Playing the game



Grant Pirate Karl Chavez (34) makes contact with the Window Rock Fighting Scouts Friday Afternoon at Gallup High School. The Grant Pirates defeated the Window Rock Fighting Scouts 37-35.

Photo by Craig Robinson

 

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Union wants principal moved

Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — The head of the local teacher's union wants the principal at Smith Lake Elementary School transferred to a position where he can get more supervision.

Tom Payton, president of the McKinley County Federation of United School Employees, said he has heard a number of complaints raised by teachers at the school that make him worried about the safety and welfare of the students at the school.

But principal Chris Hanson, responding to the charges made by Payton, argued that he has done nothing to endanger anyone's safety or welfare and that in every instance he has followed proper school procedures.

Payton said he has approached personnel officials for the school in the past about many of these allegations and as far as he could see, nothing has been done, which has forced him to go to the press.

"There were complaints about him last year," said Payton, "and as a result he was one of four principals who had their contracts held up by the school board before they were finally approved."

Payton said that there were some teachers and staff in the district who felt that the school's board decision to postpone a decision on these contracts was an attempt to show the principals that the board had concerns about their abilities.

But Paula Garcia, personnel director for the district, said Payton was reading more into the delay than was there. The delay was caused, she said, simply because board members wanted more information and when this was supplied, the contracts were renewed.

If the delay was meant to tell the four to shape up, it apparently didn't work in Hanson's case, Payton said, because he has received a number of complaints in recent months about the Smith Lake principal's action.

They included an incident, Payton said where a six-year-old student who was disabled was transported home in diapers after he had soiled himself at school because of bowel problems. Although the teacher in question had made a request to the principal's office to have a change of clothes available for these kind of occasions, none was available.

"This was humilitating to the student," Payton said.Commenting on the incident, Hanson said when he saw the student on the day in question, he was surprised to see him just in diapers and instructed the aide to take him to the nurses office where some spare clothes were kept to handle these kind of cases.

He said something was found but agreed that the student went home in diapers but added that the student came to school frequently in diapers because of bowel problems.

Another incident mentioned by Payton concerned a six year old girl who would have temper tantrums at times. The girl's teacher was instructed that if this happened, she was not to try and restrain the child but was to call the school's crisis intervention team to handle the situation.

By doing this, the girl was allowed to thrash around in anger for several minutes while the team was called in, thus putting her in jeopardy of injuring herself when it would have been easy for the teacher to just pick the child up and calm her down.
Payton said that the girl had a temper tantrum one day in the parking lot and the teacher just had to stand there. One of the school's bus drivers finally came up and restrained the child.

"I heard this was done because Hanson was afraid of a lawsuit," Payton said.

Hanson said he never mentioned the possibility of a lawsuit but agreed that the teacher was instructed to call the crisis intervention team to handle the situation.

"That's school policy," he said, adding that the reasoning behind this is that the student could be harmed if someone not trained in the proper way to restrain a child was allowed to use his or her procedures.

The members of the crisis intervention team, he said, are trained in the proper way to restrain the child so no harm is done. He added that they also train so they can be there to help in the matter of a couple of minutes.

Then there's the case of the lack of restroom breaks.

Payton said he heard that Hanson ordered that the restroom breaks for students be limited and that there were certain times during the day when students were not allowed to go to the restroom.

"I heard that this was being done because one teacher whose classroom was next to a restroom complained about the noise that was being made, saying it disrupted classtime," Payton said.

"We have a lot of students with diabetic or bladder problems and it's important that provisions be made so that they can go to the restroom when they need to," Payton said.

Hanson agreed that he had placed restrictions on restroom breaks but said it was never as strict as Payton would lead people to believe.

The school allowed students 10 minutes breaks but some students were abusing this, taking 20 or 30 minutes and being disruptive, forcing teachers who had classes near the restrooms to go out in the hall frequently to quiet the students down.

There were also complaints, he said, that students were taking breaks during the school's reading program, even though the program officials recommended that the lesson be given without breaks.

So provisions were made to allow restroom breaks before and after classes. "There were no restrictions placed on students who had medical problems or an illness that required frequent use of restroom facilities," Hanson said.

