Photos by Mike Smith, Artesia Daily Press

Downtown Artesia was a festive place Friday night during night two of the Red Dirt Black Gold Festival.

The fun concludes at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Kids cooled off with a foam bath before the music started.

Ezekiel Montoya performed near the Ocotillo Theater Friday night.

Jolene Bollema (left) and Yvonne Wright Padilla sold Cherie Glow skincare products.

John Hibbard and the Haybirds took to the stage in front of concert goers.

Staff Reports

Wednesday’s opening day of the first ever National Championship Air Races in Roswell was marked with a ribbon cutting and five classes of planes (STOL Drag, Biplane, Formula 1, T-6 and Jet) posting qualifying times toward the remainder of the week.

The ribbon cutting ceremony took place in the morning where a brand new Roswell branded home pylon replica marks the entrance of the event. In attendance were Mayor Tim Jennings, NCAR CEO Fred Telling and several state and city local officials, as well as NCAR representatives. Afterwards, students from New Mexico’s elementary schools were among the first attendees as the event kicked off in Roswell. School buses shuttled students to the Roswell Air Center for a field trip to visit the STEM Discovery Zone and an opportunity to watch the first heats of planes race around the course while seeing planes up close in the event’s pit area.

Thursday saw another exciting day of racing. All five classes continued to compete for placement in the races. A welcoming ceremony was held shortly before noon before another round of qualifying heats and air show acts took to the skies.

In honor of the anniversary of September 11, a military fly over was held. The complete event schedule can be found online at NCAR’s website along with daily results.

For fans planning to attend the rest of the week’s event, NCAR has updated its water policy. Now, attendees will be allowed two sealed water bottles, per person per day. Complimentary water bottles will also be available at Eastern New Mexico University’s Medical tent, located three rows back from the grand stands.

The National Championship Air Races are the premier air racing event in the world. The air races were held Sept. 10-14 at the Roswell Air Center. For tickets or more information please visit www.airrace.org.

Mike Smith
Artesia Daily Press
msmith@currentargus.com

Three days of live music, food, craft vendors and homemade beer await partygoers from southeast New Mexico during the Red Dirt Black Gold Festival in downtown Artesia.

Now in its 10th year, the annual festival is sponsored by Artesia MainStreet as a celebration of the region’s oil and gas industry.

Ticket prices start at $10 for attendees 21 years of age and over. General admission is free for those 20 and under. VIP tickets for individuals and couples are also available.

Tickets can be purchased online at the festival website.

Gates are open from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. each night. Music performances start at 6 p.m.

Here’s a quick look at the Red Dirt Black Gold (RDBG) Festival.

Where is it?

Vendors will set up in the Heritage Plaza downtown. Bands will perform on stage on Texas Street, across from City Hall.

Who is performing?

Sept. 11 is New Mexico Heritage Night featuring El Origen Norteno and Los Consentidos Del Norte CD Juarez.

Sept. 12 is Indie Folk Night featuring Mammoth Cult, John Hibbard and the Haybirds, and Mirarge – Visions of Fleetwood Mac.

Sept. 13 is Red Dirt Black Gold Night, featuring Clayton Runer, Hooks and the Huckleberries, Kenny Feidler, and Cody Canada and the Departed.

Where to eat?

Food vendors will be lined up on West Texas Street from the Artesia Post Office to Western Bancshares of New Mexico at the corner of West Texas Avenue and Roselawn Avenue. They include:

Changos Birria Tacos, Rebel Daughters BBQ, Red’s Concessions, The Sno Cone Place, My Daddy’s BBQ, Ensemble Treats, Weiner Wagon, Taco Loco, Small Town Grill, Wild West Soda, Patio Pizza, Get Smashed Burgers, Little Bits, Peachy Keen, ET Concessions, King Crab and House of Grub.

What else is there to do?

Craft vendors will open at 5 p.m. on all three nights.

