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Last modified: April 14, 2008

Headline News From Feb. 1, 2002 Issue

T or C as seen on the Internet 

  They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right. Let’s hope this is true because our, shall we say quaint, little town of Truth or Consequences is getting plenty of publicity on the Internet.

  Sierra County holds surprises for all rockhounds, from the casual hiker who is just picking up pretty stones to the dedicated geologist seeking treasure.

Alleged child molester remains in jail for now 

  “Thank God,” whispered the mother of a four-year-old girl when Magistrate Tom Pestak on Tuesday afternoon denied confessed child molester Ryan Duran’s motion to reduce his bond.

  A criminal complaint filed Jan. 24 in magistrate court alleges a Truth or Consequences man distributed methamphetamine to a woman electronically bugged on Jan. 23.

Who killed The Lupine Pack? 

  Everything was so wonderful when they broke out of the pen in June, it was green, the weather was warm and there were plenty of baby elk on the ground to eat.

BLM accepts public comments on Camino Real Historic Trail  

The Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comments and suggestions through the end of today (Friday, Feb. 1) addressing the decisions that need to be made regarding long-term management, resource protection and the visitor experience to El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road of the Interior)...

The east side of Palomas Gap between Turtleback Peak and the Caballos is arched with a light cover under the darkness of a winter storm Tuesday afternoon.
Photo by Bill Johnson

T or C as seen on the Internet

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right. Let’s hope this is true because our, shall we say quaint, little town of Truth or Consequences is getting plenty of publicity on the Internet.

In a Google search alone, thousands of websites can be found that refer to T or C in thousands of different ways.

Many of these are innocuous enough, listing T or C’s hotels and motels or describing its geography, topography and climate. Nothing wrong with these and they may help attract visitors.

But many other sites display information, or misinformation, which probably isn’t what our Chamber of Commerce or Tourism Board would put on the net.

Laurie Kilmartin, a comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend, relates a story about how a hose ripped away from a gas station’s tank when she visited T or C last October.

“From my rearview mirror,” the comic reports, “the nozzle and hose appeared eager to get the hell out of Truth or Consequences.”

You can read more about her adventures at www.kilmartin .com/ hoaxes/truth.html.

In his ‘Through a Rabbit Windshield Darkly,’ Jon Adams at www.jonadams.com in 1987 opines that T or C “isn’t much of a town.”

Maybe Mr. Adams would be more impressed now that we have an ALCO store and a lovely new fountain on Main Street.

Truth or Consequences is described on a New Mexico Travel Time site as “a pretty grotty town” where “the weirdness factor is high.” The author adds, “Erika (whoever that is) tells me that it’s undergoing some sort of transformation and become tres chic or something.”

For the benefit of anyone reading this article on the Internet and searching for a trendy locale, it should be added that certain elements, who may not be able to afford Taos or Santa Fe, have been trying to make T or C tres chic or something for years.

But attracting the beautiful people to T or C could be a hopeless cause when the cyber wags present another - and perhaps more prevailing - image of this would-be haven for the smart set.

T or C is featured on the White Trash Tour (Revised) at http://paos.colorado.edu/~arbetter/whitetrash.html, and Zuba, the author of Walking Bitch’s White Trash Diner (www.wb.bappy.com/2000_06_11_oldshit.html), serves up her impression of T or C with a helping of erroneous information about how the town got its name.

“So yesterday was Ralph Edwards birthday,” the Walking Bitch says and continues:

“Ralph Edwards was the host of Truth or Consequences the game show.

“Needless to say, he was from a small town in New Mexico that, you guessed it, renamed the town Truth or Consequences, the longest name of a town in the US, in honor of the ‘famous’ guy that was from there.

“They have a parade every year through the town, because it is ‘Ralph Edwards Day.’ YEP nutin like white trash... lol.

“How do I know all this?. My sister has lived in Truth or Consequences, NM for about 7 years now, and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of inbreeding that takes place down there.

“People still mine for gold down there for crissakes.”

