Otero County Stories

       Leroy was born in Manitou, southwest Oklahoma, on January 24, 1918. He grew up in the area and went to school in Frederick. His dad, J. T. Hightower, known to the family as Pop, mother, Gertrude, and sons Harold and Leroy, lost the house they lived in early in the Depression. They all moved into an oil lease shack. It was built for a drilling crew when they were excavating for oil. The shed was deserted and rent-free.            Gertrude cleaned up the place, took rolled up newspaper to fill the cracks between the shrunken boards of the walls, then papered over the walls and rolled up chinking with more newsprint, a paintbrush and a paste of flour, salt and water. Harold and Leroy slept in one bed; some winter mornings they would wake up and find the bed covered with a dusting of snow that had blown in through the cracks in the shack walls where the newspaper didn’t hold. Pop said, “There was nothing between them and the Nort...

  Plaza Café  -  Excerpt from "Leroy" JR Hightower grew up in Alamogordo, New Mexico.  He is a  restauratuer  ,   entrepreneur,  and  raconteur.   "Leroy" (not yet published) will be JR's second book.  His first book,  "Alone on Pasture Ridge" is available on Amazon. In 1946, Judge Howard Beacham who owned the Plaza Café, decided to retire from the restaurant business and work at just one job - being Magistrate Judge.   Leroy took possession of the Plaza Café on Christmas Day, 1946. He had convinced his brother Harold to come to Alamogordo to help with painting and cleaning up the café during the week between Christmas and New Years; closing and cleaning the restaurant that week became a tradition for many years. The inside of the Plaza Café was presented with a new coat of paint every Christmas.   The whole family scrubbed, cleaned and removed the mounted deer and antelope heads, Mexican sombreros and serapes fr...