Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
On this date ...
1974: The National Transportation Safety Board criticized the New Mexico Highway Department for failing to improve hazardous conditions at a narrow U.S. 60 bridge before a church bus and cattle truck collided two years ago, killing 19 people.
The report stated that highway officials were aware of hazardous conditions at the bridge near Fort Sumner, but “the officials, instead of making spot improvements, waited for construction of a new highway.”
In another report, school buses put in to operation in New Mexico since Jan. 1, 1972, must have seats attached with bolts instead of screws. The NTSB report on the crash stated some of the passengers might have lived if bus seats had been more adequately secured. Bolts would have increased chances of a seat staying intact during the collision by 60%.
— Edited transcripts of White House tapes show President Richard Nixon considered paying hush money to defendants in the Watergate break-in, but he turned down proposals they be granted clemency. The disclosure triggered additional controversy over Nixon’s role in the scandal.
— The New Mexico Amigos, the state’s goodwill ambassadors, landed at the Albuquerque airport after a weeklong trip to Salt Lake City, Boise, Idaho; Spokane, Washington; and Sacramento, California. Those from Tucumcari making the trip were Forrest Currell, George Evetts, Thomas Nutt and Marvin Broce.
— State police arrested and charged a Tucson, Arizona, man west of Tucumcari on U.S. 66 after finding 117 pounds of marijuana in his vehicle during a routine traffic check.
— A century plant was in the process of blooming in front of the Casa Blanca Hotel in Logan. The center stalk was growing about a foot per day. The plant, known as Agave Americana, was given to the hotel in the late 1940s.