A cornhole tournament is set for Friday and Saturday. A pickleball tournament is set for Sept. 12 and Sept. 13 at Jaycee Park at 1710 South 26th Street.

More information can be found at https://www.reddirtblackgold.com/

Mike Smith can be reached at 575-628-5546 extension-2361.

By Galen Farrington
Alto Resident

Four conspirators gathered in London, England, in February 1998 and created Al-Qaeda, with Osama bin Laden as the leader of what would become the world’s most horrific terrorist organization. Three months later the American news (ABC-TV) interviewed bin Laden in Afghanistan. The result was the revelation of the evil intent directed at the West with the U.S. publicly outed as Al-Qaeda’s number one “infidel.” Every American on earth was to be destroyed no matter where they were. And with that admonition, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States was conceived.

The years of patient planning, training, testing, and security surveillance resulted in a team of well-trained spiritual extremist terrorists commandeering four sacrificial commercial airliners with the intent of targeting both towers of the World Trade Center (the business home of all “infidels”), the Pentagon (the military home of the world’s most significant “infidels”), and the Capitol (the home of the most powerful “infidel” government).

Two thousand nine hundred seventy seven lives were lost in the assault on the Twin Towers in New York City (more than 33,000 suffered from immediate to long-term injuries), 184 lives were lost as a result of the third strike into the Pentagon, and 40 lives were lost with the heroic diversion of Flight 93 into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The three memorials that have been established pay tribute to the men and women who have, according to one widow of a military veteran, demonstrated “love for country and service to God.”

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York provides educational resources for everyone, attempts to foster a deeper understanding of the most intense terrorist attack on U.S. soil in history, and actively engages with family members, survivors, and first responders as the healing process continues. As revealed in a recent 60 Minutes broadcast (Aug. 24, 2025), evidence is still being shedding new understanding about this evil event. Investigations and lawsuits continue to unravel the hideous planning.

In 2008, the Pentagon Memorial opened and perpetuates the concept of a patriot: “… a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against all enemies.” (Oxford).

The list of victims of the Shanksville diversion is mercifully short and the Flight 93 National Memorial tended to by the National Park Service truly immortalized the patriots who sacrificed their lives to save those targeted at the U.S. Capitol building – the zenith of patriotism.

On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report was published. The 585-page document revealed an American bipartisan cohesiveness not politically witnessed very often. Political ideologies were ignored as the commission reviewed more than 2.5 million pages of documentation and interviewed more than 1,200 individuals, resulting in 19 days of hearings involving 160 witnesses. The two mandated questions to be addressed: “How did this happen?” and “How can we avoid such a tragedy again?” The report’s objective was to produce a document in which the investigators would provide “… hope (that) our report will encourage our fellow citizens to study, reflect – and act.” The obvious reference is to Spanish philosopher George Santayana’s famous quote about human behavior, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is why we create days of remembrance. Thirty percent of Americans living today were not born previous to the September 11, 2001, attack. Those of us who know exactly where we were at the hour of destruction have the responsibility of never allowing this event to drift quietly into a foggy past.

Three days after the attack, President George W. Bush declared Sept. 14 a National Day of Prayer. Three months later, a government decree declared Sept. 11 as a “National Day of Service and Remembrance” and today is celebrated at more than 60 national cemeteries where “Volunteers clean headstones and beautify the sacred grounds in tribute to our military, veterans, first responders and their families.”

When the American flag is lowered to half-mast today, we will all pause at 8:46 a.m. (EDT) in a moment of silence to remember in prayer American Airlines Flight 11 direct hit to the North Tower of the World Trade Center and the families impacted directly by the events that followed.

Twenty-four years later, those families are not forgetting and continued investigations are uncovering major elements of evidence that for various reasons were not available to the original commission. The work continues and we must not forget. Events of this threatening magnitude make us all realize our national vulnerability. But it is also our national, American reaction that reveals that we are truly “one nation under God.”

And as such, every day should be one of patriotism.