By Autumn Gray Of the Journal RUIDOSO— You could easily
pronounce this place REE-UH-DO-SO, with a noticeable Texas
twang. Look at license plates and talk to people
in shops and on the street, and the anecdotal information says this
place is either visited by a huge group of Texans or has become home to
people who once hailed from there. "(Texas) ought
to just annex the damn place," said Dan Savage of Waco. The just retired
publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald bought a house here about three
years ago. "Just about everybody I know (in
Ruidoso) is from Texas. In fact, I don't know anybody that isn't," he
said, adding that the three homes on his street are owned by people from
Waco, Houston and Abilene. "We're just a microcosm of the rest of the
city." The proof is in the property
taxes. Of the 29,106 tax bills mailed for 2004,
17,652 went to New Mexico addresses (13,311 of those in Lincoln County,
Ruidoso's county seat), and 8,543 were sent to Texas. The third largest
grouping went to California: 669. Just how much
Texans contribute to the economy isn't known, but everyone acknowledges
it's got to be a heckuvalot. Savage had come
through the town recently on the last leg of a weekslong cross-country
motorcycle trip. He wasn't staying but a day or two and didn't figure
he'd spend much. But between gas and a hamburger, among other small
expenditures, he said he spent about $80, "and that's just half a
day." "Ski season (with the family along) is more
like ... damn it's expensive! I don't really
know." Still, he says, "Even us poor folks can
afford a second home here," compared with other ski resorts such as
Vail, Aspen, Santa Fe and Taos. Affordability on
everything from real estate to meals is one thing that keeps Texans and
their wallets coming back. But proximity and climate are equally
important. "You can literally play golf here
year-round," says John Chappell, owner of West Texas Discount Golf in
Abilene, Texas. He was at his family's Ruidoso house over back-to-back
weekends around Labor Day with his wife, Carol.
"It's worth the six-hour drive just to come up and cool off for 48
hours," he said, not to mention there are no
mosquitoes. Because of skyrocketing oil and
natural gas prices, West Texans, often called the "bread and butter" of
Ruidoso, are expected to flood the village even more than
usual. Residents of oil-economy towns such as
Midland, Odessa and Lubbock have historically boosted Ruidoso's economy
when the industry has gushed, landing them extra
cash. Real estate agent Richard Abel, who recently
opened an office for the Vaughan Company in Ruidoso, says he's seen the
phenomenon first-hand. The number of people and
the amount of coin coming into the village on any given weekend, he
says, is directly proportional to "how many Cadillac Escalades drive in
from Texas." And then there's the anticipated
summer 2006 start of daily nonstop flights between Dallas-Fort Worth
International Airport and Ruidoso's Sierra Blanca Regional Airport. With
the air service and the new $200 million Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort
& Casino, Abel said, the town will open up to people from all over,
but even more from Texas— "the high rollers who may not want to
drive."
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