Payton said the actions by Hanson during the last semester caused a lot of concern among teachers, resulting in two teachers, a counselor and a teacher's assistant just resigning in the middle of the semester.

This is a serious situation, he said, given the high level of teacher turnover each year and the fact that the district has a hard problem finding replacements.

One of the four, Shelly Stotler, who now teaches for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Hanson's policies drove her crazy.

"He is not a people person," she said, adding that Hanson would put more emphasis on teachers making sure that student complied with time restraints for things like restroom breaks than taking in consideration what students and teachers needed.

"He would yell at teachers," she said.

But Darren Goad, a teacher at the school, said he never saw this kind of behavior.

"As for me, Hanson always backed me 100 percent and I never had any problems," he said.

Goad admitted that there were a couple of teachers who didn't like Hanson but for the most part, teachers supported Hanson's policies.

Hanson said Friday he was also surprised about the allegations being made against him because he thought that he and the teachers were communicating very well during the past semester.

Speaking about some of the allegations, Garcia said that she felt that many of the accusations presented by Payton were just "hearsay."

Then there is the question of why Payton and the union is involved in this at all,

School Superintendent Robert Gomez, who refused to discuss the allegations, would only say that the union has no role in personnel decisions made within the district.

So why is Payton and the union getting involved?

Payton said it has been the policy of the union to get involved "in every case" where there is a concern that child abuse may be occurring and Hanson's action could constitute child abuse.

What Payton would like to see is for Hanson to be transferred to another school closer to the central office where he could be better monitored. Another suggestion was for Hanson to be transferred to a middle school where he could be the assistant principal so he could get the training he needed to perform his job better.

Hanson said that while he is not perfect and has made mistakes, he feels that he has been doing a good job at Smith Lake and most of the teachers at the school would agree with that.

"If a teacher has a problem with a policy, they can meet with me," he said.

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A 3-hour bus ride to school
Arizona moves to shorten rural kids' long rides

PHOENIX (AP) — The state has decided to help rural areas by building new schools for students who now must ride buses for hours each day.

A new policy adopted by the School Facilities Board could result in new schools being built in isolated communities, particularly on Indian reservations, whose students travel long distances to attend schools in bigger communities.

Meanwhile, some big urban and suburban school districts may go without state dollars to build new schools despite enrollment growth in parts of those districts.

The Students First program was enacted in 1998 to have the state assume responsibility for building new schools.

The program generally provides state money to build new schools only to replace ones so old they are not worth upgrading to comply with minimum standards or if a district has added enough students to qualify for more space under a state square-footage formula.

The "geographic exception" policy says the School Facilities Board will give school districts more space when 100 students are transported one hour or more one-way to the closest school or where students life 45 or more miles from school.

The board adopted its "geographic exception" policy on Dec. 7 and immediately approved $3.7 million to build the first such new school, an elementary school for 400 students at Indian Wells on the Navajo Reservation.

Students from Indian Wells and nearby areas now travel to Winslow, Holbrook, Window Rock and Flagstaff, said Richard Begay, an Indian Wells resident who served on a community committee which sought the new school.

Begay said his 5-year-old niece must get up at 5:30 a.m. to be driven to a highway to wait for a school bus to take her to Holbrook. "Little Shelby doesn't get into her class until 8 o'clock."

The board agreed that the state should step in.

"If you've got kids on the bus for three hours a day, that is not conducive for learning," said Stephen C. Rich, board president.

State Sen. Jack Jackson, D-Window Rock, prodded the board for more than a year to consider the issue and adopt such a policy.

The long distances now traveled by some students on crowded buses are a real hardship, Jackson said.

"If the weather gets bad with snow and mud, some of these kids are unable to get to school," Jackson said. "My position was these kids are being denied their rights to decent education."

The smaller-than-normal schools allowed under the policy may not have cafeterias or other features and may rely heavily on distance-learning technology to link them with other schools, Rich said.

Though many of the areas which could get new schools under the new policy are on Indian reservations, others in southern and western Arizona are not, Jackson and Rich said.

While the new policy benefits rural areas, it does not cover large urban and suburban districts that contend they have special circumstances that justify state funding for new schools despite overall stagnant enrollment.

One of the state's largest districts, 27,346-student Scottsdale Unified, wants to build a new high school in its growing northern portion.

High schools in the district's already developed southern portion have empty seats, but they are 25 or more miles from the growth area.

The obvious but unacceptable alternative to building a new school, possibly at local taxpayers' own expense, would be to move school attendance boundaries throughout the long-and-narrow district from north to south.

"That's a tar and feather problem," said Tom Carey, a Scottsdale Unified board member.

Equally unacceptable would be to bus students through traffic from the district's crowded north to the uncrowded south, Carey said. "We didn't want kids on school buses for an hour."

The Students First law lets the School Facilities Board take "unusual or excessive" busing or attendance boundary changes into account to give a district more state-funded schools, but Scottsdale officials received a cold shoulder when they pleaded their case before the board.

"We are the classic case of a district that has a need that probably isn't going to get any help," Carey said. "Students First in terms of construction doesn't do us a bit of good."

Rich, a member of the Tempe Union High School District board, said Scottsdale is ducking hard but necessary choices.

"The problem that Scottsdale faces is that they have not changed their high school boundaries for the last five years," Rich said. "They do not qualify for a new school."

Arizona's second-largest district, Tucson Unified, also faced uneven enrollment growth but avoided having to change boundaries and still got state funding for two new schools.

TUSD qualified for state funding because it was allowed to demolish decades-old portable classrooms that do not meet state standards. The replacement schools are being built in the high-growth areas.

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An ugly word, a beautiful child and a grandfather

Walter Howerton Jr.
Managing Editor

People in my family love to play with words. We like to talk, write, read, tell stories, play Scrabble. We love to give each other goofy names and make sly wisecracks. We make puns and rhymes. We love clever song lyrics. We are a noisy bunch when we are together.

So, when I decided I didn't want to be anybody's grandfather and wanted my new granddaughter to call me "Spike" a couple of years ago, it was only natural that everyone would call her "Little Spike," just for laughs (and to keep my own ornery self in line). We even joked about having T-shirts made that said "Big Spike" and "L'il Spike."

For Christmas a year ago, I received a beautiful little whisky flask. Engraved on the front, it says "Grandpa Spike." My daughter and her husband got a big kick out of giving it to me; I got a big kick out of getting it. L'il Spike was 14 months old that Christmas, laughing, talking a little, not crawling or walking, but scooting across the floor on her bottom. She seemed to get a kick out of it, too.

She even seemed to be making a concentrated effort to say my name (of course, she was trying to say "Grandpa," but I didn't care) and I had wonderful daydreams about her showing up this year again, following me around, asking me questions, calling me whatever she wanted to. I really was thinking about those T-shirts.

I saw her again last Thanksgiving, the first time I had seen her in nearly a year. Things had changed. For one thing, L'il Spike has a baby sister. The newest grandbaby's name is Alyssa, but L'il Spike and I have decided we'll call her "Al." Well, I decided that we will call her Al and L'il Spike seemed to go along. She doesn't have much to say these days. And it looks like she never will. That is the other thing that has changed.

L'il Spike is becoming a wordless child in a family of wordy people.

A new word has appeared in our family's vocabulary.

No jokes, no puns, no clever retorts or witty wordplays gather around it. In the face of this word and in the dark presence of what it means we all find ourselves nearly speechless. It is a word we wish we never heard.

The word is "Rett."

It is a small word and looks and sounds harmless enough. But it has attached itself to L'il Spike like a tick, already draining her of words, already sucking her away from us.

Rett is part of the name of what is wrong with L'il Spike. The whole name is Rett Syndrome. And it really is not like a tick at all.

A tick is something you can find and pluck off before it does your child harm. We protect our children from ticks and scissors, traffic and polio and other harmful and painful things because we know the world is a dangerous place.

But it impossible to know just how dangerous the world is until something like Rett Syndrome shows up.

Rett is the thing you cannot know about, the thing you cannot see, the thing you cannot pluck off or take away or innoculate against before it is too late. By the time you know it is there, it already is too late.

Then, it turns out that it has been there from the beginning, hiding among her genes (only little girls are affected by Rett), lurking out of sight at the center of every living cell, doing the secret and undectectable things a person's body can do to destroy itself. Something happens genetically for reasons no one understands. But even if you had known it was there, even if you could understand it, there would have been nothing you could do about it.

Rett Syndrome is like an incomprehensibily ugly thing that arrives in the unbearably beautiful package of your own granddaughter.

Imagine trying to comprehend that.

My daughter says it was like someone came and kidnapped L'il Spike a bit at a time and left a child she didn't quite recognize in her place. I have heard another mother describe it as feeling like she put her daughter to bed and the next morning another child was there in her place.

L'il Spike looks like the same child, but she is not. Something is amiss. Looking back, some things add up. Some don't. She was a good baby. As it turns out, being a good baby was the first sign that something was wrong, but how can you know a thing like that?

Up to 18 months to two years old, girls with Rett Syndrome develop normally. Suddenly they begin to go backward.

L'il Spike never learned to crawl and she was slow to walk. She learned to scoot on her bottom. When she did walk, it was unsteadily and she liked to hold onto the wall, but we figured that would get better with practice. She loved books and watching Teletubbies and Veggietales on TV. By the time she was 18 months old she knew lots of words. Suddenly she seemed to know almost no words. She didn't like her books. She didn't pay any attention when her old videos were on TV. She seemed to spend more time in a world all her own. She began to cross her fingers in strange ways and touch her mouth frequently.

My daughter knew something was wrong with her baby, but for a long time no one would listen (she is a wonderful, lighthearted young woman no one is in the habit of taking seriously).

Her husband told her nothing was wrong. Family members told her nothing was wrong. "You've just moved," they said. "You've just had a new baby." "Give her time."

My daughter saw things getting worse. Other people saw it, too, but pretended they didn't. "Autism" was a word we already knew, so we tried to use that to describe L'il Spike. My daughter said it just didn't fit (and the way she said it let all of us know we should be taking her seriously).

Finally, a doctor mentioned Rett Syndrome as a possiblity.

What?

We all went online and did our research. We learned about the disturbing symptoms associated with Rett, a rare genetic disorder: the loss of language, the loss of "purposeful" hand use, the way the hands begin to hook toward the body, the trouble walking, the difficulty swallowing, the tooth grinding, the staying awake far into the night.

In our heads we ticked off L'il Spike's symptoms. As they added up, we found ourselves hoping for a diagnosis of autism in spite of ourselves. We had to because we read of other Rett things, too: seizures, failure to grow, malnutrition, feeding tubes, severe to profound mental retardation, scoliosis, possible institutional care and, someday far too soon, worse.

But the genetic test came back recently. It is Rett Syndrome.

And a word we learned only a few months ago suddenly has meaning. It is a small word, but L'il Spike never will be able to say it but every time we look at her we will hear it.

L'il Spike is only two years old, a sweet and beautiful child already beginning to slip wordlessly away from us. And we have not even finished saying hello.

I spent lots of time with her at Thanksgiving, mostly because I love her, partly I'm sure because I hope she takes some memory of me into the faraway place every cell in her body is forcing her to go.

I took her to the park, played with her around the house, fed her, decided to call her new sister Al. We had a good time.

I decided that if she cannot speak, I would teach her to stomp her feet to get our attention. She liked that. We stomped around the park. We stomped around the house. We stomped across the porch.

I will not stop being her grandfather, even though I will never hear her say it.

So, I will stomp with her as long as she can stomp. And when she can't stomp any longer, I will try to teach her some other way to speak to us. If that fails, I will simply love her and her silence. Because that is what grandfathers do, even if they do want to be called Spike. They love who is there, without question and for as long as they can.

Without a word, L'il Spike already has taught me that much.

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Grants beats Window Rock in semis
Gallup suffers another setback

Santiago Ramos
Staff Sports Writer

GALLUP — It will be a pair of former district foes, Grants and Santa Fe Capital, battling it out in tonight's tournament finals of the 57th Annual Gallup Invitational.

Grants took advantage of key turnovers and missed free throws down the stretch to outlast Window Rock 37-35 Friday afternoon in one of the tournament semifinals matchups. In the other semifinals, Santa Fe Capital, which used to compete with Grants in the Class AAA several years ago before the realignment, edged out defending tournament champion Deming 73-72 in another barnburner.

Host Gallup suffered its second straight setback of the tournament with a 43-34 loss to Los Lunas. In the other matchup, Belen downed Moriarty, 57-52.

Grants and Capital will square off in the finals at 8 p.m. Gallup will play Moriarty in the seventh place game at 6:30 p.m. In the third place game, Window Rock will go up against Deming at 1 p.m. while Belen and Los Lunas will play in the consolation game at 2:30 p.m.

Grants 37, Window Rock 35

For the second straight day, Grants held an opponent under 40 points and was able to pull off another tournament victory.
After upsetting Gallup 36-31 the day before, Grants handed Window Rock a low-scoring 37-35 setback.

"We played well," Grants coach Gerald Horacek said. "We had a lot of intensity. Window Rock has a good ballclub. But we've been able to hold the other teams down in scoring."

The Pirates (6-4) broke a 28-all tie early in the fourth period with senior guard Wayne Smith, who finished as the lone Pirate double digit scorer with 13 points. Smith drilled a short jumper then RoShaun McKinney passed the ball to an open Kyle James for another score inside as the Pirates went up, 32-28, with 4:10 left in the game.

James, who played a solid game defensively, came up with a crucial steal that was converted into another score as McKinney broke loose for an uncontested layup on the right side as no Scout was able to switch off to stop his drive to the hoop. However the Scouts bounced back when Asa-Ryan Begaye drilled a huge three-pointer that made it a three-point ballgame, 34-31, with three minutes remaining in the game.

James came up with his second steal in less than two minutes but the Scouts were able to cut the Pirate lead down to one point, 34-33, after Elcaro Lee, who led the Scouts with 12 points, scored on a baseline jumper with less than two minutes left in the game.

Grants' McKinney sank the front end of a two-shot foul to make it 35-33 but Window Rock (10-8) came back to tie the game at 35-all as Dewayne Morgan dished the ball off to Augustine Anderson inside for the score. Anderson was fouled on the play by James, but missed his free throw with McKinney rebounding the ball.

The Pirates called a timeout with 31.8 seconds left and then worked the clock down to 10 seconds before junior guard Joe Ross buried a short pull-up jumper for the go-ahead score.

"We took the shot early," Horacek said of the game-winner. "But he (Ross) nailed it. He plays with instinct."

With 8.7 seconds left, the Fighting Scouts called their final timeout to set up their final play.

On a rebound shot with less than a second left, Anderson was fouled by Smith. However Anderson was unable to sink either free throw and James grabbed the ball on the second missed free throw to preserve the victory for the Pirates.

The Pirates staked out a 10-point lead in the second quarter, 19-9, with an 8-0 run. But the Scouts battled back to close the gap to within two points, 28-26, heading into the final period before missed free throws down the stretch proved to be costly.

"We came out sluggish," Window Rock coach Tim Arviso said. "We lacked the intensity we had last night (Thursday). In the second half we got into it mentally. We started to play like we can. But we didn't capitalize on opportunities. We have to learn to come out every game with high intensity. We have to play four quarters with high intensity. We didn't have that tonight. We made 4-of-11 free throws and you can't have that if you want to win close games. If you want to be a top team you have to make the free throws.

Grants sank 7-of-10 free throws while Window Rock made just 4-of-11 including missing the last three in a row in the final seconds.

"You have to give Grants credit," Arviso said. "They were ready. They're a good team. They played smart on offense and were patient. The boys are disappointed. We feel we were the better team but not today."

Horacek had praise for the recent play of 6-2 senior post Kyle James.

"He's a changed person," Horacek said. "We had some problems with him after he got a technical in the Thoreau game. We sat him down and talked to him. Now he's a better player. He doesn't score a lot of points but he's the glue to the team with his defensive play."

Horacek said he feels that his team is ready for district play.

"The last six games will get us ready for districts," Horacek said. "I think we're ready for districts. But whoever we play tomorrow (tonight) in the tournament finals will be better than we are. But you don't know how emotion will play in the game."

From the field the Pirates shot 37 percent, 14-of-38 while the Scouts shot 31 percent, 14-of-45.

Capital 73, Deming 72

Santa Fe Capital celebrated its first trip to the Gallup Invitational with a trip to the tournament finals, knocking off defending tourney champs Deming in an evenly matched semifinal.

The Capital Jaguars, whose head coach Avelardo Armendariz is battling cancer, took advantage of a last-second traveling call against the Deming Wildcats that sealed the win.