In his must-read article “Truth or Consequences” posted on www.hayoke.com/id23.htm, Kent Black describes T or C as a town of flinty-eyed cowboys and new-age acolytes and a town of lean expectations and incomes.

It gets worse.

Quoting one T or C resident, Black says, “Or it may be as the retired gentleman on the sidewalk remarked, ‘You know what the problem with this town is? Too much damn inbreeding! Look at these people. You can see it. Damn fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, aunts all sleeping together messing up the damn gene pool!’"

Again with the inbreeding. I seriously doubt that T or C is any more incestuous than other towns, maybe it just has a certain web-toed look about it.

While Black senses that T or C has its “dark side,” he seems to have expectations of Truth or Consequences’ brighter future.

“Still, for the last several years, people like Waldrum, Howe and Kortemeier have been subtly turning the town in other directions,” Black said.

Well that’s a little vague but I suppose he means T or C could be chic someday after all.

Christopher Reynolds, a Times Travel writer, says on http://adserver.latimes.com/ that T or C is a strong candidate for recognition as the weirdest town in the West.

T or C’s reputed dark and side weirdness may have inspired a hopeful scriptwriter, or maybe she just found the name intriguing.

At www.socalbrand.com/colb/ stories/stalkinghorse/stalking horse.txt the author offers her plot for the TV show X Files in which Agents Scully and Mulder are called to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, to investigate a series of bizarre murders.

The author in her note says she has created a mythical landscape for Truth or Consequences and admits she has abused dates and times. Her disclaimer: “I dunno, I'm having fun.”

Speaking of X Files, unidentified flying objects described as three cylindrical objects, light green in color, were sighted at T or C on Aug. 3, 1952, according to a website located at www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/520803.htm.

Almost as surreal as reported UFO sightings is a website whose sole content is the words “I left my heart in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico” four times in four combinations of upper and lower case text.

This little oddity can be found at www.mcfedries.com/books/ cightml/sstrans.htm and proves there’s a lot of useless junk on the Internet.

But after all the T or C bashing we can take pride, I guess, in being listed on an Odd Town Names site by someone with the improbable name of Turnip Smith.

On this site, www.ks.essort ment.com/oddtownnames_rkom.htm, T or C takes its honored place along with Intercourse, PA, Knockemstiff, OH, and Maggie's Nipples, WY.

Ralph Edwards may not be from Truth or Consequences but neither are a few professional wrestlers who have made T or C their fictitious hometowns.

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CLICK HERE FOR MORE LINKS TO RELATED STORIES

…A time for prospecting

Frank Craig displays samples of lava he found on top of a small volcano east of the Caballo Mountains Tuesday afternoon. Although windy, cold and cloudy this particular day, winter usually provides the perfect climate and conditions for rock hounding in Sierra County in southern New Mexico.
Photo by Bill Johnson

Paradise for rockhounds

By Carol Main of the Desert Journal

Sierra County holds surprises for all rockhounds, from the casual hiker who is just picking up pretty stones to the dedicated geologist seeking treasure.

The natural landscape was formed over 30 million years ago when volcanoes erupted and earthquakes split the ground, spewing and driving molten rock and minerals skyward.

Even the peaceful Rio Grande flows south from Colorado because of two north-south earthquake faults that long ago tore the State of New Mexico in half.

This fissured mountain area with cliff faces of stratified minerals and ores separated by desert stretches that are crossed by canyons and streams is a rockhound's paradise.

Beautiful yellow carnotite uranium can be found near Monticello, along with pale yellow magnesite calcite crystals, a commercially mined source of copper.

Reddish bronze bornite, which tarnishes to a deep purple and blue ‘peacock ore,’ may be picked up near the Copper Flat Mine near Hillsboro, along with bluish-green chrysocolla which is softer than turquoise and is used in ornamental stones.

Pink amethyst, green tourmaline, aragonite crystals and agates are found east of the Caballo Mountains and on across the desert floor past Engle.

The banks of the Rio Grande yield up agate quartz rocks with a strip of agate sandwiched between clear quartz and vice versa.

Red with white crystal cinnabar can be found in the cliffs south of Cuchillo Negro Dam. And there is pale green and pink Beryl all through the San Andreas Mountains, as well as black lava and white quartz, while Iron Mountain near Winston is a good source for red iron ore and berylum.

Each streambed, canyon wall, and cliff face holds a variety of unique rocks since volcanoes were not restricted in their “throw patterns” and rain, wind and rock slides constantly uncover more treasures.

Dry streambeds and arroyos should be searched during the winter because fall monsoon rains often wash new rocks down from higher elevations.

Old mine shafts should be avoided because rattlesnakes love them, but many shades of quartz, from pink to milky white, often lie on the slopes below the old mines.

Deep dark caves should also be avoided unless a person is looking for bears, snakes, cougars or wolves.

There are nine rattlesnake species in the county, including the pink speckled rattler that is hard to see in the rugged rocks it prefers on canyon walls and that is active at night during the summer. And also the mojave coon tailed rattler is very aggressive with extremely toxic venom.

Unusual rocks are found in the snakes' normal habitat areas, but rockhounds must search with one ear cocked for that telltale sound.

Most Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land in the county is leased to ranchers and permission must be received to go onto it. But all U.S. Forest Service roads are public property and many lead to beautiful rock formations and cliffs while crossing irresistible streams and arroyos.

A good rule of thumb to go by is to consider all backcountry roads public until you reach a fence. Don't cross the fence.

But there are a myriad of public backcountry roads and they, and the land on each side of them, all deserve exploration.

Some gravel roads, right after they have been graded, suddenly have lovely stones beside them.

Most rockhounds do not care that the name of the tan rock with wavy red lines in it is rhyolite, or that it was formed by rapid cooling when viscous granite magma erupted 30 million years ago. They do care that it will make a lovely paper weight and that they found it.

Rockhounding can be a fun and safe hobby if people take normal care. A hat and a long sleeved shirt should always be worn in the desert, with trousers and sensible shoes or boots.

Take plenty of water, and carry a canvas or leather tote sack because the best rocks are never close to the road.

The only time it is safer NOT to go rock hunting in Sierra County is July - September. The reasons are snakes, bears, and flash floods.

Some snakes will have shed their skins and rattles, and not yet grown their new ones, so there will be no warning before the strike.

The bears know they must eat a lot before hibernating for the winter so they get aggressive.

And this is the monsoon season when flash floods are the rule, not the exception, and people can drown or get trapped in the mountains or desert overnight.

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The southeastern reach of Elephant Butte Lake shimmers with a late afternoon streak of light that peeks through the clouds of a winter storm Tuesday.
Photo by Bill Johnson

Alleged child molester remains in jail for now

By Fred Mramor of the Desert Journal

“Thank God,” whispered the mother of a four-year-old girl when Magistrate Tom Pestak on Tuesday afternoon denied confessed child molester Ryan Duran’s motion to reduce his bond.

Duran, 32, is being held at the Sierra County Detention Facility on a $20,000 cash only bond facing charges of criminal sexual contact with a minor and kidnapping after molesting a little girl at his Truth or Consequences home last November.

Public defender Gary Gaudette in a conference call from Los Lunas pleaded that Duran has no prior criminal record and that his offense was an aberration.

Gaudette said his client is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

Gaudette said Duran has been cooperative and forthright with police and did not run when he had ample opportunity.

The public defender said the Durans moved 10 miles from the victim and her family to lessen their distress and that the Durans have had no contact with them since the attack.

Gaudette added that Duran was employed (as a pizza delivery driver) and lived with his wife and son prior to the incident.

He said Duran will keep his behavior in check if allowed to return to his family and rehabilitate and show the court that he is responsible.

The public defender asked that Duran be released on his own recognizance or be allowed to put up a surety bond through a bail bondsman.

Assistant District Attorney June Stein argued that the nature of the charges against Duran indicate he is a danger to the community. Stein said that though he confessed to the charges against him, Duran was not as forthcoming with police as his attorney suggested and that part of Duran’s statement shows his only concern was for himself.

Stein said it is well documented that persons who molest children don’t offend only once and that Duran in having acted on his urges is a danger to others.

The prosecutor asked the court to maintain the conditions of bond, which she said are reasonable under the circumstances.

Magistrate Pestak agreed with the public defender that Duran does not appear to be a flight risk but also agreed with the prosecutor that Duran poses a danger to the community based on the seriousness of his crime and ruled that Duran will remain in jail on a $20,000 cash only bond.

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The receding waters of Elephant Butte Lake have caused the emergence of tiny islands and peninsulas in the mouth of McRae Canyon.
Photo by Bill Johnson

Man busted in meth sting

Desert Journal Staff Report

A criminal complaint filed Jan. 24 in magistrate court alleges a Truth or Consequences man distributed methamphetamine to a woman electronically bugged on Jan. 23.

David Freeman, 38, of a residence behind 610 W. Third Ave., was arrested without a warrant with the help of a woman whom police had arrested after stopping her vehicle and finding her pocket contained two baggies containing “speed” (slang for uppers or central nervous system stimulants) or white powdery substance, according to Detective Sgt. Ron Wrye of the T or C Police Department in the statement of probable cause.

The woman told police after her arrest on a court warrant for failure to appear that she wanted to avoid trouble by cooperating because she had just been hired as an airline stewardess.

She then offered to police information about drug dealing in the area, the detective’s statement said, adding that her offer extended to making a drug buy from a guy named “Dave.”

She then placed a phone call to see if Dave had any “stuff,” to which he replied he did indeed. She then told him she’d be “right over,” according to the statement.

City police then fitted the woman with a “body wire,” searched her to make sure she didn’t have any money or controlled substances on her person, and gave her $20 in recorded bills.

Det. Thomas Schalkofski of the TCPD then drove her in an unmarked unit to the residence. She entered the home, made the transaction to purchase a quarter gram of meth for $20, and then met with Det. Wrye in the alley behind the residence, the statement said.

She immediately gave police the baggie with the alleged methamphetamine, which she said Dave drew from his pocket, the probable cause statement said.

“She also stated that this was part of a larger baggie that Dave had cut a piece from and had placed in this smaller baggie and used her lighter to heat seal the bag… The contents of the baggie were later field tested and found to be amphetamine,” the statement said.

The charge of distribution of a controlled substance, methamphetamine in this case, is a third degree felony. If convicted, Freeman could face up to three years in prison and/or up to a $5,000 fine.

At his first appearance in magistrate court Jan. 25, via video from the Sierra Jounty jail, Freeman entered no plea and Judge Thomas Pestak set bond at $25,000 cash and appointed a public defender, Stephen Ryan, to represent Freeman.

Also, the magistrate court on Wednesday, Jan. 30, granted a continuance of the preliminary examination, thus postponing Freeman’s hearing from its originally set date of Feb. 1 (today) upon a motion to continue by the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney June Stein, as she had to be out of town on a family medical emergency.

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Rattlesnake Island in the middle of Elephant Butte Lake and the Black Range in the background are blanketed by the clouds of a winter storm Tuesday afternoon.
Photo by Bill Johnson

Who killed The Lupine Pack?

By Laura Schneberger

P.O. Box 111, Winston NM 87943

505-772-5753; gnfpa@gilanet.com

Everything was so wonderful when they broke out of the pen in June, it was green, the weather was warm and there were plenty of baby elk on the ground to eat.

The pups were adorable and the yearlings were frisky. So frisky in fact, that most of them took off immediately leaving the alpha pair to fend for the three younger puppies alone.

Survival turned out to be a daunting task in the overcrowded wolf recovery area in eastern Arizona. The Alpha male soon found himself suffering from wolf bites that no one new about until he was found dead from a rattlesnake bite.

Usually rattlesnake bites aren't fatal to dogs but since the Lupine male was injured from an apparent fight with another wolf, the extra stress of the snakebite was fatal.

Soon after the release and the dispersal of the older pups, one yearling female simply vanished. One of the yearling males was seen numerous times living in the area of Aragon, NM.

Since he was hanging around human civilization, the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to remove him and return him to his family in the Arizona Mountains. He was trapped fairly easily but within a week of forcing him to reunite with his parents and younger siblings, he was back on the outskirts of the town of Aragon again.

About the same time as the Alpha male was found dead the young Aragon wolf was hit by a car along the highway.

The remaining yearling wolves, both of them males, traveled separately for the next several months. From all accounts, things went downhill for the Alpha female when she was forced to tend to her pups alone.

The wolf updates were soon reporting the status of the pups as “unknown.”

In mid November the Alpha female was found dead apparently from suspicious circumstances since an award for information immediately went out. She was one of two wolves killed in November from an apparent gunshot wound.

The necropsy reports are still not available but FWS says she was in excellent shape when she died.

The reward for information leading to an arrest is up to $15,000. In early December, hunters found the carcass of the missing yearling female, no details were available, just that she was found on the Apache reservation in Arizona.

The reports do not say if she had been dead since she went missing in July or she had died recently and her radio collar had simply malfunctioned months ago.

One of the yearling males was also killed in early December.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is calling the three Lupine pack deaths suspicious though none of the details are being made public yet.

Only one of the nine Lupine wolves released in June still roams the populated area along the Arizona-New Mexico border.

Opinions as to what happened to these animals are as various as who is giving the opinion. Environmentalists blame anyone and everyone, from ranchers to hunters to drivers and even the FWS.

Ranchers don't care as long as there are fewer wolves to get into their calving pastures, ranch wives feel sorry for the suffering wolves but are secretly relieved when they turn up dead and not in the kids’ yard.

The fact is most of the wolf shootings have occurred during the fall hunting season. It stands to reason, the wolves are in poor condition in the cold weather, hunters trailing up a wounded elk or deer only to discover something that resembles a sickly dog trying to stalk the animal too.

One couldn't blame him if the hunter shoots before considering that it could be an endangered Mexican Wolf they have in their rifle sites. No one wants to admit to a $25,000 or one-year-in-jail mistake and the mistakes happen every year.

About the only thing not reported in the press is just how hard the life of a newly released wolf pack is on the animals. The tragic demise of the Lupine pack is not an exception, for the last three years, it has been the rule.

It is only this year that a whole pack has died out. A cruel method perhaps, but apparently necessary if the occasional resilient wolf is to survive to provide breeding stock for the next generation.

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BLM accepts public comments

on Camino Real Historic Trail

The Bureau of Land Management is accepting public comments and suggestions through the end of today (Friday, Feb. 1) addressing the decisions that need to be made regarding long-term management, resource protection and the visitor experience to El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road of the Interior), which is in the planning stages, according to El Camino Real News, a publication of the BLM and National Park Service, received only this week by the Desert Journal.

Congress in October 2000 added El Camino Real to the National Trails System, which includes 22 national historic and scenic trails across the country.

In January last year, the Secretary of the Interior directed the BLM and NPS to jointly plan and administer the trail. In February 2001, BLM and NPS staffs formed a planning team and have been working together on a Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) and Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the trail’s joint administration.

During the summer and fall of 2001, the planning team met extensively with the public along the trail from south of El Paso, TX, to San Juan Pueblo, NM, conducting meetings with community members, American Indian pueblos, organizations and state agencies.

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires that federal agencies consider a reasonable range of alternatives that define future conditions and management strategies for the trail. The CMP will integrate the trail’s purpose and significance in with comments received during the community meetings.

Comments to be sent by today may be directed to Terry A. Humphrey, BLM Project Coordinator, El Camino Real NHT, 226 Cruz Alta Road, Taos, NM 87571; phone 505-751-4718; fax 505-758-1620; e-mail terry_humphrey@nps.gov.

Or to Harry C. Myers, NPS Project Coordinator, El Camino NHT, P.O. Box 728, Santa Fe, NM 87504; 505-988-6717; fax 505-986-5214; e-mail harry_myers@nps.gov.

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