Tag: Issue 17 Volume 19

No more blues for students wallets; Local restaurant offers unique discounts

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By Stacie Armijo , Staff Reporter | Photo By Stacie Armijo

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Tia Betty Blues, located at 1248 San Mateo SE, offers a wide range of home­made menu items and various discounts to customers five days a week, employee of Tia Betty Blues and lib­eral arts major, Cullen Boardman said.

On Thursdays, the restaurant gives a 30 percent discount to all CNM, UNM, and APS students and employ­ees, he said.

“We are hoping to have more students come in and try us out,” Boardman said.

The restaurant also offers discounts for military personnel, medical personnel, and even people with tat­toos, he said.

Tia Betty Blues makes all their food from scratch every day and the restaurant provides options for people with food aller­gies or specific needs, he said.

“All of our food can be customized for dia­betics, vegan, vegetar­ian, and gluten free cus­tomers,” Boardman said.

There is also an array of specialty sodas with classic flavors and other unique options like Bacon, Ranch Dressing, and Apple Pie, he said.

“We do not serve alcohol but we do offer ginger ales and ginger beers. We offer a ginger ale with bits of real ginger inside that is popular with our customers,” Boardman said.

Frequent custom­ers Linda Lou Taylor and Maureen Elswood said that one of the things that drew them to this unique estab­lishment was the image of Tia Betty on the bill­board out front.

“The image caught our eye when we were driving by,” Elswood said.

They both love the friendly attitude of the employees and the deli­cious food. “We also love the discounts,” Taylor said.

Taylor and Elswood said that Tia Betty Blues is their usual weekend destination and that they are there every Saturday.

“One of the reasons we keep coming back is because we love the food,” Taylor said.

Boardman said everything is prepared fresh and made to order. Nothing is frozen and orders are made when the customer places their order, he said.

The owner, Daniel Boardman, is Cullen Boardman’s father and is from Chimayo, New Mexico. He wanted to open a restaurant that brought Northern New Mexico flavor to Albuquerque and appealed to many dif­ferent people, said Cullen Boardman.

The restaurant opened on May 1, 2012 and has been drawing in crowds ever since, he said. Breakfast is served all day long and just a few of the break­fast options include blue corn waffles, huevos rancheros, and a breakfast taco plate. For lunch, the best seller is the original New Mexico Po’ Boy, which is a Tia Betty exclusive with home­made carne adovada, cheese, onions, jala­penos and Fritos, served on a locally made baguette loaf, he said.

Tia Betty Blues is open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday’s and Sunday’s. Wi-Fi is free for all customers. Like them on Facebook at Facebook.

Automotive club restores classic car

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Stacie Armijo, Staff Reporter | Photo by Rene Thompson

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The Auto Body Club has been working to restore a 1950 Ford busi­ness coupe as an ongoing project with no specific completion date, Barry Mills Jr., Instructor in the Automotive Technology department said.

The car was donated over five years ago and was painted by the club in June, he said. “Now that the car has been painted students are really get­ting more excited about it. They see that with a little bit of elbow grease, desire and effort, that they can do bigger things than they thought pos­sible,” Mills said.

Michael Trujillo, Auto Technology major and President of the Auto Body Club said, “I like the body shape of it, how it’s sort of a gangster car. Its history, which is what I like about it.”

Trujillo said he has been the president of the Auto Body club now for two years. The club meets every other Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“Restoring a classic car is a lot of work. In order to get the car ready to paint we did a lot of sand­ing,” Trujillo said.

Mills said the Ford business coupe was origi­nally designed for busi­ness men that needed to travel around to many places, which makes this car so special.

“What makes it so interesting is that it was never built with a backseat or a passanger sun visor. It was designed for a single person to carry goods and drive around the county and sell things,” Mills said.

Students in the auto body program learn to change tires, do alignments, change oil, and learn other automotive details, Trujillo said.

“The most valuable thing I have learned here in the auto body depart­ment is how to get along with people; how to listen to people’s opin­ions and to solve prob­lems,” Trujillo said.

The knowledge students learn in the auto body program is extremely valuable and useful in their career as automotive technicians, he said.

“It is important to learn because that is the kind of business I want to be in, I want to open my own automotive business,” Trujillo said.

Mills said one of big­gest benefits of teaching is watching the light bulb go on and watching the confidence come alive in students that seem timid.

