Texas, Amarillo | featured news

Think you know a lot about Thanksgiving? It’s more than Pilgrims and turkey. Here’s 14 bet-you-didn’t-know items about Thanksgiving, probably more than you wanted to know:

1 The common idea the first Thanksgiving was in 1621 is not true. In a letter, colonist Edward Winslow described a three-day feast with an Indian hunting party. No mention was made of a Thanksgiving. Plymouth Colony Gov. William Bradford mentioned the first Thanksgiving proclamation in November 1623.

Big-box chain stores like Toys R Us, Best Buy and Dollar General are opening their doors today in an attempt to quell Black Friday madness.
Five years ago, some outlet stores started opening at 8 p.m. on Thursday, remembered Jody Brown, Amarillo Kohl’s assistant store manager over apparel.
Earlier openings have since become popular as a way to manage congestion.
“Opening earlier, it kind of steadies it out and makes for easier shopping,” Brown said. “It’s not a crazy, mad sort of thing.”

Steven Lee Hall Jr. sat on the Big Texan Steak Ranch’s elevated platform, staring down his monstrous dinner. He had already downed 51 ounces of beef, and nibbled at the side salad, shrimp cocktail and baked potato.
Then the “Naked and Afraid” reality TV show champion lost his meal into the nearest wastebasket.
“I love steak. If I was on death row, that would be my (last) meal. I never thought it would be hard to eat steak. But it was,” Hall said.

Amarillo was still blanketed under cold, November darkness at 6 a.m. Tuesday when faithful, prayerful Christians roused and made a pilgrim’s journey to the Amarillo Civic Center.
There they gathered for the 27th annual Amarillo Community Prayer Breakfast, a tradition considered to be the glue for the city and Texas Panhandle, according to Jena Taylor, executive director for Faith City Mission and a Prayer Breakfast committee member.
“Amarillo is a great place to pray,” Taylor said that morning.

Amarillo Deputy City Manager Bob Cowell said he might consider contending for the vacated city manager position.
Cowell was officially appointed as interim city manager at Tuesday’s council meeting following last week’s sudden departure of Terry Childers. Childers resigned from the interim position when he was called into a meeting to discuss his calling a resident a vulgar, derogatory name.
Councilman Mark Nair apologized for Childers’ comments during Tuesday’s meeting.

LUBBOCK — A Lubbock County grand jury indicted Tuesday a 23-year-old man linked to multiple vehicle burglaries in West Lubbock, Canyon and Amarillo.
Blake Moore of Hereford is charged with felony counts of fraudulent use or possession of identification, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and theft of a firearm.
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Adrian Casarez, the Amarillo Crime Stopper’s weekly fugitive, was captured on Monday afternoon in Hereford following a short chase.
Casarez was located in Hereford at around 3:30 p.m. Monday after a call was received about a silver Ford Mustang driving erratically in the city.
Hereford police located the vehicle, which refused to pull over and nearly struck another patrol car. Officers were able to get the car stopped on 8th Ave, at which point police said Casarez refused to cooperate.

The Amarillo Police Department is investigating the robbery at gunpoint that took place at a Dollar General on Tuesday afternoon.
According to reports, at 3:21 p.m. APD officers were sent to the Dollar General located at 2726 W. 10th Ave. on a robbery call.
Two female workers were behind the counter when a man approached them with a small box in one hand and a small handgun in the other.
Polices said the suspect told the employees to give him money and cigarettes, which they placed in the box.

A semi-truck pulling a flat-bed trailer loaded with farm equipment knocked down a telephone pole on 24th Avenue that damaged three other vehicles Tuesday afternoon.
According to police reports, at 1 p.m. Amarillo Police Department officers were called to a major accident at the service road near 24th and Dumas Highway where a semi-truck heading south on the service road had been pulling a trailer loaded with farm equipment.
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The lone survivor of a head-on crash between two BNSF freight trains has filed a suit against the railroad seeking upwards of $1 million in damages.
Derek Schilling, a 13-year employee of BNSF, filed the suit last week in Tarrant County, where BNSF is based.
He is accusing the company of negligence and seeks to recover lost wages, both past and present, past and future medical expenses, permanent impairment of earning capacity, permanent physical impairment and future physical pain and mental anguish.