Amarillo, Potter County | featured news

A revision to Texas Department of Transportation’s Loop 335 project that would only see a portion of the original plan come to fruition has Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole hot under the collar and seeking additional funding.
“Prior administration promised much more to the city on a much tighter timeline,” the mayor said after a meeting during which TxDOT laid out new plans for the project. “We were told we’re going to build a loop, and I’m sorry we haven’t built a loop. We’ve built a busy street.”

Daron Babcock grew up with a comfortable life in Amarillo. He wrestled at Amarillo High and then in college at Oklahoma. Five years ago, he worked for a private equity firm, living in tiny Frisco, a suburb of Dallas, flying across the country more than 50 times a year.
Now, most days in T-shirt, jeans and cap, he stands in the middle of 40 acres of fresh farm produce, goats and chickens surrounded by abject poverty in the urban blight of a dead-end Dallas neighborhood. He jokingly calls himself a “Youtube farmer.”

Baptist St. Anthony Health System’s pulmonary care was ranked in the top 10 percent in the nation, according to the website Healthgrades.com.
This marks the fifth consecutive year BSA has ranked in the top 10 percent. Pulmonary care is treatment of lung disease and conditions.
BSA was the only Texas Panhandle organization to receive the Healthgrades 2017 Pulmonary Care Excellence Award given to organizations within the top 10 percent.

Amarillo residents had a chance to discuss and question the seven propositions totaling $340 million that will be on the ballot in the November election at a public forum Thursday hosted by the Amarillo League of Women Voters at Amarillo College.
Roughly 100 residents showed up for the forum, which, in addition to arguments on the propositions, gave candidates for public offices a chance to introduce themselves and their ideas to the public.
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Textron Inc., the parent company of Bell Helicopter, has completed its first customer demonstration of the Aerosonde HQ, a new unmanned, multi-rotor, tilt-rotor aircraft that combines vertical takeoff and landing capabilities with the speed and efficiency of a small fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system.
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One-Amarillo will hold the first annual “Unite As One” conference Saturday, Oct. 22 addressing the various facets of human trafficking victims in the Texas Panhandle.
Tifannie Gipson event coordinator with One-Amarillo, said the conference is meant for the entire community. Specific breakout groups will also provide the opportunity for individuals to learn more about how they can combat trafficking as a parent, a prosecutor, a teacher or childcare worker.
“We’ve got classes for anywhere from parents up to prosecutors and everything in between,” Gipson said.

Authorities took two unidentified people into custody Thursday in connection with an alleged burglary of a law enforcement vehicle.
About 6 a.m., Amarillo Police Department officers were sent to the 7100 block of Columbia Lane.
A DPS trooper who lived at the residence told officers he came out to his marked patrol vehicle and found a person inside.
After being confronted, the person took items, including ammunition and tools, before getting in a car parked nearby.
The person then reportedly backed into the patrol unit and left the scene.

The four defendants named in a lawsuit filed by Peyton Trueblood’s family in late September against the musical “Texas” and the Texas Panhandle Heritage Foundation filed their answer to that lawsuit Wednesday, denying allegations made against them in the death of Trueblood.
Trueblood, 21, a college senior from Tuscaloosa, Ala., was killed on July 31, 2015 in a fireworks explosion at the Pioneer Amphitheatre at Palo Duro Canyon State Park while she was taking inventory of the pyrotechnics for that night’s performance.

A federal grand jury in Amarillo has indicted three men accused of robbing a Bushland credit union.
Raul Garcia, 27, Leonard Jovon Coulter, 28, and Richard Charles Cunningham Jr., 38, are each charged with one count of credit union robbery and aiding and abetting along with one count of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence and aiding and abetting.
According to the indictment, on Sept. 23, Coulter and Cunningham entered the Education Credit Union, 1801 South Farm-to-Market Road 2381.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia’s violation of a key nuclear arms control treaty has become more egregious, two top Republican congressmen said in a letter released Wednesday that urged the Obama administration to confront and impose penalties against Moscow.
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