Amarillo, Potter County | featured news

MONDAY
Amarillo Planning and Zoning Commission: 3 p.m. City Council Chambers, 509 S.E. Seventh Ave. The commission will hear more than 30 items of property rezoning.
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Police are searching for Maron Victor Cantrell, a 54-year-old white man who has been missing since Friday afternoon, according to news release from Amarillo Police Department.
Cantrell was last seen in the 6000 block of Belpree Road, close to the intersection of Interstate 40 and Bell Street.
According to the APD release, Cantrell has a rare form of blood cancer and left home without his medication.

Tanner Polk of Amarillo believes he has a servant’s personality. That, he said, is why he began a business called Store to Your Door four months ago.
“It’s a community-based service,” he said. “What if you could just make a phone call and, in a set period of time, anything you need, it could be right at your door?”
Polk, 30, provides personalized grocery and package shopping in the Amarillo area. He said he is not the type of cart pusher he often notices.
“I see plenty of people who are not very happy to be there,” he recalled. “I love shopping.”

Winpark Place, a strip center under construction near Hillside Road and South Bell Street, should be up and running by April.
Brian Shinall, manager and co-founder of the Shinall Group commercial real estate outfit behind the $3.5 million project, said the site is on a great route to Interstate 27 that is followed by many residents of newer neighborhoods to the west.
“If you look at it from an aerial (view),” Shinall said, “you see this 4-acre vacant piece of land that looks like a hole in a donut.”

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The Texas State Bison Festival keeps growing every year, just like the rowdy herd of formidable, unique beasts it celebrates.
The herd that calls Caprock Canyons State Park home is the official Texas State Bison Herd, representing the last remaining examples of the Southern Plains bison.
“The herd is doing great,” park Superintendent Donald Beard said. They’ve got 11,000, 12,000 acres to roam, and with all of the rain it’s good and green.”
With the addition of about 30 calves this spring, the herd numbers between 130 and 140, Beard said.

The 28th annual CareNet Pregnancy Centers Walk for Life has a special meaning this year for the 250 Amarilloans expected to attend.
“We are celebrating the opening of our new location in the very heart of the city,” said Candy Gibbs, executive director for CareNet.
The walk will begin at the new location, 1501 S. Taylor St., at 9 a.m. today.

The growth rate for the Hispanic population in the United States — once the fastest-growing group — has dropped dramatically, a new study shows.
The Pew Research Center study, which analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data, found that the U.S. Hispanic population grew annually on average by 2.8 percent between 2007 and 2014. That’s down from the 4.4 percent annual growth from 2000 to 2007, before the Great Recession.

Amarillo College has been chosen by the Texas Higher Educating Coordinating Board to be part of a performance-based grant initiative.
The college, one of 15 selected as grantees, has received $100,000 up front and can receive up to $904,000 over the span of the two-year initiative, according to a college news release.
How much money AC ultimately receives will depend on how many underprepared students the college accelerates through developmental education and helps achieve minimum certification in career and technical education programs.

San Jacinto Elementary School students will be getting some specialized reading technology thanks to a recent grant.
The Dollar General Literacy Foundation awarded a $4,000 youth literacy grant to the school after librarian Molly Kyle applied for the funds.
The grant is aimed at helping students “who are below grade level or experiencing difficulty reading,” and supports the purchase of books, materials or software for literacy programs, according to the foundation’s website.