The message forum is an ongoing dialogue between classmates. These are random subjects, topics, and trivia.

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Bill Leggett

REX, MANY REUNIONS AGO, WAS IT RHS 62 THAT HAD AN AUCTIONING OF  A Peter Hurd PAINTING?  IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME AGO.

Rex Booth

Pam Harris and Don Ervin went to a Sadie Hawkins dance in 1962. Pam wore a football uniform and Don, barefooted, sporting a skirt, and a red pony tail wig.  Fast forward 53 years... At Roy & Jaque's summer party, Don's cousin Bill Turley, Pam Harris and I honored Don with a plaque for being such a great sport!  Oh for sure, Pam brought along the same wig with pony tails and put it on Don's head. Everyone said if Don had a guitar, he'd look just like Willie Nelson!!  Great Fun by All !!

1962

53 years later

Mike Curtis

This is how I do it!!!  If there is no music in your feet, you'r just trudging through life!

Patrick Riley

I found these two photos on the Roswell Country Club's website; they were taken in the club bar a number of years ago. I have no idea who any of the people are. In the background of both photos, you can see portions of the large curved panoramic mural of the Pecos Valley set in ~1900. I believe Peter Hurd painted it.

Questions:

1) Was Peter Hurd indeed the artist?

2) Is the mural still there?

If so, I hope appropriate steps are taken to preserve it.

Rex Booth

Pat,

According to the Country Club 'bartemptress' standing next to the Southwest Mural... "it is indeed by Peter Hurd"!  Painted 1958!  (C.C.  575-622-3410)

Charline Lake

Patrick Riley

Rex, thanks for confirming ... good to know.

The Country Club mural is well done and engaging (witness ... I last saw it ~60 years ago and still remember it).

You locals should check it out when you can ... they're not making any new Peter Hurd's.

Rex Booth

Where seldom is Hurd a discouraging wurd and the skies are not cloudy all day... 

John Landess

Pat,

I myself saw the mural about same time as you. I worked out there 1959-60, first as a caddy and later in the pro-shop. I often had to run over to the club to remind members in the bar that their tee time was near.

C.C. (Red) Pierce was the pro. He later married one of the member's daughter...(WOW)

btw, wuz you a member?????

Fred Miller

I sent a copy of the top picture to my brother Ron there in Roswell. He says the mural is still there, and still being admired. He also knew the 4 people in the picture, they are friends of my 2 nephews.  I do not think there are too many people there in Roswell that he does not know.

Rex Booth

Pat, Fred, and John... 'good sleuthing' !

That Peter Hurd mural was behind that bar last year at our 60th Class Reunion. If memory still serves... about 60 including those who had cocktails, attended as well... ha 

Here's another "Peter Hurd Mystery"... "What happened to Hurd's mural behind the bar in the lounge at the old Nickson Hotel"? The Nickson was across the street from the Courthouse on east 5th. 

Tommy Weathers said he saw the mural at the Nickson before it was torn down in the late 1960's. Tommy believed the mural was sold to a well-to-do rancher in Artesia.  It's puzzling... why the large Hurd mural is in Artesia museum when Hurd was born in Roswell and attended NMMI. Was the city of Roswell asleep at the wheel?  

Anyone remember the Peter Hurd mural at the old Nickson Hotel??  hmmm...?

Cal, as our "unofficial class historian", shall we offer vintage bubble gum as the incentive and prize to solve this mystery or would coupons to a "house of ill-repute' or tickets to a "Chippendale show" be more apropos?

Paula Carl (Cowee Miller)

I didn't figure out what happened to the painting in the bar at the Nickson Hotel but I did find this much information on the mural. That painting entitled "The Encounter", depicting a western shootout, was the work of John Liggett Meirs, a friend of Peter Hurd and his wife. John Meirs lived in a small house on the Hurd ranch and commuted back and forth daily to Roswell while he painted the mural. For that painting he was paid 50$ a week. I suspect that Meirs mural was easily moved since it was painted on three boards unlike Hurd's murals. The Prudential bldg mural in Houston was free to anyone who wanted it but the cost to move it was about $500,000!I found this information in an online book by Mark Fuller copyright 2015. 

Charline Lake

Paula Carl, lovely research.  Thank you.  

Fred Miller

Back in the 80's when I was a banker here in Sherman, I met a guy at some function.  He said my name sounded familiar, asked me if I was from Roswell. I said yes, and asked his name. He answered, "Ned Nickson. My parents owned the hotel in Roswell." Ned graduated 3 years before us in 1959. He knew my Dad from NMMI.  Ned lived in Sherman/Denison for a bit longer before moving to Midland.

Patrick Riley

John, my parents (both avid golfers) were members of the Roswell Country Club since before my birth in 1944.

For those of you picturing a "country club" as a posh place, the RCC was far from it. Before remodeling in the late 50s, the swimming pool was simply an L-shaped walled-off corner of the Country Club lake. This wall allowed chlorine tablets to be thrown into the "pool" to keep the water "safe". The bottom of the "pool" was just lake bottom dirt; there were no filtration or circulation systems. The public pool in Cahoon Park was much, much nicer.

The "good old days" ... well maybe not so much ... but we all survived.

I occasionally think of the "monkey bars" (and other "dangerous" playground equipment) at Missouri Avenue Park. We climbed all over them without any adult supervision and somehow survived.

"Those were the days, my friends, we thought they'd never end ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O5EeBjxhiY

John Landess

Pat,

So you were on of the e-leets!!

