Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 121, No. 89 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) — A new conservation campaign is sending a musical message to policy makers and Hispanics in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, urging them to protect the Colorado River. Nuestro Rio launched its advocacy effort Thursday with events in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Albuquerque ... - PAGE A6
April 13, 2012
Napolitano: Patrol ‘best in the world’ NOAH VERNAU RECORD STAFF WRITER
NUESTRO RIO LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
FRIDAY
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The 1,000th session of the U.S. Border Patrol graduated Thursday at Artesia High School, a historic landmark for the academy which held its first formal training sessions 78 years ago, and now employs more than 20,000 agents nationwide. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was on hand to congratulate the academy’s 42 graduates, saying the new agents will join what she considers to be the most outstanding Border Patrol ever assembled. “I am proud to say that we now have the largest, the best trained, and the best equipped Border Patrol that we’ve had at any time in our nation’s history,” Napolitano said. “In fact, I would say with all
respect to our Canadian partners here, I think we have the best Border Patrol in the world.” Border Patrol aligned with Customs and Border Protection under DHS after 9/11, and has graduated more than 500 sessions in the 11 years that have followed. Napolitano said that in those 11 years, DHS has made the United States border one of its top priorities, employing unprecedented levels of technology, personnel, and resources to the border area. “Thanks to the men and women, who like you are working on the front lines along the borders, we’ve achieved historic results,” she said. “We’ve achieved historic decreases in illegal immigration, and it’s measured by total apprehensions, See BORDER, Page A3
Mark Wilson Photo
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano greets graduates of the 1,000th session of the Border Patrol Academy in Artesia, Thursday.
‘You forgot my snack? I could just screech!’
VANESSA KAHIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• College Blvd. extension opens ... • 3-vehicle accident • Carnella and Abby share true-blue ... • BLM discusses lizard, chicken • Roswell wins pair of one-run games
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
Military Heights Elementary students admire E.T. the owl,Thursday morning. To help educate the youngsters about raptors, Doris Mager and the Birds of Prey program paid a visit to the school in conjunction with the Spring River Zoo and Friends of the Roswell Zoo. Mager brought with her a variety of birds including a crested caracara, a burrowing owl, an American kestral hawk and E.T., short for Extra Terrific, a great horned owl.
ROCKET POWER
ARTESIA — Professional sports have preseason or exhibition games to prepare competitors for the real season. In high school sports nondistrict games can be viewed as exhibition, because the real season starts when district play commences. For the Goddard girls tennis team the start of its real season started on Thursday with 5-4 victory over Artesia. The match started with doubles action and ... - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Austin Reischman • Mildred Marie Adams • Andres F. Rodriguez • Charles M. Fullinwider • Helen Dale Eldred - PAGE A6
HIGH ...89˚ LOW ....54˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B4 COMICS.................B3 ENTERTAINMENT.....B4 FINANCIAL .............A7 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8 THE WEST ............A6
INDEX
UFO Fest to get $50K
With only two months left to stage Roswell’s biggest annual event, MainStreet Roswell has stepped forward as the entity that will coordinate the 2012 UFO Festival. The City Council voted unanimously to give MainStreet Roswell $50,000 to host the UFO Festival during a meeting at City Hall, Thursday. Lodger’s Tax funds in the amount of $75,000 had already been set aside for the event. However, when the International UFO Museum & Research Center decided to do an event separate from the city, Roswell was left with the already-allocated funds. Councilor Jason Perry questioned why MainStreet Roswell was only receiving $50,000, less than what the UFO Museum was to receive. City Manager Larry Fry said the remaining funds had been a carryover from the 2011 UFO Festival, but were still available should MainStreet Roswell have extra expenditures.
Western states prep for dangerous fire season
DENVER (AP) — The West’s 2012 wildfire season exploded in ear nest last month with a windwhipped blaze that killed three people in rugged alpine canyon country near Denver. It took a 700strong federal firefighting team a week of labor, day and night, to tame the blaze — and other states throughout the West took notice.
Fire experts say this year’s drought, low snowpack and record-high temperatures in much of the West portend a dangerous installment of what has
become a year-round wildfire threat. Wildfires burned more than 1,500 square miles in Arizona last year and have already torched about 12 square miles this year. New Mexico, too, experienced its two biggest-ever wildfires in 2011, consuming 245 and 160 square miles, respectively. January and February were the driest on record in California, where the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has battled 679 fires in its jurisdiction — about a third of the state — since Jan. 1, compared
See UFO, Page A3
to 210 over the same period last year. Fire threats are expected to be above normal in the mountains, the central coast and inland areas such as San Bernardino County, said department spokesman Daniel Berlant. Nearly all of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah have drought conditions that should persist at least through June, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb.
AP Photo
A forest burns during a backburn operation to fight the Wallow Fire in Nutrioso, Ariz., June 10.
Skandera visits Sierra’s Career Day Hasn’t worked? Prez Sierra Middle School hosted its third annual Career Day, Thursday. Representatives from 67 occupations described the challenges and rewards of their chosen vocations to more than 600 students, who rotated among presentations every 20 minutes throughout the morning. Among the career fields showcased were ranching, medicine, manufacturing, sales, transportation, banking, education, culinary arts, law enforcement, legal assistance, environmental resources management and the military. A highlight of this year’s program was the presence of New Mexico Secretary of Education designate Hanna Skandera, who spoke about
See FIRE, Page A3
stands up for Ann R
Charles Fischer Photo
New Mexico Secretary of Education designate Hanna Skandera fields questions during Sierra Middle School’s Career Day, Thursday.
her path from California to one of the highest positions in New Mexico State government. Rhonda Martinez, Sierra principal, said, “We felt honored that Secretary Skandera accepted our
invitation to participate in our Career Day. Her presence emphasized the importance of what we are trying to convey about planning for the future.“
See CAREER, Page A3
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House — and President Barack Obama himself — rushed into a damage control campaign Thursday to blunt the impact of a Democratic consultant’s suggestion that Ann Romney isn’t qualified to discuss the economy because she “has not worked a day in her life.”
“It was the wrong thing to say,” Obama declared in an interview with WCMHTV in Columbus, Ohio, standing up for Republican rival Mitt Romney’s wife with Democrats suddenly on the defensive over women’s issues for the first time this election year. Of the “ill-advised statement” by consultant Hilary Rosen, he added, “It’s not some-
thing that I subscribe to.” In an interview with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, TV station KCRG, the president said “there’s no tougher job than being a mom” and cited the efforts of his wife, Michelle, and his own mother, a single woman with two children. “That’s work,” he said. “So, anybody who would argue otherwise probably needs to rethink their statement.” The president’s remarks were his answer to Rosen’s comments and the Twitter war they ignited. The mere fact that he weighed in on the uproar left no doubt that Democrats want to leave nothing to chance in their effort to keep female See WORK, Page A3