Nick Seibel, publisher and editor of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This is a transcript of his conversation with Susan Morée.
Susan Morée:
So, Nick, Western New Mexico University, there's five finalists for the new president role. Tell us about it.
Nick Seibel:
The regents have five finalists who will be visiting Silver City for campus visits later this month, the 25th, 26th, and 27th, and then on March 3rd and 4th. Each one of the candidates will visit campus. There'll be forums for them to meet with students, faculty, and staff, and an informal open house for the public which will be live streamed for each one of them. It’s an interesting list of candidates. We probably don't have time to go into the whole list here, but all of them haveexperience in administration, higher education. It’s an interesting mix of folks from the area and kind of from across the country. So, it's going to be interesting to see. I'm looking forward to meeting these folks and finding out who has potential to be the next head of Western New Mexico University.
Susan Morée:
Okay, and Highway 180, there's going to be a public meeting to talk about safety improvements. Tell us about that.
Nick Seibel:
It's pretty hard to get away from the sort of weird intersection that defines state and federal highways in Silver City, which is the intersection of New Mexico Highway 90 and US 180 in the middle of Silver City, which, if you call them by their street names, is Silver Heights Boulevard and Hudson Street, which are the two highways. And then Hudson Street, when it continues north through that intersection, becomes Juniper Street, just to make things extra confusing. The intersection doesn't happen at right angles. It's sort of this X-shaped intersection. And as things stand right now, there are no crosswalks. There's no provision for pedestrians to be able to use that intersection at all. It's rough for bicyclists. Really, it doesn't work that great for cars a lot of times either, and so the state is sort of looking at how they might improve that, and some of their suggestions have been controversial with folks. They're having a public meeting that is actually coming up tomorrow evening in Silver City, and they're basically going to be going over the options there. That's happening from 6 to 8 Thursday evening at the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center.
Susan Morée:
And there's a new interim principal at COBRE. Tell us about that.
Nick Seibel:
Corey Gropp had been the principal and athletic director at COBRE High School this year, and Gropp rather abruptly resigned. To fill out the rest of the school year, the district decided to elevate a couple of existing staffers.Zoya Provenciois serving as the interim principal and Margaret Roacho is serving as the interim athletic coordinator.
Susan Morée:
And where can readers find more about these stories?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, find the full list of finalists for Western New Mexico University President and lots more at scdailypress.com.
