday evening. A variety of animals, from dairy heifers and chickens to swine and meat rabbits were up for auction. The animals represented hours of hard work put in by children and teenagers who participated in the weeklong fair. Such was the case with Peter DeGroot, 13, with Dexter FFA, who sold his unnamed dairy heifer for $7,000. DeGroot said he will be using the money for college, and he had some words of advice for other children who are thinking about raising and selling animals. “Work hard, and do your
Vanessa Kahin Photo
Addison Jones, 7, holds the chickens that her sister Tristin, 12, sold Friday night at the Chaves County 4-H and FFA Fair Junior Livestock Sale. best,” he said. Amber Craig-Lair’s dairy heifer was the highest selling heifer at the auction. Representing Goddard
High’s FFA program, CraigLair’s dairy heifer sold for $9,000.
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — An Albuquerque gun store has sued over a federal requirement that weapons dealers in four border states must report multiple sales of semi-automatic rifles. Ron Peterson Firearms was among more than 8,000 gun dealers in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California that were ordered last month to report multiple sales of such weapons to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Peterson filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, asking a judge to prevent the order from taking effect Aug. 14. It is the third such lawsuit filed this week, all contending that ATF lacks authority from Congress to require the reporting. The suits do not seek money, only a stop to enforcement of the new requirement. The requirement follows a controversial 2009 law enforcement operation in Arizona known as “Fast and Furious” that resulted in more than 2,000 highpowered weapons making their way to Mexico as authorities went after people directing gun buys on behalf of cartels. The operation has been the subject of recent conSee ATF, Page A3
S&P downgrades US credit rating, first time ever
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats quickly doled out blame to each other for the first-ever downgrade in the nation’s sterling credit rating, an expected but unsettling move that further clouds prospects for the recovery of the fragile U.S. economy. The back and forth came after Standard & Poor’s, one of the world’s three major credit rating agencies, cited “difficulties in bridging the gulf between political par-
ties” as a major reason for the downgrade from U.S.’s top shelf AAA status to AA+, the next level down. The rating agency has essentially lost faith in Washington’s ability to work together to address its debt. The downgrade, hours after markets closed on Friday, is a first for the United States since it was granted an AAA rating in 1917. S&P warned about a downgrade as far back as April. Its decision came just four days after frac-
See LIVESTOCK, Page A3
tious debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling ended in a compromise that would reduce the country’s debt by more than $2 trillion. S&P said Friday the cuts did not go far enough. Both political parties used S&P’s report to buffet their policy cases and attack the other side. House Speaker John Boehner, ROhio, said he hoped the downgrade served as a wake-up call to the Democratic Party.
“It is my hope this wake-up call will convince Washington Democrats that they can no longer afford to tinker around the edges of our long-term debt problem,” Boehner said in a statement. “As S&P noted, refor ming and preserving our entitlement programs is the ‘key to long-term fiscal sustainability.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, DNev., while not calling out Republicans by name, said S&P’s action showed that
Democrats preferred policy approach — a mix of raising taxes and budget cuts — was the correct way to move forward. “The action by S&P reaffirms the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenueraising measures like closing taxpayer-funded giveaways to billionaires, oil companies and corporate jet owners,” Reid said. At least one senator, Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois, called for
the president to bring Congress back from its August recess to try and address the issues raised by S&P’s report. The White House remained mum on the downgrade early Saturday. President Barack Obama met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the Oval Office late Friday after noon before leaving for a weekend at Camp David. See CREDIT, Page A3