Potter County | featured news

Soon a real super hero will be flying high in the skies between here and Orlando, Florida. Destination: Disney World. Known by day as Andrew Hayes, this 12-year-old is one of 55 children suffering from chronic or terminal illnesses who have won a trip to Disney World Resort next month with his family, all expenses paid.
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Jason Crespin’s quest to co-host with Kelly Ripa stayed alive Tuesday. This morning, we will learn if he is part of the “Thundering Three” left in the competition.
On Tuesday, as soon as Ripa and her sidekick of the day, Matt Bomer, announced that finalist Dena Blizzard from Moorestown, N.J had been eliminated, the world knew the Amarillo Little Theatre director had made the final four in the “Live with Kelly and You” contest.
The grand prize winner will be Ripa’s right-hand person on her show this Friday and one day next week.

Joe Francis said he gets a little nervous when election time rolls around, especially a presidential election. He should know. Eight years ago he was heading off to a long-planned hunting trip to Colorado, and before he could get there, the Amarillo plumber had to head home because his business phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
And all because of what presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain said in their third and final debate.
“It was unreal how something like that exploded,” Francis said.

With Republican nominee for president Donald Trump continuing to struggle in the polls, Democrats in Texas are hoping for a better-than-usual election season.
But any Democratic dreams of a Trump effect on the ballot stop at the state Senate. Major gains in the Republican-dominated body are already out of the question. Even picking up a single seat remains a long-shot.
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In light of a new report from the Texas Council on Family Violence that said Amarillo has one of the worst domestic violence homicide rates in Texas, local groups are coming together to combat the problem as well as trying to stop it before it starts.
Amarillo had five domestic violence homicides in 2015, up from just one in 2014, giving the city a rate of one domestic violence homicide for every 50,000 residents, two and a half to four times higher than Harris and Dallas Counties, the two largest in the state.

A Hereford man is dead after colliding with a tractor-trailer in a construction zone just north of Hereford on Monday morning, according to the Texas Department of Safety.
At approximately 9:50 a.m. Maxwell Middleton, 51, of Hereford was driving a pickup north on U.S. Highway 385 roughly one mile north of Hereford when he approached the tractor-trailer, which had been stopped by road construction personnel.
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In an attempt to fight prescription drug abuse, the Potter County Sheriff’s Department will be hosting a National Pharmaceutical Take Back Initiative event on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at its office, located at 608 S. Pierce Street.
Residents are encouraged to bring any unused, expired, over the counter or prescription medications that they need to get rid of to the office where the Sheriff’s Department will properly dispose of them.
The Sheriff’s Department asks that no needles, aerosol cans or inhalers be brought in.

The Amarillo City Council has approved a pilot program that would supply homeless with jobs as well as access to services.
The program, modeled after Albuquerque’s “There’s A Better Way” system, would involve picking up homeless people in a city van, driving them to unkempt areas of town and having them collect and dispose of debris for an hourly wage.
“I don’t see any downside to it at this point,” Mayor Paul Harpole said Tuesday at the regular council meeting.

Eight Amarillo entrepreneurs left Tuesday for the Inc. 5000 Conference and Gala in San Antonio, an annual event which gathers some of the most successful business minds in the United States.
The start-up starters’ trip is being paid for by the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation and the WT Enterprise Center. Both organizations hope the representatives will make a favorable impression of Amarillo while they’re making connections and learning about business.

The Amarillo Police Department is searching for a bank robbery suspect after he robbed the First Bank Southwest. located at 2401 S. Georgia Street on Tuesday morning.
APD officers were called to the bank at 9:46 a.m. after a white male entered the building and demanded money.
According to reports, the suspect was holding what appeared to be a small gun. The suspect is described as a heavy-set white male wearing a light purple shirt, blue jeans, a black cap with a logo on the front, and white-framed sunglasses.