Silver City Daily Press and Independent

01/09/2026

As of this evening, we are seeing moisture and snowfall beginning to accumulate across parts of Grant County. In response, Silver Consolidated Schools will be on a two-hour delay tomorrow, Friday, January 9, 2026.

It is currently 8:50 PM, and calling a two-hour delay at this time allows our transportation, maintenance, and administrative teams the necessary daylight and early-morning hours to fully assess road conditions, campus safety, and bus routes before determining whether any additional adjustments are needed.

The National Weather Service continues to forecast snow and gusty winds overnight. Our primary considerations tomorrow morning will be overnight accumulation, road conditions, and whether conditions allow for the safe operation of buses, particularly in shaded or higher-elevation areas.

This delay provides us flexibility and time to make the safest decision possible. If further changes are required, including a transition to remote learning or a closure, we will communicate that decision as early as possible tomorrow morning.

Thank you for your patience, flexibility, and continued focus on student and staff safety.

Will Hawkins
​Superintendent

01/08/2026

“I’m having a very, very difficult time coming to a decision,” Mayor Simon Wheaton-Smith said. “All of them are very well qualified, I believe. The more I look them, the more I’m coming up with subjective ideas of who is best.”

He proposed that each councilor could make a nomination from among the four applicants, and whichever received a majority vote would be who Wheaton-Smith would appoint.

The seat for District 1 on the Silver City Town Council will remain empty for at least another two weeks, as Mayor Simon Wheaton-Smith did not make an appointment for the position at Wednesday’s special meeting. Four people applied with letters of interest for the seat, which was vacated in Novemb...

12/27/2025

Dobkins, 74, called Central Dispatch on Friday morning and allegedly told them he had just shot and killed Mayberry, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office.

The Grant County Sheriff’s Office has charged Gila resident Russell Dobkins with an open count of murder of his neighbor, Esker Mayberry, as well as a charge of tampering with evidence. Dobkins, 74, called Central Dispatch on Friday morning and allegedly told them he had just shot and killed Maybe...

12/25/2025

Susan Hinojosa, who owns the property, has her lights set up by the annual Lighted Christmas Parade each year, and turns them on nightly through New Year’s Eve from 5:45 to 9:30.
“We have to start mid-October,” she said. “I always want to be ready for the night of the parade, so that’s why we start in October.”
Hinojosa said that Christmas has always been important to her family. She said ever since she and her husband moved to the property, they have done more each year as they could afford it.

12/25/2025

Abraham Clay, 9, hands a backpack of gifts to Christopher Quinn Griego on Wednesday afternoon at the Supporting People in Need’s Seasonal Overnight Shelter, 610 N. Silver St. Abraham used his own money, assisted by a $100 donation from Los Victor’s Mexican Food, 901 N. Hudson, to purchase 45 backpacks that he filled with gifts for unhoused people in town including candy canes, socks, lotion and gloves. This is the third year that Abraham has packaged and distributed the gifts with the help of his grandmother, Terry Quinteros. Abraham said he wanted “peace, love and kindness” for Christmas.
(Press Staff Photo by Juno Ogle)

12/25/2025

The mother, identified as Madeline Daly, 35, of Worland, Wyoming, is being held in the Grant County Detention Center on the Wyoming warrant and an open charge of murder in the first degree, a capital offense, and child abuse resulting in death, also a first-degree felony, according to a press release from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office.

An 11-month-old boy died Tuesday in the Mimbres area after allegedly being shot by his mother, who was wanted in Wyoming for kidnapping him. The mother, identified as Madeline Daly, 35, of Worland, Wyoming, is being held in the Grant County Detention Center on the Wyoming warrant and an open charge....

12/09/2025

Ed Stevens, who led the town of Hurley as mayor for nearly a decade, passed away Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. He was 83, and had just been reelected to another four-year term in November.

12/09/2025

The ballot layout was similar to the one used in a special mail-in election held last year in the Silver Consolidated School District, where a bond question appeared on the front side and that district’s SB9 question was printed on the back. Voters passed the bond — which increased property taxes — handily, while the SB9 question failed. Silver placed that question on November’s ballot, where it passed.

The Cobre capital improvements tax question will undergo an automatic recount, as ordered by the New Mexico State Canvass Board. As of Election Day, the question had passed with 551 votes in favor to 547 votes against. Any race that falls within 5 percent triggers an automatic recount under state la...

12/07/2025

Make sure your kids are within hugging distance before you read this weekend’s feature story by Juno Ogle about the four boys for whom Silver City’s newest park will be named:

12/04/2025

The High Desert Humane Society is holding a vaccination clinic on Saturday, Dec. 6, from 9 a.m. to noon at the animal shelter, 3050 S. Cougar Way in Silver City.

A coyote that bit a hiker in the Gila National Forest near Silver City has tested positive for rabies, according to a Thursday press release from the New Mexico Department of Health. According to the release, testing by the Department of Health’s Scientific Laboratory Division confirmed the diagno...

11/05/2025

UPDATED: Simon Wheaton-Smith will be the next mayor of the town of Silver City, having won 936 votes to 823 for Dale Lane, 490 for current District 4 Councilor Guadalupe Cano and 108 for newcomer Levi Emmett Timmons.

In the three-way contest for Silver City Town Council in District 2, incumbent Nick Prince won reelection with 318 votes to 260 for J. Andrew Housley and 121 votes cast for Eric Vreeland.
Victor Nañez will replace Cano as Silver City’s District 4 town councilor, picking up 238 votes to 220 for Jennifer Metzler Rider.

All unofficial results are in in the 2025 Consolidated Local Election in New Mexico, with school funding questions across Grant County being approved by voters, while a major street bond issue in Santa Clara was narrow. A major bond issue in the Cobre school district won approval, with 684 for and 5...

11/04/2025

Election volunteers Nevaeh Chavez and Connie Downard said that the Grant County Administration Center polling center had been busy since voting started at 7 a.m.
Polls are open until 7 tonight.

It’s Consolidated Local Election Day in New Mexico, and the Daily Press talked to election workers and voters about their Election Day experience in-person at the polls — which remain open until 7 p.m.. Election volunteers Nevaeh Chavez and Connie Downard said that the Grant County Administratio...