Photo by Mike Smith, Artesia Daily Press
Scores of people gathered in downtown Artesia Saturday night for fire, food and music during Balloons, Bands and Brews.
The Artesia High School band and cheerleaders performed while balloonists fired their burners to the music and cheers.
Albuquerque based band Hooks and the Huckleberries were the headline band.
Staff reports
Century Bank announced Tuesday an initiative to aid furloughed employees affected by the current government shutdown. The bank’s program will include low or no-interest rates on personal unsecured loans, Certificate of Deposit secured loans, a payment deferral program for consumer loans, and no penalties for early withdrawal from Certificates of Deposits. Each need will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
“New Mexico is a such a beautiful state, and it is the people that make it vibrant. It is our duty as a community bank to support our neighbors. We are obligated to help on a more personal level,” said Anna Maggiore, director of public relations.
The Bank also announced record-breaking financial results for the quarter ending September 30, 2025. The Bank reports that core earnings and its capital position remain “very strong.”
“The communities we serve—and the people who make them what they are—remain our number one priority. We are in a strong position to help, and are committed to doing just that,” said John E. Brichetto, president and chief executive officer. “I am proud to report our third quarter financials and strong gains we’ve made in our core earnings, our current capital position as well as growth at the branch level.”
Highlights for the third quarter of 2025:
Net income was $9.5 million for the third quarter of 2025.
Tier 1 leveraged capital ratio increased to a healthy 9.60% in the third quarter.
“Century Bank, locally owned since 1887, remains committed to both financial strength and community support, reinforcing its role as a trusted partner in New Mexico,” read a statement from the bank.
Century Bank is a locally owned community bank established in 1887. Century Bank offers a wide range of banking products and services tailored to businesses and residents and is deeply committed to the communities it serves throughout New Mexico. For more information, visit www.mycenturybank.com.
Artesia Chamber of Commerce
The Artesia Chamber of Commerce is proud to welcome Fabricator’s Feast as one of its newest members.
Fabricator’s Feast serves freshly prepared meals right here in Artesia, with regular business hours from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Fridays. The business is conveniently located in the west parking lot of 1010 W. Main Street.
In addition to their regular menu, Fabricator’s Feast offers catering services for events of all sizes and will begin taking Thanksgiving orders next week.
Information and photo provided by New Mexico Department of Game and Fish
Trout, salmon, walleye and all kinds of fish are ready for anglers this weekend at lakes and streams in northern New Mexico.
At Ute Lake, fishing for walleye, white bass, blue gill, and channel catfish was good using 4-inch Gulp minnows on 3/8-ounce jig heads and 2 1/2-inch blade bates.
At Eagle Nest Lake, fishing for kokanee salmon was very good. Fishing for rainbow trout was slow when using flies and spoons from a boat.
Fishing for northern pike at Cochiti Lake was very good using minnows.
Along the San Juan River, fishing for rainbow trout was very good using size-24 grey-and-black Big Mac flies on a 6x tippet in the quality waters.
Fishing for trout was very good using PowerBait and pink worms at the Seven Springs Kids’ Pond.
At Red River, fishing for brown trout was slow to fair using Panther Martin spinners.
Fishing for trout was slow to fair using Green PowerBait at Santa Cruz Reservoir.
Fishing for catfish was slow to fair using chicken liver near the dam.
In southeast New Mexico at Eunice Lake, fishing for largemouth bass was very good using black and white chatterbaits and soft plastic crawfish.
This fishing report, provided by the Department of Game and Fish, has been generated from the best information available from area officers and anglers. Conditions encountered after the report is compiled may differ, as stream, lake and weather conditions alter fish and angler activities.
Owners Steve and Pam Wilson, along with their crew and sponsors team from Xcel Energy, set up their hot air balloon “The Empty Nest” at Roselawn Elementary Friday morning.
Pictured with a hot air balloon during the setup are (from left) Chelsea Frederick, Melissa Brennan, John Brennan, and DJ Gonzales (back of the balloon), Pam Wilson, and Candida Gonzales. The pilot, Steve Wilson, is in the basket. The event is a long-standing tradition in Artesia, New Mexico, held the first weekend of November each year.
Students watched in excitement as the balloon was filled with air.
Balloons and Tunes scheduled for the weekend.
Saturday, November 8, 2025
6:00 am – Balloon Launch (weather permitting) at Eagle Draw Park between 7th & 13th streets
6:00 am – Food & Coffee Trucks serving at Eagle Draw Park
7:00 am – Artesia’s first “inflatable costume race” inside the draw where hot air balloons lifted from
7:00 am – RC Balloons flying around Eagle Draw park as well
5:00 pm –9:00 pm – Balloons, Bands, & NM Brews @ parking lot at 5th & Texas St.
*6:00 pm – the hot air balloon pilots will play along side the AHS marching band in a “fire concert”
Sunday, November 9, 2025 – basic repeat of Saturday
6:00 am – Balloon Launch (weather permitting) at Eagle Draw Park between 7th & 13th streets
6:00 am – Food & Coffee Trucks serving at Eagle Draw
Clovis Livestock Market News
Martin Zamora, a Clovis farmer, rancher, businessman and state representative, officially announced his candidacy to challenge Teresa Leger Fernandez in New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District.
