Amarillo, Potter County | featured news

Updates are hopefully coming soon to a “very old” audit system, according to officials from the Amarillo Hospital District Indigent Care and Funding Priorities Committee.
Casie Stoughton, director of Public Health for the city, said the changes are a total makeover from the previous process.
“It’s completely revamping the entire audit,” she added. “We will move the audit more in line with the current measures, while keeping some of the past ones.”

The artificial turf playing surface at Fannin Middle School was vandalized over the weekend, with damages estimated by local officials to be in the thousands of dollars.
The vandalism was discovered Sunday, and it consisted of long, deep gouges in the middle of the playing surface from the 50-yard line down to the 35-yard line, as well as a rectangle cut-out approximately three yards wide by seven yards long at the 50-yard line, bringing a small pile of crumb-rubber pellets, used to soften the field, to the surface.

West Texas A&M University is the recipient of a $100,000 National Science Foundation grant the school will use to acquire a laser scanner for the study of tornado and thunderstorm damage.
The FARO X330 laser scanner will allow researchers to collect and preserve 3-D records of damage caused to buildings or crops as well as a host of other opportunities, said Arn Womble, an assistant professor of civil engineering at WT who specializes in studying the effects of winds on structures.

For more than 2,000 students at Palo Duro High School, it looks like backpacks will be lighter this year.
Staff members spent the beginning of this year passing out laptops as part of the school’s 1:1 Chromebook program, which will see every student there become equipped with their own device to use both inside and outside school.
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The June Jazz concert series at Amarillo College has been entertaining hundreds of early summer jazz fans for 21 years.
Five years ago, Center City Executive Director Beth Duke thought the program was too appealing not to expand it into another time period.
“Why not bring it back in a different way in the fall?” she asked.
That’s how Jazztober was born. The free concerts return again tonight from 6 to 7:30 p.m. for a four-week run on the grounds of the Bivins Mansion at 1000 S. Polk St., which is also the Chamber of Commerce headquarters.

The day was nearly 37 years ago, but Doug Tanner can still recall several details — up to a point.
He was a field archivist, working for the University of Virginia. Tanner was in his VW van, returning to the library where he worked.
On Dec. 7, 1979, he came through a turn signal in Charlottesville where he made a left turn. Then, like a flash, came a car. It was from the other lanes of traffic facing the opposite direction at the stop light, speeding into his lane to get around them.
“The last thing I remember was pulling my wheel to the right,” Tanner said.

Not everybody has the stomach for them. But if you do, you have a fright-filled lineup to enjoy this Halloween season.
The following four Amarillo haunted houses are ready to test your fears and your mettle.
■ You can be in the Chainsaw Massacre at 12851 Interstate 27. Because it is outside city limits, its website boasts that “there won’t be any city rules and code enforcement people to limit your terror!” It is open 8 p.m. to midnight every Friday and Saturday in October.

For the first time the Amarillo Police Department will be participating in National Night Out, scheduled to take place this evening around the city.
National Night Out is a program put on though the National Association of Town Watch and benefits neighborhood watch programs.
The event is a community-building campaign that works to strengthen police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie in an effort to make neighborhoods safer.
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The Randall County Sheriff’s arrested a man Saturday morning following a 26-minute pursuit that included the use of stop spikes.
Ryan Sustaita, 25, was arrested for driving while intoxicated, evading arrest and detention in motor vehicle.
At 5 a.m., Randall County dispatch received a call about a vehicle traveling southbound in the northbound lanes of Interstate 27 near Sundown Lane.
At 5:20 a.m. the Canyon Police Department located the vehicle, an orange Honda hatchback, and initiated pursuit.

Low-to-moderate income Amarillo homeowners can now receive additional money for property repairs, thanks to a Community Development Block Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Armed with a $247,243 budget, the Homeowner Emergency Repair program is able to give up to $4,999 per household to repair sewer, water and gas lines and fix heating, plumbing and accessibility needs, according to HOME program coordinator Michelle Martinez-Burleson.