Roswell Daily Record
Multiple Sclerosis Walk set for Saturday Vol. 123, No. 99 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Residents from Roswell and surrounding communities will join together for “Walk MS: Roswell” on Saturday at Cahoon Park. “We’re getting food for at least 100 people,” said Patty Jones, coordinator for the event. “A lot of people register the day of the walk, so it’s always a surprise what we wind up with at end.” Registration at the park and check-in begins at 8 a.m., followed by a 9 a.m. official start time. Registration will be at the park pool. The walk is a fundraiser for the
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
April 24, 2014
THURSDAY
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National MS Society, and the funds raised support MS research and provide services to individuals impacted by multiple sclerosis, an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system. “I have MS, and I am a member of the MS support group here,” said Jones. “I grew up here, moved back here when I found out I had MS, and I like to do anything I can to raise awareness about MS and its affects on each person and family when dealing with it.” Jones said her father, the late Dr. Charles Montgomery, had his office, Roswell Radiology, on
Alameda Avenue many years ago. “It’s nice to be back in small town,” she said. Since her diagnosis with MS, Jones said she tries to stay active. “My former job was as a travel agent, I started out here in Roswell in 1980.” She medically retired due to the MS in 1996. “We were a airline kind of family. My husband, Gary, worked for Southwest Airlines 22 years until he retired,” Jones said. Jones said the MS Society helps local residents by providing support groups as well as working on medical research. “For instance, at the local, pri-
vate level, having groups you can go to sit down, share your experiences with, and have them know what you are going through, is a huge help,” Jones said. “We have a saying in the autoimmune community — ‘You don’t get MS unless you get MS’ — and it is really true.”
Jones said that MS patients often are indistinguishable from anyone else. “On the outside, a lot of people think all MS patients are in wheelchairs or have to use walkers,” she said. “But a lot of times patients look normal on the outside, but are having to deal with internal symptoms, such as
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vertigo, vision issues, or extreme fatigue. Having a local group you can sit down with and say, ‘this is what happened to me,’ is a real plus.” The National MS Society is also changing lives with its funding of medical research. “The work the society has done has made it possible for new medications to be discovered and released,” Jones said. “On the national level, walks like this help fund research into really great breakthroughs in medication for MS,” she said.
Co Com sets public hearing on new law
See WALK, Page A3
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Mark Wilson Photos
ABOVE: Emergency personnel come to the aid of mock car wreck victims during the 'Every 15 Minutes' program in front of Roswell High School, Wednesday morning. LEFT: Roswell High students portray the living dead during the 'Every 15 Minutes' program, a staged drunk driving accident to help illustrate the dangers of drinking and driving, Wednesday morning in front of the school.
The Chaves County Board of Commissioners approved on Wednesday advertising a public hearing to discuss the changes to the state sole community provider law. The public hearing will be held at 9 a.m., on May 15, to discuss changes to the law that occurred due to the Legislature passing Senate bill 268, said Chairman James Duffey. Senate bill 268 was introduced as a way for counties to fund indigent care, requiring counties to put one-twelfth of the Gross Receipts Tax to the state fund which will supply money to help pay for indigent health care as well as fund county-owned hospitals. Counties have been granted a new taxing authority and the state pledged $9 million to help rural hospitals. “I can tell you the folks in Lea County don’t like this decision at all,” Commissioner Smiley Wooton said. The Sole Community Provider Program is a system of payments for indigent patient care to SCP Hospitals under a special program in New Mexico’s Medicaid Plan, which is a federal/state partnership, according to the website nmlegis.gov. The federal share, 75 percent, is funded by Medicaid dollars and the state’s 25 percent share is funded by counties via an intergovernmental transfer. At the end of 2012, however, the program faced a 70 percent reduction in allowable funding, reducing available payments from $246 million to about $69 million in 2013. As of Dec. 31, 2013, that program was terminated and replaced by the Safety Net Care Pool. The changes are tied to the state’s agreement with the federal government under the Affordable Health Care Act. The law will be enacted July 1. Senate bill 268 allows the Human Services Department to continue making additional payments to New Mexico’s
Syrian activists accuse US weighs clemency for inmates jailed for 10 years Assad of new gas attacks
See HEARING, Page A3
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is encouraging many nonviolent federal prisoners to apply for early release — and expecting thousands to take up the offer. It’s an effort to deal with high costs and overcrowding in prisons, and also a matter of fairness, the government says. On Wednesday, the Justice Department unveiled a revamped AP Photo clemency process directed primarily at low-level Deputy Attorney General James Cole holds up a list of guidefelons imprisoned for at lines during a news conference at the Justice Department in least 10 years who have Washington, Wednesday, clean records while in custody. The effort is part dence in our criminal jus- of March. And in Califorof a broader administra- tice system,” said Deputy nia, courts have ordered tion push to scale back Attorney General James the state to reduce the harsh penalties in some Cole in laying out new cri- inmate population to drug-related prosecutions teria that will be used in 137.5 percent of designed and to address sentencing evaluating clemency peti- capacity, or 112,164 disparities arising from tions for possible recom- inmates in the 34 facilithe 1980s crack cocaine mendation for the presi- ties, by February 2016. The White House, epidemic that yielded dis- dent’s approval. proportionately tough Though the criteria sometimes criticized as punishment for black apply solely to federal too stingy with its clemendrug offenders. inmates, states, too are cy power, says it’s seeking “These older, stringent grappling with severe more candidates for punishments that are out prison overcrowding. In leniency in an overcrowdof line with sentences Nebraska, for example, ed federal prison system imposed under today’s prisons were at 155 perlaws erode people’s confi- cent of capacity at the end See CLEMENCY, Page A2
TODAY’S FORECAST
HIGH 83 LOW 47
• LAWRENCE C. HARRIS • GARY M. LACKEY • THURMAN MAYBERRY
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian gover nment forces have attacked rebel-held areas with poisonous chlorine gas in recent weeks and months, leaving men, women and childr en coughing, choking and gasping for br eath, according to Associated Press interviews with more than a dozen activists,
medics and residents on the opposition side. Syria flatly denied the allegations, and they have yet to be confirmed by any foreign country or international organization. But if true, they highlight the limitations of the global ef fort to rid Pr esident Bashar Assad’s gover nment of its chemical
weapons.
Witnesses near Damascus and in a central rebelheld village told the AP of dozens of cases of choking, fainting and other afflictions from inhaling fumes that some said were yellowish and smelled like See GAS, Page A3
AP Photo
In this image from April 18, two women and a young girl are treated by a medic in Kfar Zeita, a rebelheld village in Hama province some 125 miles north of Damascus.
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A6
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B5 COMICS .................B4 ENTERTAINMENT .....B8 FINANCIAL ..............B3
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2 HOROSCOPES .........B8 LOTTERIES .............A2 OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8