The Republican is the first announced challenger who would like to unseat current Democrat incumbent Teresa Leger Fernandez.
Reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show that Zamora outraised incumbent Leger Fernandez during the third quarter of 2025. Between July 1 and September 30, Zamora’s campaign brought in $247,065, compared to the $236,834 raised by Leger Fernandez during the same period.
Zamora’s campaign will focus on economic opportunity, energy independence, border security, and protecting the agricultural backbone of northern New Mexico.
Zamora, a native of Vaughn, is serving his fourth term in the New Mexico House, representing the citizens of District 63. The district includes all of De Baca and Guadalupe counties and portions of Curry, Roosevelt and San Miguel counties.
Zamora and his wife Debbie, a Clovis city councilor, have two daughters and six grandchildren.
He hosted a campaign event last month at the Artesia Country Club where Zamora met with local Republican leaders and touted his six years of experience in the Legislature.
Zamora sits on the Legislature’s interim Water and Natural Resources Committee, which recently met in Artesia to debate oil and gas policy.
Sherry Robinson
All She Wrote
Ranchers can finally take a deep breath and think about paying down long-term loans and rebuilding their herds because they finally caught a break on beef prices.
When the president told reporters on Air Force One that he was thinking about reducing beef prices by importing more beef from Argentina, he triggered an instant market reaction. Cattle futures dropped $9 overnight. It was a shock to cattle growers and threatened to undercut the first financial stability they’ve enjoyed in years.
The reaction from American producers was heated.
“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” said Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall said, “We know America’s families face challenges when food prices rise, but it’s important for President Trump to remember that farmers are facing an economic storm as well, and a vibrant U.S. cattle herd is at stake.”
On social media Trump responded: “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil. If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”
Shoppers and the president seem to think cattle growers have a bigger impact on the market than they actually do. Those high prices tell a story. Drought forced ranchers to reduce their herds. The federal government sharply cut imports of live cattle from Mexico because of the New World screwworm outbreak. And ranchers’ costs are up. They’re also at the mercy of a few meatpackers who set prices and take the lion’s share of profits.
Add strong demand to the mix.
I buy beef directly from a New Mexico rancher. When I asked her about all this, she was steamed that the president or anyone else thinks ranchers are getting rich. “It’s not like we control the price,” she said. “They (meatpackers) tell us what we’re going to get.”
She described years of drought in the state when everyone had to sell their cattle. That drove prices down. She has struggled ever since to rebuild her herd.
Ag economists say imports from Argentina won’t have much of an impact.
David Anderson, of Texas A&M University, told the High Plains Journal that just 2.1% of our beef imports come from Argentina. Most of U.S. beef imports come from Brazil, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand. “We’re importing record amounts of beef already, and we still have record high prices,” he said.
So if that’s the case, why the beef over Argentinian imports? It’s because we begin with an unfair trade system in which gaping loopholes disadvantage American producers. As my own beef supplier explained, any imported beef that is sliced, trimmed or repackaged in the U.S. can be called a U.S. product.
This loophole would allow foreign suppliers and multinational meatpackers to flood the U.S. market with cheaper imports “while putting U.S. ranchers on the losing end and depriving American consumers of honest transparency at the meat counter,” wrote U.S. Cattlemen’s Association President Justin Tupper in a letter to Trump.
“Efforts to lower prices through artificially increased imports and opaque labeling run against ‘America First’ ideals,” he added.
The bottom line is that buying a little Argentinian beef increases the supply a bit but doesn’t really bring prices down for American consumers. The beef isn’t necessarily better, and its producers don’t meet U.S. standards of land stewardship. The gains are one-sided, and it’s not our side.
Remember a line that’s normally dear to Republicans: Let the market work.
“Eventually, ranchers will be able to expand their herds in response to these high prices, and then we will have less production, and they’ll get lower prices, and that’s really how this works,” said Anderson, the economist. “Particularly for cow-calf producers, it’s about time when we’ve had prices like this. They’ve gone through a lot of years of terrible prices, rising costs, lack of profits, and drought. This is the time that they get to recoup those losses. Let’s not screw this up.”
Sherry Robinson is a longtime New Mexico reporter and editor. She has worked in Grants, Gallup, the Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico Business Weekly and Albuquerque Tribune. She is the author of four books. Her columns won first place in 2024 from New Mexico Press Women.
I read with great interest in the Ruidoso News the article written by Representative Elaine Sena Cortez of Hobbs, District 62 New Mexico addressing the far-left Democrats. Whereby describing the far left as what some call Socialist and others call Communist party ideals and agendas.
In both stigma names attached to the far-left democratic party leaders; followers believe the government should give you a home, a job, and food to eat. That the government can handle your business better than you can. So carefully let us examine that for just a moment.
The government shutdown in Washington D.C. is now into a month old stalemate in our U.S. Congress. The Democratic Party leadership has placed the wedge into the votes against opening up the government describing it as “their leverage”.
