Musicians Clinton Wilcox, host of Christian Classics 101, and Julian Medina, sound engineer for Local Vibes Live who performs solo as JETZERO, joined Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein to preview KTAL's 9th anniversary celebration on July 25th at the Destination Sports and Arts Complex. The two discussed their own multi-instrumental musical backgrounds, reflected on the shifting growth of Las Cruces's independent live music scene, and previewed the lineup for the free community event. The celebration will feature sets by Wilcox, Medina, Alex Brinkley's band Desert Honey, headliners The Swampcoolers, transitions by DJ Wolfman Max, a quilt raffle, and the official induction of three new members into the Las Cruces Community Radio Hall of Fame.
Speak Up Las Cruces: Clinton Wilcox & Julian Medina Preview KTAL's 9th Anniversary Celebration7/15/2026
Norm Gaume, former Interstate Stream Commission director, joined Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein to explain the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of a settlement ending a 13-year water dispute between New Mexico, Texas, and the federal government. Gaume explained that the deal will force major cutbacks in New Mexico groundwater use south of Elephant Butte Dam, since farmers in the Elephant Butte Irrigation District hold senior water rights that leave little left for the City of Las Cruces, NMSU, and other newer users during low-flow years. He estimated the state will need roughly $150 million to buy back water rights and predicted a prolonged, contentious negotiation over how the state meets its new obligations.
Speak Up Las Cruces: Christine Barber & Amanda Lavin on FOG's Fights Against the County & City7/15/2026
Christine Barber and Amanda Lavin of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government joined Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein to discuss two local transparency lawsuits. In the county case, FOG is seeking Project Jupiter-related emails that officials claim are exempt as a 'tactical response plan' that could enable a terrorist attack, an exception Lavin called a clear misuse of the public records law. In the city case, FOG's investigation found that Las Cruces councilors were repeatedly blocked from discussing police oversight until a little-known Public Safety Select Committee weighed in first, a practice Barber said shows the committee functioned as an improper policymaking body in violation of the Open Meetings Act.
Walt Rubel and Jamie Bronstein opened with concerns that Trump's drastic cuts to Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments could foreshadow a renewed push to shrink the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, tying it to new BLM director Steve Pearce's longstanding opposition to the monument's designation. The conversation also touched on the closure of the 125-year-old Roswell Daily Record and the shrinking of local journalism in southern New Mexico, Todd Blanche's Senate confirmation hearing, and a mysterious cryptosporidium-like outbreak that has sickened thousands nationwide without an identified source.
Greg Smith talks with Topher Lininger, the man running day-to-day operations at the Rio Grande Theatre, as the Las Cruces landmark marks its centennial. The building opened on July 29, 1926, with a screening of the silent film Mare Nostrum, was bought by Fox three years later, and has been a permanent fixture of Main Street ever since. Lininger traces his own 14-year tenure, from being hired by the Doña Ana Arts Council in 2011 to oversee a lighting upgrade to transitioning with the property when the city took over. He details the theater's active modern role hosting plays, musicals, classic film screenings, local premieres, and the Las Cruces International Film Festival awards show, alongside an expanding lineup of dance, concerts, drag, burlesque, and variety programming.
Gill Sorg with the Dona Ana Soil and Water Conservation District (DASWCD) brings good news about what's being done to address our water situation - increasingly referred to by some as "Water Bankruptcy". In today's program, Gill primarily addresses multidimensional DASWCD plans and projects, in collaboration with many organizations and entities. He shares a great wealth of meaningful insights and information about the past, present, and future of our water.
I don’t know how long it would have taken me to learn the alphabet if not for the song, but even today if I need to conjure it up for some reason, I do so melodically. As an aside, I’ve always felt bad for the letters “l” “m” “n” “o” and “p.” They get smooshed together there in the middle, instead of the individual respect granted to all the other letters.
Nothing sticks in my head like a catchy tune. Unfortunately, that includes advertising jingles. I fear there will come a time in my life when I won’t be able to remember my own name; but, because of opera singers on a bus, I will know who I should call if I have a structured settlement and I need cash now. And, I will still know that phone number, long after having forgotten my own. Stuart Kelter interviews Gaurav Suri, a computational neuroscientist and experimental psychologist at San Francisco State University, where he is the director of the Readiness, Activation, and Decision-Making Laboratory. He is also a visiting professor at Stanford’s Center for Affective Science. He is the coauthor of A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel, which was published in 2007 and won the American Publishers Award. Gaurav is the coauthor and a protégé of Jay McClelland, a leader in the conceptualization of neural networks to explain cognitive phenomena, such as recognition of both written and spoken words. This interview will focus on their recently published book, The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines.
Host Mike O'Larey and Brian Cox sit down with Oregon Mountain High School wrestling coach Cosmo Delgado and his son Dominic, a sophomore and first-year varsity wrestler, for a conversation about what it means to compete across three combat sports. Cosmo traces his own path from being "voluntold" into the wrestling room at Mayfield in 1991 by the legendary Coach Sullivan to coaching his two sons at Oregon Mountain, while Dominic — voted Las Cruces Sun-News City Wrestler of the Year in his debut season — explains how four years of judo and jiu-jitsu at Legacy Mixed Martial Arts gave him a foundation that translated immediately to the mat. The conversation covers the similarities and differences between wrestling, judo, and jiu-jitsu, the challenge of recruiting wrestlers, and Dominic's recent experience competing at the USA Judo Junior National Championships.
 Lisa Lucca talks with author Sheila Kimble-Haas about her inspirational new memoir, Waiting for the Kick: A Midwife's Grief and Rebirth in Africa, the healing journey that led her to Las Cruces, and her recent next chapter of moving back to France.
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