Columns

2025 State Of The County Annual Report

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By DENISE DERKACS
Outgoing County Council Chair
January 2025

Los Alamos County Council, with input from County staff and community members, reviewed and updated its strategic goals and priorities and adopted five goals and 22 priorities for 2024. The goals and priorities address issues that are important to the community and the governance of essential functions. They are tools to help maintain a focus on important and challenging issues.

Concrete actions for addressing each of the priorities were identified to help assure that, in the context of all ongoing County efforts, there was a connection Read More

Weekly Fishing Report: Jan. 7, 2025

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By GEORGE MORSE
Sports and Outdoors
Los Alamos Daily Post 

Happy New Year.

Heading into the New Year, New Mexico’s snowpack is still suffering from the lack of precipitation and warmer-than-normal daytime temperatures. The snowpack last week was just 12-percent of normal.  

A change in the weather pattern is forecast to bring colder temperatures and hopefully  some precipitation to our state this coming week. It is much-needed. Stocking activity last week was limited to Southern New Mexico.  

Anglers should consider a trip to Southern New Mexico. 

Most of the small lakes and reservoirs Read More

Dannemann: A Donation-Free New Year

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By MERILEE DANNEMANN
Triple Spaced Again

The anti-donation season has started in New Mexico. What a great way to start a new year!

Starting Jan. 1, leading up to the legislative session, New Mexico law prohibits legislators, several other public officials, candidates for those offices and anyone acting on their behalf from asking for contributions. Other officials covered by this law are the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, commissioner of public lands and state auditor, any candidate for any one of those offices and anyone acting on Read More

Posts From The Road: Unique RVs Spotted Along The Way…

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Skoolie In Nebraska: A very common ‘hand crafted’ RV conversion is the ‘skoolie’, a converted and remodeled school bus. (Skoolie is the correct spelling for these RV conversions). Some skoolies are a little ‘rough’ in their construction and some are very nice and well constructed. Shown is a skoolie that we spotted back in 2017 while we were camped near Alliance, Neb. for the solar eclipse that year. We were camped very close to Carhenge, which is a unique art display of Stonehenge but made with cars. There were hundreds of spectators gathered at Carhenge and we when we walked over for a visit we spotted Read More

Fr. Glenn: I Resolve…

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By Fr. Glenn Jones:

You may have seen in the Santa Fe New Mexican on Jan. 4 a story about the possibility of a nun with local connections being considered for a declaration of sainthood. Sister Blandina Segale, a Sister of Charity, worked in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and the surrounding area in the latter 1800s through the early 1900s, establishing hospitals and schools and caring for many. The cause for her to be declared a saint is progressing, though it has quite a journey yet.

When hearing about the process of a person being declared a saint, sometimes we hear people speaking of the Church “making him/her Read More

All Shall Be Well: Be Not Afraid, Dear Child Of God

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Clergy from left, Deacon Amy Schmuck, Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, retired, The Rev. Mary Ann Hill and The Rev. Lynn Finnegan. Photo by Nate Limback/ladailypost.com

By Deacon Cynthia Biddlecomb, M.Div.
ELCA

The beginning of each new year typically provides a clean slate, a chance to reform unhealthy habits, a feeling of hope for our communal future. But this New Years Day opened with news of a terror attack. What can this mean for our nascent year 2025? 

Our first reaction was likely one of horror. The intentionality of mowing down people horrifies us. Compounding our horror is having our fresh Read More

Amateur Naturalist: Mathematical Symmetry In Plants

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By ROBERT DRYA
Los Alamos

Plants die back with the arrival of winter. Their dry, brownish leaves and stems are not as interesting compared to summer. However winter provides a good time to explore and ponder patterns of growth that then can be seen in the summer.

Ferns provide one example. A stem initially grows in a curl, not straight. The curled stem in turn has repeating rings of developing leaves. Three kinds of repetition are apparent.

First, stems grow from a curl. Second, little branches grow sideways from a stem. Third, leaves grow in parallel from the little branches. (See Pictures 1 and Read More

State Treasurer: Let’s Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is!

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By LAURA M. MONTOYA
New Mexico State Treasurer

My journey is similar to many other New Mexicans’ in that it took a lot of hard work, hope, resilience, community, and prayer to keep pushing forward to work towards something better for me and my family.

Dreams were the hope that helped drive the determination to keep pushing forward, but survival was always at the forefront of every decision and job I undertook. Financial struggle, living paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet — a typical New Mexico story. Add limited resources, knowledge and opportunity, and you have an equation for failure or extreme Read More

Best Of Liddie’s Recipes: Minced Meat Empanaditas

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Empanaditas. Photo by Liddie Martinez

By LIDDIE MARTINEZ
Española Valley

Holidays for my family were more about looking back and embracing tradition; a time to bring the family together.

Since my grandmother was the matriarch and lived with us when I was a kid, generations of relatives started arriving the week of Thanksgiving and came and left with such irregularity, you never knew who might come to dinner. Arrays of ingredients were prepped and cooked for the parade of parties, luncheons and Sunday dinners that followed: six whole weeks of celebrating from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. Read More

RPLA Announces Biennial Convention On Jan. 18, 2025

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By LISA SHIN
Chair
Republican Party of Los Alamos

Dear Friends:    

Happy New Year! I wish all of you much joy, love, and happiness as we cheer for new beginnings!

Note that we will not meet on Jan. 16, 2025, and take care of Central Committee business at our Biennial Convention. Please make plans to attend our Biennial at 9 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 18 at Fuller Lodge. We will elect new leadership for the next 2 years.

I am proud of my record as RPLA Chair for the past 2 years, hope to build on our wins, and encourage more participation with younger individuals and families. As Chair, we tripled our bank account Read More