Amarillo, Potter County | featured news

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by calling on Americans to embrace the nation's character as a people drawn from every corner of the world, from every religion and from every background. He said extremist groups will never be able to defeat the United States.

■ On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed on an unprecedented day of terror as 19 members of al-Qaida hijacked four passenger jetliners, sending two of the planes smashing into New York’s World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania.
■ In 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
■ In 1814, an American fleet scored a decisive victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain in the War of 1812.

BRYAN — Back in 1998, the federal government asked the Texas A&M Transportation Institute to find a way of moving freight that didn’t use trucks on highways. Eighteen years later, the researchers debuted the first Freight Shuttle System prototype on Friday.
What they came up with is a system of automated, electric-powered transporters that carry trailers and containers on elevated highways, keeping air cleaner and roads safer by taking 18-wheelers off of highways.

Texas Panhandle Poison Center hosted a drive-thu medication cleanout event on Saturday in Amarillo.
“Anyone can have a medication mishap,” said Ronica Farrar, the center’s educator and local co-founder of the medication cleanout event. “Our mission is to prevent poisonings, prevent abuse and prevent misuse while protecting the environment.”
Saturday’s event was the 43rd such cleanout since the organization started through the Texas Panhandle Poison Center in 2009.

Amarillo Community Market was a new concept when it first opened about two months ago as a way to bring people downtown on Saturday mornings.
Organizers wanted a market with a mixture of fresh produce, live music, arts and crafts, baked goods, flowers and home decor.
“The great thing about our market is any Saturday, you never know what you’re going to find,” Center City Executive Director Beth Duke said.

Balloon pilot Mike Hernandez got a not-so-uncommon introduction to Amarillo with a brisk 38 mile per hour wind gust.
“We landed up near Pantex in a huge field, skipped in at 18 mph and that was my introduction into Amarillo,” he said, “but every flight since that have been nice soft landings.”
Hernandez is a pilot for Happy State Bank and one of the many balloonists participating in the seventh annual Family Care Foundation’s Up in the Air For Family Care mass balloon ascension.

National Park Service rangers were more than pleasantly surprised on Saturday at the Small-Fry Fishing Tournament, hosted at the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area at the Stilling Basin in Spring Canyon, underneath the Lake Meredith Dam north of Sanford.
The source of their happiness? That 197 children ranging in age from 6 to 14 along with their parents and grandparents showed up early on a weekend morning and registered for the annual fishing derby.

Although attendance was down slightly, about 68 people participated in the 40th annual Mayor’s Half Marathon, Relay and 5K Race Day in Amarillo on Saturday.
“It’s kind of a traditional thing,” Amarillo Parks and Recreation Director Rod Tweet said. “It’s just a special event that we do as parks and rec. There are a lot of runners in this community and they enjoy coming out and taking part.”
Organizers hope to expand the event in the future by possibly adding food vendors and live music, and making the event an all-day thing.

Inappropriate teacher conduct is in Texas Panhandle headlines again with news of recent allegations levied against a Perryton Junior High School teacher and coach.
Perryton Independent School District Superintendent Robert Hall recently confirmed that he had placed a junior high teacher on administrative leave after a student and her parent brought forth accusations of inappropriate communications.

I will be in one of the safest places possible from a terrorist attack today — on an airplane. Fifteen years ago, not so much.
The United States has become adept at airline security — mandatory body scans and shoe removal weren’t at check-ins 15 years ago — and on this day especially, security will be tight.
So much has changed and so much has not since Sept. 11, 2001, a Tuesday when 19 terrorists sent planes into buildings and into the ground, causing more than 3,000 innocent deaths in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.