Amarillo, Potter County | featured news

The weekend backpack program Snack Pak 4 Kids is adding a unique source of protein to its list of food products that it provides to hungry school children.
The Amarillo nonprofit has partnered with Chicago-based dairy products company Fairlife, LLC to offer bottles of specially-filtered milk that doesn’t spoil without refrigeration.
“A lot of the kids we serve may or may not have utilities, and so we have the ability to provide those kids a shelf-stable, nutritious product,” Snack Pak 4 Kids founder Dyron Howell said at a news conference announcing the partnership.

A Texas Department of Safety traffic stop Friday in Carson County led to the seizure of nearly 200 pounds of marijuana valued at $1.18 million.
Just after 3 p.m. Friday a DPS trooper stopped a car traveling east on Interstate 40 near Conway for a traffic violation.
During a search of the vehicle the trooper discovered several large, plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana in the trunk as well as inside a duffle bag in the back seat area.
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City leaders are looking to pass an ordinance that would make it illegal to own a rooster in Amarillo.
Richard Havens, the director of Amarillo Animal Welfare and Management, said an issue with [filtered word] fighting inspired the draft ordinance he presented Monday to the department’s advisory board.
In December a dozen people were arrested after police broke up a cockfighting ring. At the site investigators found a wooden ring on a dirt floor, numerous roosters in crates and blood on the ground, according to Amarillo Globe-News archives.

A popular downtown homeless day shelter is not closing, United Way of Amarillo & Canyon Executive Director Katie Noffsket confirmed Monday.
Rumors of the Guyon Saunders Resource Center closing sparked back in July when United Way announced plans to sell the building where the facility is currently housed at 200 S. Tyler St.. While it’s true the property is up for sale, Noffsket said the doors will remain open until the center’s board of directors finds a location to relocate.
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Early childhood education advocates and stakeholders discussed the wide-ranging benefits of quality parenting, child care and pre-kindergarten through third-grade schooling during a news conference Monday in Amarillo that focused on policy recommendations for Texas’ 85th legislative session.
There is a need to launch a major public policy initiative to improve state-funded child care and early-learning programs in Texas, those at the conference said, because of the positive effect the programs have on academic success, particularly for youth from low-income families.

“I cried off all my makeup before I even met them,” Karen Kriegshauser confessed.
Her tears flowed Sunday afternoon when she hugged Lawryn Vallejo, 7, and met Lawryn’s mother, Victoria, a 25-year-old in recovery at the Downtown Women’s Center. They are the newest residents of DWC’s Gratitude House.
It was also an emotional afternoon for Victoria and Lawryn when they first laid eyes on their new bedroom, where two twin beds with bright orange and pink quilts were prepared.

More than 5,000 voters, a record number for early ballots, hit the polls Monday in both Potter and Randall Counties on the first day of early voting allowed in Texas, forcing election workers to keep polls open past the 5 p.m. deadline at some locations.
Randall County reported that 3,311 ballots were submitted Monday, up nearly 700 from the 2,660 that were cast on the first day for voting in 2012.
“I have not seen that for a first day ever,” Randall County Elections Administrator Shannon Lackey said of Monday’s turnout.

A high-speed chase that began in Amarillo and involved shots fired at officers ended in New Mexico with the driver shot and flown back to a local hospital.
Three other occupants of the vehicle were arrested at the scene.
According to police, an Amarillo police officer initiated a traffic stop on a grey Ford SUV near SW 3rd and South Rusk Street just after 6 a.m. The driver refused to stop and fired shots at the officer in pursuit in the SW 3rd and Bellview area.

Local law enforcement officials say they laud the lieutenant governor’s recently-announced plan to outfit every patrol officer in the state with bullet-proof vests capable of stopping armor-piercing rounds and that they will certainly use them but that the vests aren’t at the top of their needs list.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said last week he wants legislators to find $20 million in funding in 2017 for heavily fortified bullet-proof vests capable of stopping high-caliber rifles for all 59,000 patrol officers in the state.

With all of the talk about the Second Amendment during this election cycle, and the so-called “gun-show loophole” that allows non-licensed gun sellers/private parties to conduct sales without background checks, the Globe-News wanted to know whether attendees of this weekend’s gun show would fall heavily on one side of the issue.
We asked two questions of nine attendees and exhibitors at The Original Gun Show put on by the Pioneer Gun Collectors Association at Amarillo Civic Center Complex on Sunday: