Potter County | featured news

A runway fashion show and fundraiser featuring the Wade Gordon Academy and the Dallas-Ft. Worth Modeling Production group will be held Saturday Nov. 12 to benefit the 16 Ronald McDonald House Charities in Amarillo and Ft. Worth.
The houses are available for families to stay in while their children receive medical care. The daily cost to operate one room is estimated between $50 and $100, but the families have the option of donating $25 or staying for no charge.

West Texas A&M University’s Speech and Hearing Clinic is the recipient of a $150,000 grant from Mary E. Bivins Foundation. A headline on A2 of Wednesday’s Amarillo Globe-News contained incorrect information.

Shannon Lackey is the elections administrator for Randall County. A story on A6 of Thursday’s Amarillo Globe-News contained incorrect information.

Xcel Energy has made 15 percent of their new hires from U.S. military veterans, exceeding their goal of 10 percent new veteran hires while doubling their results from two years ago, the company announced Thursday.
Currently there are more than 1,000 military veterans working at Xcel Energy across the company’s eight-state service area that stretches from the Upper Midwest to New Mexico.
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You couldn’t swipe right on anyone at the Amarillo Chamber of Commerce’s fall Mega Market. It was business speed dating – two minutes to pitch your company, and then on to the next person.
Nearly 50 men and women met in the Holiday Inn West Medical Center’s conference room on Thursday afternoon, hoping to score a follow-up date at the drop of a business card.
Bryan Townsend, the single operator of Amarillo Safer Solutions, happily paid the $60 admission price for the chance to cast out his line again and again.

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump took a triumphant tour of the nation’s capital Thursday, holding a cordial White House meeting with President Barack Obama, sketching out priorities with Republican congressional leaders and taking in the majestic view from where he’ll be sworn in to office.
Trump’s meeting with Obama spanned 90 minutes, longer than originally scheduled. Obama said he was “encouraged” by Trump’s willingness to work with his team during the transition of power, and the Republican called the president a “very good man.”

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show citizens allowed the city to issue $20.1 million of debt for public safety upgrades, an outcome praised by both Amarillo’s fire and police departments.
“It tells me that the citizens have confidence in their public safety departments and they realize the critical work that police and fire and our Amarillo Emergency Communications Center is doing,” Amarillo Police Department Chief Ed Drain said.
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If not for 1/8 of an inch, F.G. Crofford wouldn’t be playing golf at age 93.
If not for half the width of a pencil, he wouldn’t have won 721 basketball games, married wife Bonnie for 70 years and counting, fathered twin girls, been a grandfather to five, great-grandfather to seven.
“Doctor told me I lived by 1/8 of an inch,” Crofford said. “I don’t know if he was scaring me or if it was true. I’m thinking it was true.”
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There’s no shortage of events honoring veterans this year in the region.
As Veterans Day dawns in Amarillo and across the rest of the Texas Panhandle today, there are many choices of events to attend for those who are looking to pay respects to the men and women who have served or who are serving in America’s armed forces.
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CANYON — Area educators, students and community members met Tuesday at West Texas A&M University to discuss mental health, which experts characterize as a highly stigmatized and often-muted issue.
“When you have a broken arm, you go to the doctor and you get that fixed. Mental health should be no different,” said Amy Hord, director of the Bachelor’s Social Work Program at WT and a member of the Texas Panhandle Centers Board of Trustees.
The town hall-style meeting was part of a statewide campaign funded by Texas Health and Human Services.