So let us examine this more openly.
The so-called Socialist/Communist ideal is in view for every American to now see and feel.
Thousands of government employees not being paid or working. Thousands depending on food from their paychecks now gone or the snap program to put food on the table for their family. Many of those can no longer pay their mortgage and many affected in government housing.
This should all be a wake-up call to every American. This is your very real and personal Socialist or Communist agenda for you to not only see but feel. No job, loss of housing ownership, no food. How is this government shut down working out for many Americans? It was said 42 million Americans loss of work by the federal employer. Possible as many depending on the SNAP program to feed their family.
In my view we are just getting a taste of the real Socialist Party agenda/leadership in your self well being. This is exactly how socialist/communist country’s are operated. They control your job, your housing, and your food. Americans can now get an actual taste of how socialism “really works”. View any socialist country and you see this as everyday life.
When you see any politicians pushing the socialist agenda, look closely at the Government shutdown today to get a feel of how this country would really be operated.
J.C. Mathiews
Woodson Texas
Jacob Fischler and Shauneen Miranda
Source New Mexico
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay about half of November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, though benefits could take months to flow to recipients, the department said Monday in a brief to a federal court in Rhode Island.
A four-page report from the USDA answered U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s order that President Donald Trump’s administration pay at least a portion of benefits to the 42 million people who receive assistance through the program by the end of Wednesday, despite the government shutdown.
The USDA action does not address what would happen if the shutdown stretches beyond November.
Leading Democrats in Congress blasted the administration’s decision to pay only part of the month’s benefits, saying Trump was willfully denying food assistance to needy Americans.
“Providing partial benefits is not enough, is not compliant with the law, and it’s particularly cruel of Trump with the Thanksgiving season around the corner,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
McConnell on Saturday laid out two options for the administration: Pay for partial benefits by the end of Wednesday through a contingency fund, which currently has about $4.65 billion available, or pay for a full month of benefits by tapping other reserve sources such as the child nutrition program by the end of Monday.
USDA opted to use the contingency fund, giving the department until the end of Wednesday to pay out benefits.
But a declaration from Patrick A. Penn, USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said the administrative hurdles in calculating and delivering a half-month’s portion of benefits could take “anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months.”
The department was complying with McConnell’s order by starting the process of resuming payments Monday, according to the status report signed by U.S. Justice Department officials.
USDA “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State,” they said. “USDA will therefore have made the necessary funds available and have authorized the States to begin disbursements once the table is issued.”
Delayed SNAP benefits in shutdown
McConnell’s order acknowledged that calculating reduced benefits would take the government some time, which he explained was why he gave USDA until Wednesday if the department chose that path.
But Penn said Monday that was not nearly enough time, in part due to some states’ outdated systems for processing benefits.
The federal government would provide states with updated tables for benefits at the partial funding level by Monday, he said. States will then need to send updated files to the vendors that process benefits and add them to beneficiaries’ debit-like EBT cards to be spent on groceries.
Monday marked the 34th day of the federal government shutdown, which began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs or pass a stopgap spending bill.
The U.S. Senate was expected to hold another procedural vote to move forward the House-passed GOP stopgap bill that would fund the government at fiscal 2025 levels until Nov. 21.
Democrats have voted against that measure in a bid to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
On Tuesday, the funding lapse will tie for the longest shutdown in history, which took place between 2018 and 2019.
Contingency fund dispute
Leading up to the end of October, the administration had warned it could not pay SNAP benefits for this month amid the shutdown, saying it was legally forbidden from using the contingency fund that was supposed to be for natural disasters and similar emergencies.
But two federal judges ruled Oct. 31 that the USDA not only could use the fund but was obligated to in order to keep SNAP benefits flowing.
Saturday marked the first lapse in benefit payments in the modern history of the program that dates to part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty agenda.
Lawmakers, advocates and SNAP experts said users of the program would see a delay in November benefits as the administration worked to restart it.
The administration’s insistence it could not use its contingency fund, originally appropriated by Congress at $6 billion, was a reversal from a Sept. 30 USDA plan on how to operate in a shutdown, which explicitly called for use of the fund to keep issuing benefits.
A month of SNAP benefits costs the federal government about $9 billion.
While USDA would not use the contingency fund to pay for regular benefits, it did spend about $750 million of the original $6 billion for other uses in October, according to a Monday declaration to the court by Penn.
The department spent about $450 million for state administrative expenses and $300 million for block grants to Puerto Rico and American Samoa, Penn wrote.
The department would again allocate $450 million for administrative expenses in November and $150 million for the block grants to territories, he added.
That left $4.65 billion available for November benefits, Penn wrote.
No use of child nutrition funds
Penn also explained USDA’s decision not to use a fund for a child nutrition program to cover shortfall for SNAP benefits.
The administration wanted to keep that fund fully stocked, he said.
“Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” he said. “Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances.”
The child nutrition program funds school meals, summer meals for children and summer EBT benefits for low-income families with children. The school lunch program alone serves about 29 million children per day, Penn said.
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