“They learn a new skill. Watching them overcome the fear of opening the hood and looking at the engine and saying, ‘I don’t know a thing about it’ and getting to a point where they are not afraid to take it apart and see what’s inside,” Mills said.

Mills said most of the cars that students work on are donated from compa­nies such as Nissan Motor Company and Ford Motor Company. Cars are also donated from the local community.

Michelle Lujan-Grisham weighs in: What the Affordable Care Act means for students

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Deborah Cooper , Guest Reporter | Photo Courtesy of http://www.donaanadempocrats.com

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U.S. Representative for the state of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan- Grisham said on October 1 people will be able to begin signing up for qual­ity affordable health care coverage through newly revamped health insur­ance marketplaces, and some of these changes affect students.

On January 1, cov­erage will begin for the people who have attained insurance, and many of the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will begin as well, Lujan-Grisham said.

Students and young adults can now stay on their parents’ health insurance until they are 26, so if a student doesn’t have a job right when they graduate, students can still be covered and have peace of mind, she said.

Before the health care law, insurance com­panies could remove enrolled children on their parents coverage at age 19, and some­times older for full-time students, according to the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

Radiology major, Victor Ruiz said it is nice that students get to stay on their parents insurance until the age of 26.

“At the same time I think President Obama hurt us in way because we have to choose a health­care plan, and if we don’t we get fined,” Ruiz said.

According to NPR. org, full-time or part-time students who are single, under the age of 65, and are not working full-time will most likely not trigger the require­ments to have health insurance, and the ACA fines will only affect individuals that make $10,000 per year or more.

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and set into place an effort that will help ensure that all Americans have secure, stable, afford­able health insurance, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In July, 2013, Congresswoman Michelle Lujan-Grisham met with President Obama to dis­cuss several matters, one being the ACA.

“CNM students can always contact my Albuquerque office at (505) 346-6781.We have people who can help stu­dents with any questions they may have. We want to be a resource to you,” Lujan-Grisham said.

Congresswoman Lujan-Grisham stated that The Affordable Care Act puts in place comprehen­sive reforms that improve access to affordable health coverage for everyone and protects consumers from abusive insurance com­pany practices.

“Student health plans are more comprehensive than ever. Because of the ACA, students who get insurance through their college will get more extensive coverage and will be able to get many preventive services for free,” she said.

According to the Dept. of Health and Human Services some of the free services include smoking cessation pro­grams, counseling on diet and weight loss, and counseling for depression or substance abuse.

Without the Affordable Care Act, the almost 400,000 uninsured New Mexicans would not be able to access affordable health coverage through the insurance marketplace, and insurance companies would be able to deny cov­erage to the nearly one in four New Mexicans with a pre-existing condition, she said.

“First, the Affordable Care Act is creating jobs in the health care indus­try itself. The Medicaid expansion alone will create an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 New Mexico jobs and pump more than $5 billion into our state’s economy,” she said.

The legislation pro­vides financial sup­port for the National Health Services Corps Student s-to-Service Loan Repayment Program according to Generation Progress.

Also, through the $12 million program, medi­cal school graduates who agree to work as primary care doctors in under­served communities are eligible to receive up to $120,000 to repay the outstanding loans states Generation Progress.

Along with that, the ACA also increases fed­eral investments in the Pell Grant program by $40 billion in an effort to ensure students can afford to pursue medical education, according to Generation Progress.

“Before the Affordable Care Act, if you had a job that offered health insur­ance, but wanted to leave that company to create a new business, you had a hard choice to make, because insurance on the individual market was incredibly expensive,” Lujan-Grisham said.

According to a July, 2013 press release, Lujan- Grisham announced that three community health centers in Albuquerque will receive $651,111 in grants to help enroll uninsured New Mexicans in new health coverage options only made avail­able by the Affordable Care Act.

“These grants will help New Mexicans understand their options and gain quality, afford­able coverage through our state’s health insur­ance marketplace,” Lujan- Grisham said.

Students can call the toll-free federal call center 24/7 at 1-800- 318-2596 to talk to a live person and get answers to all questions and The New Mexico insurance marketplace, NMHIX also has a website at nmhix.com, that has great information specifi­cally for New Mexicans, she said.

“The federal gov­ernment has a fantastic website, HealthCare.gov where you can learn about the rights and protections that the Affordable Care Act provides, find out how to sign up for quality, affordable health coverage, and find answers to any question you may have,” Lujan-Grisham said.