The Jaguars (8-2) grabbed a six-point lead at 69-63 late in the game after Marcus Martinez scored off the baseline. The Wildcats (8-3) countered with a bank shot by Jose Valdez. Capital and Deming exchanged buckets before Deming's Andrew Holguin buried a trey that cut Capital's lead down to one point, 71-70, with 1:40 left in the game.

Capital turned the ball over when Terence Mirabal was called for traveling with 45.9 seconds left in the game. Deming took full advantage of the huge turnover as Miguel Garcia dished the ball off to Carlos Corral inside for the go-ahead bucket that pushed Deming into the lead, 72-71, with 22 seconds remaing.

Capital called for a timeout with 18.5 seconds on the clock and worked the clock down to 7.1 seconds before Mirabal nailed a short jumper from the baseline.

The Wildcats had one final chance for the win but Garcia drove to the hoop for a shot but traveled in the process as time ran out.
The opening period was close despite Deming turning the ball over 10 times. The Wildcats countered their turnovers with solid shooting from the field, nailing 8-of-11 shots along with 12 rebounds to trail by three points, 23-20.

Deming surged into the lead for the first time in the seocnd period after Jose Valdez sank a pair of free throws.

Capital broke open a close game in the third period with a 16-5 blitz thanks to three consecutive scores by Marcus Martinez along with five points by Manny Hernandez.

But Deming battled back to trail by just three points, 58-55, with a 13-2 run to close out the period.

Capital converted 12-of-16 free throws for 75 percent shooting while Deming sank 10-of-16 free throws for 63 percent.

Capital had three players in double digits with Marcus Martinez with 20 points, Terence Mirabal 15 and Manny Hernandez 14.

Deming's leading scorers were Miguel Garcia tied for high point honors with 20 points. Carlos Corral chipped in 12 points and Andrew Holguin and Jose Valdez each kicked in 10 points.

From the field, Capital shot 49 percent, 29-of-59, while Deming shot 43 percent, 28-of-65. The Wildcats outrebounded the Jaguars 43 to 28.

Los Lunas 43, Gallup 34

The Gallup Bengals continue to struggle with its latest setback to Los Lunas.

Gallup coach Earl Diddle admitted that his ballclub is playing the best it can.

"What you see is what you get," Diddle said. "The kids are playing as hard as they can. That's where we're at. Los Lunas is a better ballclub than we are since they've beaten us twice this year on our home court. We don't shoot well and we don't pass well. We're having problems offensively. This is a painful process for myself, the players and the fans. I just hope the fans show more common sense. We're the most undertalented team in the tournament. Basically we're a AAA team."

After a close opening period, Los Lunas (4-9) outscored Gallup (2-7) 15-5 to take a 20-11 halftime lead. Sophomore starter Omar Vargas, who led the Tigers with 14 points, tallied seven points in the period. The Bengals struggled from the field with 2-of-11 shooting.

Bengal senior guard Drew Money, who finished with 14 points, came alive at the end of the third period and carried it into the fourth that kept Gallup within range.

Money hit a turnaround jumper to close the third period after Los Lunas enjoyed its largest lead of the game at 13 points, 29-16.
Money hit a pair of quick jumpers and senior forward B.J. Begay scored on a putback as the Bengals cut the Tiger lead down to five points, 29-24. Money later came back with two more scores in the period as he drilled his fifth goal out of six attempts.

But Money's late heroics along with the Bengals, who hit on 8-of-11 in the final period, proved to be futile as Los Lunas posted its second win over Gallup this season. Los Lunas topped Gallup 44-39 in early December.

The Bengals hurt their chances with poor free throw shooting, sinking just 6-of-15 free throws for 40 percent shooting while the Tigers made 13-of-20 for 65 percent.

The Tigers were led by Omar Vargas and James Valverde with 14 and 10 points respectively.

Gallup was hurt by miserable shooting in the first half, 4-of-15, but finished strong in the second half with 11-of-22 shooting for 41 percent for the game, 15-of-37. Los Lunas shot 40 percent, 14-of-35.

Belen 57, Moriarty 52

Belen hit four three-pointers in turning back Moriarty 57-52 in the loser's bracket.

