Gallup Sun

In the 10th Annual Memorial Day Celebration, hosted by the Gallup McKinley Veterans Committee on May 30 this year, the crowds were larger at both the Hillcrest Cemetery and the County Courthouse, the parade was longer, and enthusiasm was at a much higher level than had been witnessed in the previous nine years.

Memorial Day is especially significant for veterans and families, even as it is also shared by civilians who commemorate the lives of family members and friends who have passed. There is enough empathy to go around.

The Veterans Committee was proud to show the spectators the two new pillars erected for additional veterans – one for WWII vets and one for those who served...

Close to 100 attend annual memorial service

They came as if to their own funeral.

Law enforcement and personnel from the Gallup Police Department, the Gallup Fire Department, the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office, and generally, officials from Gallup City Hall – their brethren killed in the line of duty years ago – took their places at a May 20 tribute titled “The Gallup Police Annual Fallen Officer’s Memorial Service.”

“This is to pay tribute to our brothers who sacrificed for their fellow man with honor,” Interim Police Chief Franklin Boyd said. “They will never be forgotten.”

Boyd, a career city police officer, introduced family members of John Arviso...

Local dignitaries sniff out the stinkiest shoes

The smell of victory and “de-feet” was in the air, as boys and girls ages 5-15 competed in the Odor-Eaters’ Rotten Sneaker Contest at Walmart in Gallup. The contest is a fun, family-friendly event to find the most rotten sneakers in all of greater Gallup.

Contestants’ shoes were judged by a panel of “odorologists” — expert sniffers from the Gallup community, which consisted of returning sniffer Sammy Chioda of Millennium Media, Inc., Amy Coats and Michelle Perez of Foundations of Freedom, and JC of radio station 93X FM. Together, they rated the shoes based on how bad they looked, and, of course, how rotten they...