 Roswell Rotarians Gordon Patton, Bianca Cheney, Steve Smith, Jon Hitchcock, Frank Sturges, Andy Miller, and Steve Henderson take a break from cleaning along U.S. 285 north of Roswell during highway cleanup day this past Saturday. |
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| Rotarian J.P. Cheney totes a trash bag along U.S. 285 during the club's cleanup of the Rotary Mile north of Roswell. |
Authors Kurt House and Roy B. Young will speak at this week’s Roswell Rotary Club meeting about their new book, Chasing Billy the Kid: Frank Stewart and the Untold Story of William H. Bonney.
The book gives a full discussion of the posse led by Frank Stewart and Pat Garrett which was successful in the capture.
During their presentation Thursday, House and Young will relate how the book came to be written and some of the information it reveals on Billy the Kid and the previously untold involvement of Frank Stewart.
House, from San Antonio, Texas, was raised on a ranch in Three Rivers, Texas, learning the history of the West from his father and grandfather.
He is an internationally known authority on the cowboy equipment and firearms of the West. House is the author of numerous books on these topics and more than 200 articles on the Wild West.
In 2020, he was honored with the “Six-Shooter Award for Lifetime Contributions to Wild West History.” He is a life member of several historical and collecting organizations and currently is a director of the Wild West History Association (WWHA).
Young, from Apache, Okla., is first vice president and publications editor of WWHA.
He is the author of numerous books on Wild West topics, including the award-winning A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May His Story Be Told.
In 2013, he was honored with the “Six-Shooter Award for Lifetime Contributions to Wild West history.”
Young is widely sought as a speaker and this month will make his 20th annual presentation on topics related to Wyatt Earp, the “Gunfight at the OK Corral,” and related topics at the Tombstone Territory Roundup in Tombstone, Ariz.
Andrew “Drew” Garnett, Chaves County agricultural extension agent, will be speaker at this week’s Roswell Rotary Club meeting.
Drew was raised in Dexter, where he fell in love with entomology through Future Farmers of America.
He received his BS and MS degrees in Agricultural Biology, with an emphasis on Entomology, from New Mexico State University.
Drew moved to Florida, where he taught high school science but returned to his love of entomology by working for Walt Disney World Horticulture for the past five years.
He moved back to Chaves County in the winter of 2021 as the NMSU agricultural extension agent.
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Pecos Valley Quilters Dietta Hitchcock (bottom left) and Carolyn Mitchell show the patriotic-themed quilt presented to Marlin Wells, a Vietnam War combat veteran, at last week’s Roswell Rotary Club meeting. Dietta is the wife of Rotarian Jon Hitchcock; Carolyn and Marlin are Roswell Rotarians.
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| Patton |
Rotarian Gordon Patton, highway cleanup chair, said club volunteers will meet just before 8 a.m. for coffee and snacks at Mile Marker 116.3, about one mile north of the overpass on U.S. 285.
“It takes an ideal group of 12 minimum about 1.5 hours the walk out our mile on both sides of the highway,” Patton said. “Your participation is encouraged to help keep our Rotary Mile from being trashy!”
Gloves, trash bags and safety vests will be provided.
 Roswell Rotary Club member Warren Yehl and his wife Barbara will chair the 2022 United Way of Chaves County fund-raising campaign. The goal of this year's campaign is $400,000. |
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| Bianca Cheney at release |
This year’s festival was held Sept. 10 at the refuge, 4200 E. Pine Lodge Road.
Rotarian Warren Yehl and club president Bianca Cheney led the Roswell Rotary Club effort to release the butterflies
The club contributed to the purchase of the butterflies this year from a 2022-23 District 5520 grant.
“We will be asked to work on the butterfly trail at a later date,” Cheney added. “The monarchs are marked with a special tag so when they are caught, locations and distance traveled can be documented.”
The wildlife refuge reported each butterfly had a special numbered light sticker affixed to its wing. This sticker, which does not hinder the butterfly’s flight, helps scientists keep track of the monarchs’ migration routes.
Volunteers in Mexico locate the monarchs in their overwintering sites and on their spring migration back through North America.
Information collected also helps conservationists set aside migration corridors for the butterflies and promote planting milkweed along the way. Monarch caterpillars require milkweed to survive, the refuge reported.
The Warren Yehl family and Bianca Cheney help a Bitter Lake Wildlife Refuge ranger with the release of monarch butterflies.
