Local News

Third-graders don’t always have to raise their hand to answer.

In fact, it’s rare when they do in Scott Johnson’s third-grade class, thanks to his somewhat unconventional approach to teaching.

Johnson, a teacher at Barranca Mesa Elementary, was honored late last month by being named the Los Alamos Public Schools teacher of the year.

“I have to be humble a little bit, there’s so many other great teachers,” Johnson said.

Two apparently unrelated power outages struck downtown and North Mesa at about 11 a.m. Sunday.

The Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities estimated that 1,000 households were affected in North Mesa and about 50 businesses in portions of the downtown. About 80 percent of the North Mesa households had their power restored by about 4:15 p.m., with the remainder back up within another hour, according to the department’s press release Monday.

Thirty-four Eastern European police officials looked on as State Appeals Court Judge Roderick Kennedy explained that freedom requires an active political structure existing within a framework of law.

The law-enforcement officials from Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia graduated from a four-week senior management course in March at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Roswell.

ILEA spokesman Jack Swickard explained that New Mexico Tech operates ILEA for the U.S. Department of State.

The Los Alamos Retirement Community (LARC) Advocacy Group met Friday evening to discuss concerns over the inconsistent level of care they say is being given to AspenRidge residents, a local retirement and assisted-living community.

The group, a mix of AspenRidge residents and their family members, was recently formed to bring attention to issues related to the quality of care at the assisted-living community, and to report their findings to the LARC board of directors, a group that oversees the operations at several area retirement and nursing homes.