Man shot and killed outside of Sports Page Lounge early this morning.

On May 6, around 1:45 am, Metro Dispatch received a call after shots were reportedly fired at Sports Page Lounge, located at 1400 S. Second St.

When Gallup Police officers arrived at the scene, they found security guards performing CPR on the victim in the bar's parking lot.

The victim had reportedly told the security guards that he had gotten into a fight with the suspect in the bar. He asked them to escort him to his car.

As the security guards were escorting the victim to his car, a man ran up to them and reportedly shot at the victim multiple times.

The security officers shot back at the suspect.

The suspect is being treated at the hospital and his status is currently unknown.

The names of the victim and the suspect are currently being withheld pending the outcome of this ongoing investigation and the notification of next of kin.

Rehoboth Christian students raise Almost  $12,000 for pet project

Not all of life’s lessons can be learned in a classroom, but there is often overlap. A perfect example is a student project at Rehoboth Christian High School to build a community common area for the campus.

The idea started with geometry teacher Emily Wuestwald. She made a point of taking her classes outside “to look at what’s been given to us and [how to] bring beauty to it, but also find beauty in what’s there.”

“This is something I have been dreaming up for the past five years, finding a space for the high school students, just giving them a place to enjoy and a place to be during lunch break, before school and after school as well,“ she said.

Jonathan Zylstra, a sophomore who’s working on the project, put it another way.

“A lot of us were kind of bored and didn’t have anything to do other than be on our phones during lunch or during breaks,” he said. “We were trying to find a way to get outside and be more active rather than just sitting around. We designed this kind of project for things we would enjoy doing at lunch if we had the opportunity.”

At the top of their list is a 9-square, a game that’s sort of a mashup of foursquare and volleyball. Players in squares in a cagelike frame bounce a ball through the air and try to keep it from touching the ground without leaving their squares.

About the recreational opportunities available for students on campus currently are ping pong and a donated golf simulator.

“Only a couple of kids can use it. You have to prove you can hit the ball straight,” junior Morgan Arsenault said.

Looking for a more inclusive option that didn’t require special skills, the students turned to something they’d had before: a portable 9-square setup the school has that became popular with students and helped them find new friends.

“All of our students really love the 9-square. We’ll get mostly all the high schoolers out,” Zylstra said. Irelynn Delgado, 14, agreed.

Freshman Irelynn Delgado said the portable 9-square has helped build a lot of friendships.

It helped with communication between peers who wouldn’t usually talk to each other and interact,” Delgado said. “It brings a lot of unlikely friendships.When we play we have a lot of teamwork happen and a lot of just fun to bring up student morale.”

The teachers get a kick out of it, too, Wuestwald said, because it lets them interact with students in a fun, low-pressure way.

The permanent setup will take up 25 sq. ft. of a planned 50-ft.-by-100-ft. space that will eventually also have shade structures, trees and more. At some point that might include a giant outdoor chess board.

“We’re hoping to make [the space] grow over the years,” Wuestwald said.

But let’s not forget that Wuestwald teaches geometry, not recess, so bringing the project into the classroom was also important.

Her geometry class started the project by looking at blueprints of the high school. Then she challenged students to use their math skills to find the dimensions of their classroom and use different ratios and similar figures to find how to cover the ground with various materials. They discussed logical thinking and budgeting. They had a landscape engineer come in to talk about planning, what types of plants would work best and issues like drainage, erosion, sustainability and maintenance.

When it’s ready, the space will be there for middle and high school students, whose classrooms are on either side of the chosen space, and for the resident campus community.

“We have a big community of people who live on campus as well, so their children and adults will be able to use the space,” Delgado said.

The church community can also use the space after services or for social events and for Wednesday after-school meetings of Gems and Cadets, scout-like youth ministry programs.

Like almost any project, part of getting it up and running is money. The group has raised almost $12,000 but that’s been donations from Wuestwald’s parents’ congregation, Shalom Christian Reform Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who chipped in after she brought it up on a visit home. Some of the donors are planning a trip to Gallup in April to help start building what their donations were made for.

“They will come and help us build this space, and create a community and connection with Shalom in different ways,” Wuestwald said, “Whether it’s this project, student tuition aid, or just having them come out and be part of our community for a week.”

The budget goal is $30,000 and the school is gratefully accepting donations at https://factsmgt admin.com/give/appeal/sX5k6FAav.

By Holly J. Wagner
Sun Correspondent

In a fundraising email to supporters, an “angry” and “frustrated” U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham called for “common sense” action to curb gun violence.

In the email, from her Friends of Michelle campaign committee; Lujan Grisham notes a Washington Post article that showed there have been more mass shootings so far this year than days in the year.