The old pool was still down the way when I was a caddy, and we used to climb the fence and swim in it at night, avoiding the night watchman. Later, I had keys to the cart house (old base barracks building) and we used to take a couple out at night and race around under the moon on the back nine. Once one of them didn't get plugged in right and stranded some golfers out on the 5th the next day!

We also used to go out early before opening and swim in some of the water hazards and recover balls. Clean them up in a ball washer and sell them to some of the 'cool' members for 10 to 25 cents, depending on brand..It was a lot of fun in those days, but I have to admit that I was envious of some of the members. It's tough being a peon!!

ps. We also drank out of water hoses!!

Rex Booth

Paula,

Thank you for your research including the nice write up on John Liggett Meigs who was a friend of Peter Hurd. I’ve looked high and low for the Meigs painting called “The Encounter” but to date have not uncovered any clues to follow.  I understand Peter Hurd had John L. Meigs assist him with the "massive 13,000 sf Fresco" at Holden Hall at Texas Tech University completed in 1954. It definitely drawfs the Artesia fresco by comparision.

Here are a couple of links on John Liggett Meigs  (1916 - 2003) https://www.adobegallery.com/artist/john-liggett-meigs-1916-2003

“The Fence Rider”   (one can see the influence Hurd had on John Meigs) https://www.incollect.com/listings/fine-art/paintings/john-liggett-meigs-offered-by-rainone-galleries-340513

Patrick Riley

John, I've got a golf ball recovery story too. In the dead of winter, when the cold cleared most of the algae out of the Roswell Country Club lake, we would go out (occasionally)in the club rowboats on Mondays (when the club was closed). We were equipped with several long wooden sticks with three carefully positioned nails in one end, using those to pick up very visible golf balls off the ninth tee box (a three par over the water). On a good day, we could collect 120 to 150 balls in a few hours. We'd take them to the Roswell Municipal Golf Course, where the pro there would buy them from us for about 10¢ each (good money back then)!

The Country Club lake was also full of snapping turtles, some of them bigger than a foot in diameter. You could clearly see them on the bottom when the algae levels were down. We only did this once and, while it wasn't easy, discovered that you could snag an exposed turtle foot with a weighted treble hook. In about four hours that winter day, we caught 13, ranging in diameter from ~ 9" to 14".

We took the turtles home, dried them off and spray painted each one's shell gold, adding "RHS" on the gold background in red nail polish. In the dead of night, we dumped them in the Institute's goldfish pond in the middle of the divided road leading to the Sally Port.

A couple of days later, we drove by the Institute goldfish pond again ... every turtle was gone. But so too was every goldfish ... all that remained was one unconsumed floating fish head.

It's with some shame I share this and only do this now as I've been assured the statute of limitations has run!

Paula Carl (Cowee Miller)

Well, this forum has shown me one thing. I lived a very sheltered life!  It's so amusing to hear the behind the scenes stories of my classmates and I love them. 

Cal Turley

One more story about the CC. I have been racking my brain trying to remember who the other 2 guys that were with me but I think it was Terry Pack and Tony( Hardrock) Abernathy. Anyway late one night we commandeered a row boat and paddled across the lake to the back side of the Club where 3 kegs of beer had be left out side.We skillfully loaded a keg on the boat avoiding the security guard. The next morning we skipped school and headed up to Ruidoso with our contraband to do a little partying. All 3 of us, being Jim Beam and coke drinkers,didn't realize we needed a keg tap to get the beer out. We went to a repair garage and borrowed a hammer to knock the plug out only to find out the beer stunk like rotten eggs. We apparently weren't the brightest bulbs in the package or we would have realized the kegs were left outside for a reason. Moral of the story " Crime doesn't pay".

Rex Booth

Cal, 

Great Story!  Glad to see you lived to tell the tale!  Terry Pack graduated with us in 1962. Our Senior yearbook shows a (Jack) Abernathy, as a Junior that year. Did Jack wear glasses?  

A  better tasting C.C. beer... 

Rex Booth

Nickson Hotel Lounge Mural Mystery (a spoke-in-the-wheel solved)

Jack Mask, the manager of Roswell’s Nickson Hotel in 1951 had asked Hurd if he would paint a mural for his hotel lounge curved bar.

But with the pending Prudential mural commitment in Houston taking up Hurd’s time, Hurd recommended his protege John Meigs for the mural project at the Nickson Hotel. The mural was to show an imaginary gun fight with sheriff Pat Garrett in a shootout at Main & Second street downtown Roswell. A reporter at the Roswell Daily Record said John’s painting of stores, saloons, church, and stable was historically correct as it appeared during the late 1880’s. John Meigs called his large 15 feet long by 4 feet tall Mural “The Encounter”. Side note. In the mural, Pat Garrett is shown facing with the rear view of the other gunfighter being John Meigs himself in the mural.  If Paul Harvey had been alive at the same time as Pat Garrett, he might have said…”Now you know… the ‘rest’ of the story". 

It is still not known whom owns this mural? Some say he was a big rancher or oilman from Artesia. Any guess whom this person might be...? 

Saundra Bennett (Whiteside)

Rex,  thanks for posting the pics of Meigs!  He was a talented painter, and did have a style similar to Hurd's!  That is a great shot of him painting the mural at the Nickson Hotel!  Good for you!

Rex Booth

Saundra,

Thank you for your kind words! I appreciate it!  

John Landess

A little side note: Pat Garret apparently had an 1800 acre ranch near Roswell. He was later killed in mysterious circumstances near Las Cruces. He was supposedly shot by a rancher named Wayne Brazel, over a lease agreement .. Brazel who turned himsef in, was later acquitted of all charges.

Now the major person involved in the Roswell Incident (UFO) was a rancher named Brazel... hummmm, coincidental????