TOP 10 NEWS STORIES OF '99

The governor's attempt to start a debate about legalizing drugs resonated
with New Mexico news media more than any other story of 1999.

In a year-end survey, Associated Press newspaper and broadcast members
voted Gov. Gary Johnson's drug debate as the year's top story.

It received a third more points than the second-place story, New Mexico's
prison problems, which included the deaths of six inmates and a guard in
various incidents. The deaths of four inmates and the guard occurred in
private prisons.

The long-awaited opening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad
tied for third with the investigation of security breaches at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, which led to the arrest and indictment of fired
scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Johnson's drug debate began last June at a meeting of New Mexico Republican
leaders and spread nationwide at various conservative and Libertarian
forums -- sparking talk of a Johnson Libertarian presidential campaign,
which Johnson politely rejected.

"It's the top story for a reason," Johnson said. "People are talking about
it because it needs to be talked about. It wouldn't be the top story if
that wasn't what people wanted to talk about and believed needs to be
talked about."

State GOP chief John Dendahl says Johnson's debate has been good for the
state "on balance," but he emphasized that both Johnson and the state have
paid a price for it.

"We recognized that there was going to be considerable hell to pay
politically," Dendahl said. "It was considered unthinkable to decriminalize
drugs."

The downside for the state was that the debate distracted from other
issues, such as tax relief and school choice, Dendahl said. Johnson's
proposal for school vouchers was ranked the No. 7 story of the year.

Johnson's re-election was voted the top news story in 1998.

Other runners-up this year were the Elephant Butte sex-torture case
involving one murder and the alleged sexual torture of three other women;
the shooting death of a 12-year-old girl at Deming Middle School by a
classmate; Indian tribes withholding casino payments; and state Senate
President Pro Tem Manny Aragon's now-terminated ties to Wackenhut
Corrections Corp.

There was a tie for 10th place between the proposed federal acquisition of
the Baca Ranch, a 95,000-acre expanse near Los Alamos, and the five-county
chile crop disaster caused by high winds and a frigid, soggy spring that
included hail damage.

WIPP opened March 26 after an all-night truck shipment from Los Alamos to
WIPP, east of Carlsbad. Protesters lined the route, and one man was
arrested for trying to block U.S. 285. The truck carried low-to mid-level
plutonium-contaminated waste such as lab gloves and other garments and
equipment used in nuclear research.

Since then, 43 other loads have arrived from Los Alamos, the former Rocky
Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and the Idaho National Engineering
and Environmental Laboratory, WIPP spokesman Dennis Hurtt said.

"By and large, the program is working very well," Hurtt said. "In no case
has there been any situation that has been a jeopardy to the safety of the
public or the environment."

The state alleged some mixed waste, containing hazardous chemicals as well
as radioactive material, was improperly taken to WIPP, but the U.S.
Department of Energy disputes that.

The story of Los Alamos security breaches initially was linked to
suspicions of Chinese spying, but federal prosecutors now say the case
against Lee involves no espionage allegations. Lee is charged with 59
counts, most accusing him of downloading nuclear secrets from secure
computers to non-secure computers and onto computer tape cassettes.

In the Elephant Butte story, the only murder alleged so far is that of
Marie Parker, 22, who disappeared from an Elephant Butte bar in July 1997.
Dennis Roy Yancy, 28, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in her death.
Prosecutors say Yancy told police he strangled her in a "torture chamber"
on orders from David Parker Ray, who is charged with torturing three other
women, but not with murder. Ray's live-in girlfriend, Cynthia Lea Hendy,
and his daughter, Glenda

"Jesse" Ray, are also charged in the kidnap-torture part of the case.

Congress reached an agreement this year to set aside $101 million to buy
the Baca Ranch, which includes trout streams, an elk herd, a wide swath of
the Jemez Mountains and the remains of an ancient volcano, the Valles Caldera.

The chile crop problems were most acutely felt in Chaves, Dona Ana, Eddy,
Luna and Sierra counties, which U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman
declared federal disaster areas.

Nine other counties -- Catron, DeBaca, Grant, Hidalgo, Lea, Lincoln, Otero,
Socorro and Roosevelt -- were named contiguous disaster areas.