The Washington Post has been tracking shootings with multiple people injured or killed, such as the Los Altos Skate Park shooting that left one dead, one paralyzed and several others injured. Other counts only list those with multiple people killed.

Lujan Grisham said that the “gun culture” in the United States helps lead to the shootings.

“I would argue that it’s our gun culture that is unique to the deadly violence in the United States. Most people are responsible,” she wrote. “They can appreciate and own guns without putting the safety of others or themselves at risk. Others, regardless of whether they have a mental illness, are susceptible to the gun culture that glorifies gun violence on a daily basis.”

A spokesman for Lujan Grisham told New Mexico Political Report that she has sponsored two pieces of legislation related to gun violence.

One is the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2015, which is sponsored by U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and Pete King, R-N.Y.

The legislation would expand background checks to all commercial sales. Currently, background checks are not required for gun sales over the Internet, or at gun shows. This would add these, as well as, sales through classified ads to the required background checks.

The legislation would ban the federal government from creating a registry and makes misuse of records a felony. The legislation would also make sure transfers between family members are unaffected.

The second piece of legislation is the Gun Violence Research Act. Lujan Grisham agreed to cosponsor the legislation on Tuesday.

The legislation would lift a ban that bars the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention from studying the relationship between gun ownership and gun violence.

Lujan Grisham also signed onto a letter by Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., requesting a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to ask how Congress and the office of the Attorney General can work together to reduce gun violence in minority communities.

In a Republican-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate, any legislation that does not loosen regulations on guns has a very small chance of reaching the president’s desk.

She said that “common-sense gun safety legislation” needs to go into effect “but it is also time to look inward at the culture of violence that plays into this crisis.”

The congresswoman referenced Jeb Bush’s statement last week after the Oregon college shooting last week where he said, in part, “stuff happens.”

“We can no longer stick our heads in the sand, or throw our hands up in the air and say ‘stuff happens’ in response to this crisis,” Lujan Grisham said. “It’s time for Washington to take action.”

Lujan Grisham also referenced an Up Front column in the Albuquerque Journal on the gun violence that shows no signs of stopping.

Visit: www.nmpolitcalreport.com

SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed HB 171 into law, a bill that updates high school graduation requirements in New Mexico for the first time in over a decade, on Feb. 10.

“High school should be about preparing students for the real world while providing more opportunities to pursue their unique interests and future careers,” the governor said. “These changes will lead to more young New Mexicans staying engaged in school, graduating, and continuing that success in their adult lives.”

The requirements outlined in HB 171 will impact students entering the ninth grade in the 2025-2026 school year. The bill makes key changes to graduation requirements that better align with New Mexico’s workforce and higher education landscape. These include the addition of two units decided on by local school boards or charter school governing bodies, as long as they meet Public Education Department academic content and performance standards.

“This allows flexibility for districts to tailor the requirements to the needs of their communities and allows students to gain valuable experience and receive credit at the same time,” Public Education Department Secretary Dr. Arsenio Romero said. “A modern, flexible, forward-looking curriculum will help engage students, address chronic absences and improve student achievement.”

HB 171 would keep a requirement for a minimum of 24 credits to graduate, remove the Algebra II requirement for graduation (while still requiring that Algebra II be offered), increase flexibility for electives which could be used for Career Technical Education or foreign language arts, and create more opportunities for offering financial literacy, without mandating it as required class.

The updated requirements provide a greater level of student choice while keeping the total number of credits needed to graduate at 24.

In an interview with the Sun, Gallup-McKinley County Schools Superintendent Mike Hyatt explained that the bill was introduced during last year’s legislative session, but the school district opposed that version.

“We understood and thought that the idea of changing the graduation requirements was good, [but] we needed to make sure there was local flexibility in the graduation requirement language,” Hyatt said. “This year they listened to a lot of concerns and were able to put together a pretty good bill in regards to graduation requirements.”

Hyatt noted that the new requirements would allow more flexibility with the district’s Career Pathways program. Now, some of those courses can be tailored to fit in with the core curriculum.

He did see the Algebra situation as being a potential problem. Currently, high school students have to take an assessment in their junior year that Hyatt says includes some Algebra II skills. Those questions would need to be removed from the test since the course will no longer be required.

Rep. G. Andrés Romero was one of the sponsors of HB 171, and he is excited about what the bill mean for New Mexico students.

“By providing our students with greater flexibility and control over their course load, we can better engage them, increase their graduation rates, and more effectively prepare them for life after high school,” he said. “House Bill 171 will help chart the path forward for students interested in the trades, giving them a head start to a successful career and helping New Mexico staff up these in-demand fields.»

Staff Reports