Community News

[Editor's Note: This was received from his daughter Stephanie, expressing her thanks to everyone who took care of her father.]

Dear friends and family,
I want to extend my deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for honoring my dad's memory: 

LEVELLAND, TX (01/03/2025)-- Ketch Bays of Hurley, NM was named to the South Plains College Fall 2024 President's List.

Bays was among more than 400 students named to the list.

To qualify, students must earn a GPA of 4.0 and complete a minimum of 12 credit hours.

South Plains College is a comprehensive, two-year community college that serves the greater South Plains area of Texas with innovative educational programs that span the arts and sciences, technical education, continuing education and workforce development. Serving a 13-county area that comprises the southern portion of the Texas High Plains, the college's main campus is located in Levelland. SPC also offers educational programs at three locations in Lubbock - the SPC Lubbock Downtown Center, the SPC Lubbock Career and Technical Center and the SPC Reese Center - as well as an extension center in Plainview.

Silver City, NM – Gila Regional Medical Center (GRMC) is proud to announce that Dr. Frederick Wendler, a highly skilled and experienced general surgeon, has joined the GRMC team. Dr. Wendler will begin seeing patients in a new location, now operating as Gila Regional Surgical Services II, at 1304 East 32nd Street., Silver City, NM 88061.

The clinic will officially open under GRMC on January 6, 2025. Starting on this date, patients can schedule appointments by calling 575-388-3175.

SILVER CITY, NM—Students in the WNMU School of Business are outpacing their peers at other institutions according to the results of standardized testing.

Students in the bachelor's degree program in Business Administration are given an examination administered by Peregrine Global Services that assesses their understanding of a variety of business subjects, including economics, marketing, human resource management and business ethics. Their knowledge of these topics is tested first when they begin their academic study and again when they complete the program.

[Editor's NoteL This editor was assured that every child pictured had a release form required by the Elks to be signed by parents  or guardians.]

Photos by: Marie C Weil

Silver City Elks Lodge #413
12TH Annual Breakfast with Santa
Saturday December 21, 2024
Theme: All Aboard, Polar Express
Submitted by Andrew Housley, Secretary

This was the 12th year the Silver City Elks Lodge 413 held its Breakfast with Santa. Sixty children and youth received bags full of gifts, some even received bikes.

This annual event supports students K-5 from every elementary school in the Silver and Cobre School Districts. Students are chosen by school officials as ones who may need a little extra help from Santa.

We invite students and their families to breakfast serving eggs, pancakes, sausage and hashbrowns. This year Elk Members spent $9,000+ to ensure a magical moment for some of our community's most valuable assets.

Photos by Mary Alice Murphy

The Silver City Museum's latest exhibit, "Healers and Heroines: Women and the Shaping of Local Health Care," opened Saturday, December 14, in the museum's Dodge Gallery, and is scheduled to run through 2025.

These photos provide a sampling of what you will see at the Museum, which is open: 

Tuesday through Friday
9 am to 4:30 pm.

Saturdays and Sundays
10 am to 4 pm

SILVER CITY, NM—The Western New Mexico University Board of Regents held a special meeting December 20, 2024 for the purpose of discussing the contract of university President Dr. Joseph Shepard.

In the public portion of the meeting, Shepard read from a prepared statement announcing that he will be stepping away from his role as president on January 15, 2025.

Shepard noted that media coverage of the university, centered on its handling of financial matters, has proved a distraction from the significant accomplishments WNMU has achieved under his 13-year leadership. His decision to step away from the presidency, he said, was in the best interest of the university’s students and faculty, who could proceed to focus on academic excellence without distraction.

Silver City, NM — Silver Consolidated Schools is pleased to announce that the Public School Facilities Authority (PSFA) has approved the district's standards-based request for the complete replacement of Cliff Combined School. This long-awaited and anxiously anticipated decision addresses significant facility challenges while advancing our commitment to creating a safer, more efficient learning environment for students and staff.

The current Cliff Combined School campus consists of nine buildings. These aging structures have surpassed their functional lifespan. Due to prohibitive renovation costs, the campus layout — characterized by scattered buildings and excessive, underutilized space caused by declining enrollment — cannot be efficiently modernized. The spread-out design also creates unavoidable security risks.