Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
226 cadets become NMMI alumni
Vol. 120, No. 117 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday
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ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan blended a good mix of humor and wisdom Saturday for graduates of the University of New Mexico law school in her first public address since being sworn in last summer. Kagan traveled to Albuquerque to give the commencement address to the graduating class - PAGE B6
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DURANT EAGER TO REBOUND
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Kevin Durant had trouble sleeping, trying to shake off the worst playoff performance yet in his young NBA career. After the league’s scoring champion managed just 11 points in Oklahoma City’s loss that set up Game 7 Sunday against - PAGE B1
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• Drusilla Macias • Wanda Pearl Stockton • Jess H. Thompson • Henry Leon Blackard • Eliseo Moreno - PAGE B6
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MATTHEW ARCO RECORD STAFF WRITER
KAGAN AT UNM LAW SCHOOL
May 15, 2011
The cornerstones of the institution — duty, honor and achievement — continued to live on at New Mexico Military Institute Saturday, as some of the hundreds of graduating cadets prepared to leave the academy with the proper building blocks as enter the next phase of their lives. The Institute hosted its 117th Commencement Program under the sun on Stapp Field, where 226
cadets were praised on their accomplishment and reminded that the character traits bestowed upon them during their schooling will continue to lead them down the right path in their future. “The education that I received at the Institute and the principles that were put forward by the Institute were life-changing for me,” said Judge Bobby R. Baldock, senior judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and the event’s special guest.
“I owe a great deal to this school,” he said, looking back on his graduation from the class of 1956. During the past 25 years, Baldock has served as a judge for one of the nation’s highest courts and on Saturday, he told cadets that the values that he learned and took from NMMI were priceless. “This truly is an outstanding school,” he said. The message delivered by Baldock was not lost on the See NMMI, Page A3
Mark Wilson Photo
New Mexico Military Institute cadets celebrate their graduation during commencement ceremonies, Saturday morning.
Children, parents Celebrate the Arts at RISD event JONATHAN ENTZMINGER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Arts, education, family and the energy of hundreds children and their parents collided at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center, Saturday, at Roswell Independent School District’s Celebrate the Arts Day. “This is our fifth year, we’re having a blast,” Dietta Hitchcock, fifthgrade arts instructor said. “We’re thrilled that Celebrate the Arts Day is getting bigger every year and that the community is becoming more aware of it.” The four -hour event featured eight stations based on the “artists’ habit of mind,” RISD’s arts curriculum. “At six of those stations, parents are able to create the art that goes with that station,” Rhonda Gardner, first-grade visual arts teacher, said. Gardner said that it’s really powerful to see parMark Wilson Photo ents and students interFirst-graders participate in the performing arts piece Can’t Stop Movin’ at the Creative Learning Center’s Celebrate the Arts Day, Saturday, at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center. See ARTS, Page A3
Scifres to leave RPD for Lubbock schools
Walk for Hope
JESSICA PALMER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Roswell Police Department Chief Alfonso Solis confir med, Friday, that Deputy Police Chief Jody L. Scifres will be leaving the department in mid-July. “He will be missed. He’s a good officer. He’s good in command, and he’s been a valuable officer for me,” Solis said. “I’m happy for him. His shoes will be hard to fill.” Scifres accepted a new post as police chief for Lubbock, Texas, Independent See SCIFRES, Page A3
Mark Wilson Photo
Deputy Chief Jody L. Scifres
The Mesa Middle School Percussion Ensemble performs during the Chaves County Cancer Fundraiser Walk For Hope, Friday.
Engineers open floodgate, divert Fla. imam, 2 sons charged with supporting Taliban Big Muddy to nearby farmland MORGANZA, La. (AP) — Water from the inflated Mississippi River gushed through a floodgate Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades and headed toward thousands of homes and farmland in the Cajun countryside, threatening to slowly submerge the land under water up to 25 feet deep. As the gate was raised, the river poured out like a waterfall, at times spraying 6 feet into the air. Fish jumped or were AP Photo hurled through the white Water diverted from the Mississippi River spills through a See FLOOD, Page A3 bay in the Morganza Spillway in Morganza, La., Saturday.
MIAMI (AP) — A Miami imam and two of his sons were arrested Saturday on federal charges they provided some $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization, officials said. Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, was arrested after morning services at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, where he is an imam. One of his sons, Izhar Khan, 24, an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu’mineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla., was arrested after mor ning services there. Another son, Irfan Khan, 37, was detained at his
hotel room in Los Angeles around the same time. The men are U.S. citizens. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing, of ficials said. Also named in the indictment are three others at large in Pakistan — Hafiz Khan’s daughter, grandson and an unrelated man, all three of whom are charged with handling the distribution of funds. The indictment lists about $50,000 in transactions. The funds were used to buy guns, support militants’ families and promote the cause of the Pakistani Taliban, according to the See IMAM, Page A3