The Hobbs Flare
by Agnes Kastner Head

The decision to start a newspaper in Hobbs was made following the 1944 city election in Hobbs, when two candidates battled it out for mayor and seats on the eight member city council.

The race pitted a politically unknown hardware merchant against a prominent candidate who had served two years as lieutenant governor of New Mexico.

As the campaign heated up, an ad was sent by the underdog candidate to the only newspaper in Hobbs, and asked that it be charged to the hardware store, that had been a regular advertiser, and had paid its bills promptly. The ad was turned down.

At that time the candidate for mayor, and two candidates for city council, took the money and went to the newspaper office and laid the money on the counter for payment of an ad. They were first told the copy was unacceptible, then they were told that all available space was sold. This was the story as the time neared for the election.

So the underdog election committee resorted to handbills. They went to the only job printing firm in Hobbs and printed some multi-clolored hanbills which were widely distributed all over Hobbs.

When they took the second handbill to the print shop, the owner almost cried when he told the committee that he could not do anymore printing for them because he had been told he would lose the business of the bank and several of the main businesses in Hobbs.

So the committee had to go to Seminole, Texas to get the handbills printed. The road was unpaved. It meant driving over one day to take the copy, the printer was glad to get the business and did the printing overnight, and someone had to drive to Seminole to pick up the finished handbills.

The campaign was run with handbills and the underdog canidate for mayor and five candidates for city council won, beating the Hobbs political machine by a big majority.

It was then that I told the publisher who is now deceased, if it was the last thing I ever did, I would give Hobbs a second newspaper.

The war was underway, it was impossible to buy any printing equipment, but the news spread. A few days later William Felter, publisher of the Lovington Leader, then a weekly, came to Hobbs and offered to sell me the Lovington Leader. I bought it for the sum of $10,000, cash, with the full intentions of moving it to Hobbs. I even had a building cleaned out to move it into but several oldtimers in Lovington, all of them now deceased, objected, saying the Leader was not only the oldest newspaper in Lea County but the oldest established business, going back to 1917. They did not want the Leader moved to Hobbs.

So I had to change my plans again. I circulated the Leader in Hobbs and in Lovington and in just a couple of weeks had a circulation of more than 2,000, which ws good back in 1944.

In 1948, I was finally able to buy a press from a Colorado firm, and I bought two linotypes and other equipment and the first issue of the Hobbs Flare was printed March 26, 1948. On March 27th, I was arrested for criminal libel over a column I had in the first issue.

The late Tom Finn was Peace Justice in Precint 18. I lived in Precinct 10, Paul Heard was Peace Justice in Precinct 10. When the District Attorney, the late G.T. Watts, filed the charges against me, he filed in Precinct 18.

I remember a court suit years before when the late Tom Neal a lawyer in Lovington and father of the late Melvin C. Neal, Hobbs attorney, and the late District Judge Caswell Neal of Carlsbad challenged a criminal charge because it had been filed in the wrong Precinct.

I represented myself at the preliminary hearing and many of my friends were worried because they thought that I needed an attorney, but I remained firm because I had previously been arrested two years before for an article in the Lovington Leader, and it cost so much to defend myself, I decided that if it happened again I would defend myself.

I had told the D.A. that and I had to keep my word.

District Judge Donald D. Hallam had just arrived in Hobbs. He had been releaded from the Armed Forces during World War II. He immediately got a job as assistant district attorney and that's a day Judge Hallam says he will never forget.

When Peace Justice Finn called my case, I arose and Hallam appeared before the judge. When I asked that it be dismissed because I had been charged in the wrong Precinct, I threw the Democratic machine in bedlam. Judge Hallam says he will never forget it. Judge Finn decideed against me, so I told him I wanted to appeal his order to the District Court. They couldn't believe their ears, but after several lawyers got into a huddle, Judge Finn granted my appeal to the District Court.

District Judge Roy Anderson, who is now deceased, appeared in Lovington and I appeared before him. He granted my appeal and later the charge was dismissed.

But I had carried out my plans. Hobbs has had a second newspaper since March 26, 1948.