The Pintos led 15-14 after the opening period but the Eagles surged into the lead at intermission 24-21. Belen stretched its lead to 41-34 before winning by five points, 57-52.

Belen's top scorers were David Hull with 19 points and Beto Sanchez 16.

Moriarty was led by Wade Elliot with 18 points, Shane Wallin 16 and Chris Garcia 11.

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Zuni woman reported missing from Santa Fe

SANTA FE (AP) — Carmen Marta Gonzalez of Zuni Pueblo has been reported missing after checking into a Santa Fe hotel, police said.

Gonzalez checked into the Days Inn Motel on New Year's Eve. She was to check out New Year's Day, but motel employees said they had not seen her.

Santa Fe Deputy Police Chief Beverly Lennen said employees noticed Gonzalez had left items lying around the room that made it "appear as if she intended to return."

Police spoke this week to the missing woman's relatives, who fear she might be in danger, Lennen said...

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Derrick Watchman is new Navajo Chief of Staff

Jim Maniaci
Dine' Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — A former U.S. Energy Department official, Derrick Watchman, will become the Begaye-McKenzie administration's third chief of staff as he returns to the tribal government on Monday.

Watchman is the former Navajo Tax Commission Office director.

President Kelsey Begaye and Vice President Dr. Taylor McKenzie announced Friday that Watchman, a member of a politically active Navajo family and the son of the late New Mexico State Representative Leo Watchman Sr., was their choice to succeed Sharon Noel.

The vice president served as the interim chief after Noel's transfer in November...

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Deaths

Albert Sandoval

GALLUP — Services for Albert Sandoval, 74, will be held at 10 a.m., Monday, Jan. 8 at Sacred Heart Cathedal. Father Jim Walker will officiate. Burial will follow at Hillcrest Cemetery.

Visitation will be held at 2-5 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 7 at Rollies Mortuary-Palm Chapel.

A rosary will be recited at 7 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 7 at Sacred Heart Cathedal.

Sandoval died Jan. 2 in Gallup. He was born April 9, 1926 in Gallup.

Sandoval was employed with Holiday Nursery of Gallup. He was a gardner throughout the Gallup area and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict.

Survivors include his sisters, Lucy Sandoval, Rosie Sandoval and Sara Sandoval all of Gallup.Sandoval was preceded in death by his parents, Genaro and Felicita Sandoval; brothers, Joe Sandoval, Tony Sandoval and Waldo Sandoval and sister, Mary Sandoval.

Pallbearers will be Joe Abeyta Sr., Felix Lujan, John Rodriguez, Robert Rosales Sr., Daniel Sandoval and Paul Torres.
Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

Mabel Ann Carviso

TOHATCHI — Services for Mabel Ann Carviso, 77, will be held at 10 a.m., Monday, Jan. 8 at Saint Marys Catholic Church. Rev. John Mittelstadt will officiate. Burial will follow at Tohatchi Community Cemetery.

Carviso died Jan. 3 in Albuquerque. She was born Sept. 15, 1923 in Naschitti into the Salt People Clan for the Hairy People Clan.

Survivors include her sons, Wilson J. Carviso Jr. of Iyanbito and Curtis Ray Carviso of Tse Bonito; daughters, Theresa Carviso of Albuquerque and Beverly Curley of Gallup; 13 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Carviso was preceded in death by husband, Wilson J. Carviso Sr.; sons, Leonard Carviso and Wilbert Carviso; daughters, Shirley Carviso and Nancy Murphy; brothers, Ben Manuelito Sr., Leo A. Manuelito, Notah Manuelito and Raymond Manuelito and sister, Glennhanasbah Francisco.

Pallbearers will be Edward Clah, Cameron Curley, Markham Curley, Faryn Garcia, Raymond Moore and Delbert Pozernick.
Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

Mae White

CODY, Wyo. — Services for Mae White, 99, will be announced at a later date.

White died Jan. 4 in Cody, Wyo. She was born May 13, 1901.

Rollie Mortuary is in charge of arrangements.

Wilbert Tsosie

NASCHITTI — Services for Wilbert Tsosie, 85, will be announced at a later date.

Tsosie died Jan. 5 in Gallup. He was born June 16, 1915 in Naschitti.

Cope Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements.