Pulitzer Surprise

Walk on the Wilder side

Santa Fean Caroline Fraser won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for biography yesterday. Fraser's book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, earned the honor. She says a lengthy piece on Ingalls Wilder written 20 years ago kept gnawing at her until she decided to write a book. We're glad she did.

Piece of the prize

Diana Alba Soular at the Las Cruces Sun-News contributed to the USA Today Network's The Wall series that took home the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. The interactive journalism detailed the impact of President Trump's border wall proposal.

Cash dash

Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat, and Monty Newman, a Republican, gathered the most cash for their congressional runs over the past three months. Each is seeking their party's nomination for the 2nd Congressional District race to replace Steve Pearce. Pearce is running for governor. The race is expected to be competitive as Democrats look to reclaim the US House. Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, former lieutenant governor candidate Deb Haaland took the lead in fundraising, outpacing Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, in the race for the 1st Congressional District seat being vacated by Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is also running for governor.

Irksome decision

Santa Fe city councilors are still miffed over $400,000 in raises that were quietly given to city employees as a reward for extra work on a project to modernize the city's software system. They chatted about it at yesterday's Finance Committee meeting ($), despite having already discussed it at the governing body meeting last week. It's certain to come up again.

Bizarro World

The University of New Mexico is considering cutting the budgets of some athletic programs and completely get rid of others. Monday afternoon, the coach of the wildly successful men's soccer team sent an email to supporters saying he was told his program is potentially on the chopping block. The wildly unsuccessful football team (in terms of both wins and ticket sales) is likely not going to be eliminated when regents consider the matter Tuesday morning. The Athletic Department has failed to meet its budget in eight of the past 10 years.

Forms are hard

More and more legislators are getting caught making what we're told are honest mistakes on their financial disclosure forms. After Republican Rep. Yvette Harrell didn't disclose money earned from a lease with a state agency, Democratic Rep. Bill McCamley said he didn't disclose income from renting part of his house ($).

Facebook tour

Saying businesses consider Facebook an essential tool, the social media company is bringing its "Community Boost" tour to New Mexico. The venture is set for Albuquerque at the end of the month and aims to teach business owners how to develop and hone their social media skills. Just ask the fake news people; Facebook can really help legitimize your business!

This blows

Spring in New Mexico is, the Word believes, generally shite. Allergies, early fires, no rain, gale-force winds … what's not to love? Today will suck. Or blow. It'll be a little colder than yesterday and a whole lot windier.
 
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