Amarillo, Potter County | featured news

Dekker/Perich/Sabatini Ltd. has been named the No. 130 architectural firm in the United States by Architectural Record, an industry magazine.
Rankings for Architectural Record’s annual “Top 300” list were based on architectural revenue earned during the 2015 fiscal year. D/P/S brought in $24.65 million in total design revenue over the last year.
The firm is based in Albuquerque but has a nine-employee office in Amarillo, as well as others in Las Crucas, NM and Phoenix. Two vice presidents, Barry Taylor and Garrett Pendergraft, work from Amarillo.

The Potter County District Attorney’s Office issued a pair of warrants for two suspects involved in a police chase Monday that involved shots being fired at an officer and crossing the New Mexico border.
The driver of the vehicle, Mario Montes, 33, of Amarillo had two warrants issued for aggravated assault on a public servant. Montes is currently in a hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the upper body. Police said he will be booked into the Potter County Detention Center when he is released.

Community
Downtown Lunchtime Book Club featuring “Leaving Time” by Jodi Picoult: 12:15 p.m. Amarillo Public Library Downtown Branch, 413 S.E. Fourth St. 806-378-3054.
Best of Amarillo: 5:30 to 7 p.m.; after-party 7 to 9 p.m. Amarillo Civic Center Complex, 401 S. Buchanan St. 806-378-3096.
12 x 12 Exhibition and Silent Auction: 7 p.m. Amarillo Museum of Art, 2200 S. Van Buren St. 806-371-5050.
Entertainment

Potter County saw its first drop in early voters Wednesday, with 1,662 hitting the polls, down from Tuesday’s high of 1,744.
Over the first three days of ballots Potter County saw 5,075 early voters at the polls, not counting mail-in ballots, for an average of 1,692 people per day.
Through Tuesday, the Potter County had also received 1,037 mail ballots of the 2,000 that had been requested, bringing the total number of early ballots cast to 6,112, more than 10 percent of the county’s registered voters.

Seventy-one years ago this month, Joe Freeman was on a slow boat back to the United States. He could exhale, knowing that he was going to live, knowing he had a future beyond a bloody invasion of Japan.
World War II had been over about six weeks, and this Navy man was coming home to Amarillo from Australia. So too were many war brides.
On this transport ship that was going to take three weeks to arrive in San Francisco, the women were below deck, and servicemen were top deck and never the twain should meet.

Conversations about renaming an Amarillo street in honor of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. appear to be as controversial today as they were 25 years ago.
While talking about why people previously opposed the name change was a little more hushed back then, today some Amarillo City Council members and one North Heights resident say their problem with the name change is based on the fact that the street in question is already named after someone.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, but Amarillo Police Department has spent the last three months raising awareness and stopping domestic violence crimes with its new Domestic Violence Unit.
The unit, which consists of six investigators — five sworn and one civilian and is overseen by Lt. Jason Zang — was formed in August and focuses solely on domestic violence crimes, said newly appointed Police Chief Ed Drain.
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A six-person panel spoke to a crowd of approximately 30 people Wednesday at Amarillo College’s Downtown Campus, educating those in attendance on some of the issues surrounding domestic violence, such as a survivor’s legal options, the court process and steps the city is taking to try to halt domestic violence crimes.
The panel featured speakers from the legal system along with officials from Family Support Services as well as survivors of domestic violence. The event was hosted by the Amarillo College Legal Studies Program.

One person is dead following a shooting in north Amarillo after a dispute among neighbors Tuesday night.
At 11 p.m. Potter County Sheriff’s Department deputies were called to a residence in the 11000 block of Indian Hill regarding a neighborhood dispute.
While deputies were on their way to the house a second 911 call came in saying that a male at the scene had been shot.
Deputies arrived at the scene and found a male, 47, who had suffered a gunshot wound to the upper body. The man was transported to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Jill Griffith sat in a bedroom of Arrow Child & Family Ministries’ new residential treatment center on Tuesday morning, quietly considering the dozens of children she’s tutored, prayed with and cared for during their stay in Arrow’s Emergency Shelter.
She also thought about those whose stay at Arrow was shortened.
“I had a child that I worked with here and I just adored her, and she was 14, and we did not have a Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and she was moved to Michigan,” Griffith said.