Martha Johnsen sounded puzzled; her boss at KFUN radio, Joseph Baca, seemed perturbed; Las Vegas Ron Wooten-Green expressed it well. The three were quite vocal regarding our town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being ignored in a publication of wide circulation.<\/p>\n
So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the issue? The matter is that the Summer Guide, bundled with Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Albuquerque Journal, acted as if Las Vegas doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even exist, despite two half-page ads touting the Meadow City. Does paid advertising guarantee some kind of mention in the Journal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 64-page booklet?<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the sequence:<\/p>\n
Wooten-Green notified KFUN and others about the Journal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s egregious omission of our town. Martha Johnsen, the early-morning radio announcer, appeared to wonder why we were omitted. Soon, Baca devoted several minutes of air time attempting to contact the Summer Guide staff for an explanation of the omission. Meanwhile, others on Wooten-Green\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s email list must have become involved.<\/p>\n
City Manager Elmer Martinez exchanged emails with Wooten-Green, and soon phone calls and other forms of correspondence followed.<\/p>\n
It took on the appearance of New Mexico Magazine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feature, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One of Our 50 is Missing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which people write in to the magazine to discuss others\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 failure to recognize New Mexico as a state. Most of the submissions to the magazine cover some outsider\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assumption that we use only pesos in the Land of Enchantment or that travelers need visas to enter.<\/p>\n
How about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One of Our 200 is Missing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? That could be the case of the slight Las Vegans received from the Journal.<\/p>\n
Assuming there are some 200 incorporated communities here, it would seem illogical to exclude Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Imagine driving from Santa Fe to Colorado\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s southern border. Think of a gaping hole about 150 miles long by 150 miles wide \u00e2\u20ac\u201d where there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing. Las Vegas, host city to dozens and dozens of movies (some current ones as well), doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a mention. Smaller communities like Wagon Mound and Springer also were snubbed. Wooten-Green said it best: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On the New Mexico map at page 6, Las Vegas is missing, gone, non-existent. As far as The Journal is concerned nothing exists along I-25 between Santa Fe and Raton.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
To be fair, the 6×6-inch map in the Journal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Summer Guide highlights some of the places people may wish to visit in New Mexico: Chaco Canyon, the Bisti Badlands, Sky City, Bosque del Apache, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, the Billy the Kid grave, various pueblos, Capulin Volcano, Rio Grande Gorge and the Roswell UFO Museum. But where are the sites in northern New Mexico that draw thousands of visitors?<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no mention of Fort Union, Storrie Lake, Starvation Peak, Hermit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Peak, El Porvenir or even the three colleges Las Vegas is proud of, in this educational hub.<\/p>\n
Two cities, Grants and Portales, with populations near 10,000, fail to appear on the map. And Portales is home to Eastern New Mexico University, which is bigger than our Highlands.<\/p>\n
Elmer Martinez reports that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been in contact with Journal personnel who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153are getting plenty of calls on their oversight which they admitted to.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Martinez notes that the Journal has \u00e2\u20ac\u0153agreed to provide press on the numerous summer\/fall events coming up in Las Vegas.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Still in production and due for release later this month is the Optic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own 64-page Visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Guide which provides a detailed calendar of events in Las Vegas. The guide includes maps as well \u00c2\u00ad\u00e2\u20ac\u201d guaranteed to mention Las Vegas. Also mentioned will be the usual events such as car shows, The People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Faire, Heritage Week, Places With a Past, The CCHP Historic Homes Tour, the 4th of July Fiestas and the Cowboys Reunion-Rodeo.<\/p>\n
In cases like this, where the omission of all things Meadow City seems egregious, is it possible we Las Vegans are making a Hermit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Peak out of a molehill, or a Starvation Peak out of a sand dune?<\/p>\n
Obviously, based on the reaction of some people, we care about this town and believe it should receive due credit, inasmuch as summer and fall seasons provide a wealth of activities for people of all ages.<\/p>\n
Consider:<\/p>\n
Lest we forget, Las Vegas figures prominently in New Mexico history, as a commercial hub, a key city in the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early days and as an educational center for northern New Mexico and beyond.<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re strong enough to withstand the (unintentional) snub by the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest newspaper.<\/p>\n
Las Vegas will survive.<\/p>\n
But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also nice to receive proper recognition for our efforts and accomplishments.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Hmmm.<\/p>\n
Tom Brady, quarterback for the Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, will warm the bench for the first four games of the 2015-16 NFL season. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been suspended \u00e2\u20ac\u201d without pay for his part in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deflategate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the routine of letting air out of the team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s footballs, to make them easier to throw and catch.<\/p>\n
Because Brady was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153generally aware\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of that bit of gridiron cheatery, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be minus around $2 million out of his $8 million base salary. With only $6M remaining for a year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pay, we wonder how in the world that pauper will survive.<\/p>\n
Lest we forget, the Patriots were fined and deprived of a first-round draft pick in 2007 for illegally videotaping defensive signals being used by the New York Jets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 defensive coaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Martha Johnsen sounded puzzled; her boss at KFUN radio, Joseph Baca, seemed perturbed; Las Vegas Ron Wooten-Green expressed it well. The three were quite vocal regarding our town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being ignored in a publication of wide circulation. So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the issue? The matter is that the Summer Guide, bundled with Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Albuquerque Journal, acted as if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1367,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}