Category Archives: local news

business news, local news

Princeton’s evolution continues

My wife and I moved into a city that appeared to be a place without definition, without an identity.

Princeton, Texas, though, was — and is — a city in transition. It is transitioning from a tiny burg that straddles a major U.S. highway into something that is, well, considerably more significant.

The city council’s decision this past week to rezone a 91-acre parcel on the north side of that highway, U.S. 380, to make room for a major shopping complex signals how the city has decided to identify itself.

As a new resident, having lived here for five years, I welcome the change. It provides us with a variety of choices to spend disposable income and to boost the revenue stream for a city that is growing — rapidly, I must say — into municipal adulthood.

The retail complex will comprise 36 outlets. Some of ’em are huge, man. About the only thing missing that would satisfy my taste is a movie theater; but perhaps that also will be on the way … maybe even soon!

I have mentioned already that I do have a concern about the traffic that is bound to be affected dramatically along the aforementioned highway. It’s already become a proverbial “parking lot” during rush-hour in the morning and late evening; westbound traffic comes to a halt in the morning, while eastbound traffic does the same thing in in the evening.

The state wants to divert much of that traffic to bypass lanes that would skirt around the highway. Princeton is one of many communities facing the same traffic woes along 380.

I am going to welcome the new business that is headed our way. It helps turn Princeton into something much more than a community full of new houses with occupants who at this moment have to go somewhere else to invigorate other cities’ economy.

I certainly am hoping Princeton can join the municipal “big leagues” in pretty short order.

local news

City to be remade … totally!

The Princeton (Texas) City Council has delivered a decision that is bound to change the rapidly changing profile of the city even more dramatically than any decision made in many decades.

The council approved a zone change for a 91-acre parcel of land north of U.S. 380 and west of Beauchamp Boulevard that signals the beginning of a new 36-store (for now) shopping complex.

It’s a huge deal, man. I mean, it is — shall we say — really huge!

But with any major piece of economic news such as this, there must be an examination of the concerns it likely will bring. I’ll get to that in a second.

The development will bring major retail outlets such as Market Street, Hobby Lobby, Mashall’s and Lowe’s to Princeton. It also will add a huge number of smaller businesses throughout the complex. Officials expect the complex to generate about 1,500 new jobs, generating about $225 million annually in sales.

Developers plan to begin site preparation this summer. They hope to open some of the outlets by 2026.

Now, what about the downside?

It’s a big concern, man. U.S. 380 already is jampacked with vehicles during morning and late-afternoon rush hours. One must ask: What is the addition of all that traffic going to do to the traffic (non)flow  during those times?

The Texas Department of Transportation is planning to construct a highway bypass around Princeton. When will that occur and when will it be finished? Well, I don’t expect to live long enough to see that massive traffic project completed.

“This is something that will forever change the landscape of our city,” Mayor Brianna Chacon said, according to the Princeton Herald.

Indeed, the city’s municipal landscape already is changing rapidly, with the enormous growth that is occurring here. The population signs noting 17,027 residents living here after the 2020 Census already is grossly out of date. Many experts peg the city’s current population at slightly less than 30,000 residents.

Someone recently posted a social media message noting the pending arrival of these businesses. Then I heard some chatter around town from folks asking, “Where are they going to put all those stores?”

Well … now we know.

local news

It’s still ‘home’

AMARILLO, Texas — I returned to what once was the church home for my wife and me. She’s gone now, but my own return came with plenty of love from those we knew back when we attended worship services there regularly.

I don’t get back to First Presbyterian Church much these days. I am busy with life in Princeton.

It’s as if I never left. So help me, that’s the overwhelming feeling I got when I walked in. I greeted some gentlemen seated at their regular table in the fellowship hall. Slowly, other friends wandered in en route to the sanctuary for Easter services. The greetings came with hugs, expressions of “glad you’re back,” questions about whether I was back for keeps.

The answer to the question is obvious. My life is re-igniting in the Metroplex. For that renewal, I am eternally grateful.

I also will be eternally grateful for the bonds of friendship I formed among those with whom I celebrated this most holy holiday.

Those bonds remain tight and strong. I was good to come home. Now, the rest of my life beckons.

local news

What? No smoke?

AMARILLO — My drive to Amarillo filled me with some concern that I would enter a cloud of smoke as I entered the Texas Panhandle.

Glory be! I didn’t see any smoke. Those fires that ravaged this region I used to call home appear to have been quelled. At least from my vantage point along U.S. Highway 287 as I entered the city on its eastern side.

The fire brought enormous devastation to the region, taking the lives of several residents and at least one first responder — the Fritch fire chief — along with thousands of head of livestock.

I had seen the photos taken from jetliners flying overhead and from folks on the ground. The ominous smoke clouds were ghastly in the extreme.

The region, though, appears to have survived … to the extent that it can survive a record-setting blaze.

I returned to see some friends and get away from my North Texas neighborhood for a couple of days. I return Monday.

I am delighted to report that Panhandle is beautiful and clear … as it should be.

local news

A bitter date awaits

My bride and I celebrated April 1 in an odd fashion: we commemorated the birth of our puppy, Toby on that day.

He joined our family in early September 2014. We took him to the doctor to get him vaccinated, neutered … all the stuff pet parents do. The vet looked him over and calculated him to be five months of age. We backed it up five months and learned he was born in early April.

Thus, April Fool’s Day became Toby the Puppy’s birthday.

On Monday, he would be 10 years old. Except that he is no longer with us. He passed away from cancer on Dec. 1.

I had struggled mightily to keep him longer. His 12-pound body couldn’t keep up the fight. His demise ended the worst year of my life, adding a poignant symmetry to a year that began with the loss of my wife on Feb. 3, 2023, and ended with Toby’s passing away on Dec. 1.

I still struggle with Toby’s passing. I well up when I see couples walking their own dogs down my street in Princeton, Texas. I told a dear friend today that I get “jealous,” but she responded that it isn’t jealousy I am feeling, but that “You’re just missing your puppy.” I accept that definition of what happens to me.

It will take some time get over my loss of this critter who turned into the best friend and companion I ever could have imagined. We fell in love with him almost the moment we laid eyes on him in September 2014; he felt the same thing toward us, too. We took him on RV trips to all corners of this country and through the western half of Canada. Was he a road warrior? Damn right!

He made us laugh every single day he lived in our home. That is not an exaggeration! Every single day we giggled at something he did.

I wanted to get this posted today, because I’ll be on the road Monday returning from a brief visit to Amarillo … where our journey as dog parents began.

I will miss him forever … and then some.

local news

He was a consummate pro

A friend and former colleague told me a brief story about a man whom I saluted with an earlier blog post that I want to share here.

John Ward died recently at the age of 70. He served for 22 years as Amarillo’s city manager, which by itself is an astonishing length of time, given the brutal and unforgiving nature of the work one must do. He had to work with governing councils comprising individuals of vastly different priorities and personalities … led by mayors with widely divergent points of view.

Ward got into a snit with a reporter at the Amarillo Globe-News over some information the reporter sought, my friend said. Ward resisted handing it over, apparently believing it wasn’t public information. Ward was mistaken.

He turned the info over to the reporter after my friend insisted he do so. My friend noted this about Ward: He could have held a grudge over being shown up by the media, but he didn’t. He put it aside and carried on in his role as city manager and worked with the newspaper on all matters the paper was reporting on as it regarded city affairs.

That’s what a trained professional does. He might resist a request. If he comes out on the short end of that kerfuffle, he forgets about it and goes about his or her job.

Indeed, it is the kind of public official who earns the respect of those who take it upon themselves to seek information that could be sensitive in nature. I have known too many folks in public life who take these dust-ups personally.

Their lingering anger serves them, the media that cover them — and the public to whom they answer — poorly in the end.

John Ward knew that intuitively and served the city with competence and devotion to the tasks he undertook.

local news, media news

Blogging invigorates me

I feel invigorated this morning. Why is that? For starters, I slept well overnight. Also, I have this blog to keep me fired up.

For sure I hit a spell when I wasn’t feeling really “into it.” I didn’t have writers’ block … exactly. To be truthful, I don’t think I’ve ever suffered from the ailment that plagues people who write for a living.

Indeed, I can recall when the writer’s floodgates opened up. It occurred right around 9/11, which is nearly 23 years ago … can you believe it?

With all that was occurring on all the continents on Earth, editorial writers and editors — such as me — were handed a plethora of topics on which to offer commentary. It hasn’t let up.

The world’s attention has turned away from the event that brought us that worldwide misery on 9/11. We have no shortage of issues on which to comment.

My noggin is full of ideas today. I don’t know if I’ll get to all of them before the sun sets tonight. Yes, I admit to hitting a bit of a slump not too long ago. I am over it now.

local news

RIP, John Ward

To say that John Q. Ward was a “survivor” in a cutthroat, ruthless and unforgiving business is to commit the mother of understatements.

Ward served as Amarillo city manager for — hold on! — more than 20 years. He served under several city commissions and city councils — the city changed the name of its governing board years ago.

The former city manager died the other day of a lung infection, according to his wife, Donna.

I had the pleasure of getting to know John Ward during my years working at the Amarillo Globe-News. He was the source — along with the city secretary who later became his wife — of all information I needed as a journalist working for the newspaper of record.

I knew about Ward’s inherent suspicion of media. He didn’t always like talking to people such as me. I don’t really know why, except that those of us who pursue our craft often find things wrong with city government and report it to the public that needs to know. As the man who ran the City Hall show, it falls always on the city manager to be held accountable for all that goes on.

Still, we had a cordial and totally professional relationship. I attribute that to John Ward’s understanding of his role as the city’s top administrator and my role as someone who occasionally had to probe deeply into the goings-on that made the city work.

Amarillo worked well under Ward’s administrative leadership. The city grew steadily if not spectacularly. He stepped into the city manager’s post succeeding a fellow who became something of a municipal legend, former manager John Stiff.

Ward, therefore, learned from one of the best.

City managers as a rule don’t last nearly as long as Ward did in Amarillo. That is a credit to his skill and his knowledge of the community he served.

John Ward was a good one … for certain.

local news, media news

40 years ago … my life changed

Holy mackerel, man! This landmark anniversary almost got past me, but I won’t let it go without offering a comment on how a single move from one state to another changed my life.

I grew up in Portland, Ore. I lived there for the first 34 years of my life. I met the girl of my dreams there. I married her. We brought two sons into the world. I started my career in journalism there.

Then it changed in late 1983 with a phone call from a former boss of mine. He had gravitated to Beaumont, Texas. He wanted to know if I would like to work with him on the Gulf Coast at a newspaper that was healthy, vibrant and a chronicler of a tremendous “news town.”

I interviewed for the job. He offered it to me. I accepted his terms. I moved from Portland to Beaumont in March 1984. My career got the boost it needed.

I landed in a great news town, as my boss had stated. In my first week on the job, voters there cast their ballots on a street-naming referendum. Beaumont’s Black community wanted to change the name of a major street to honor Martin Luther King Jr.; the referendum failed narrowly.

Did I suffer culture shock? Yes. I wasn’t used to racial politics. I ran smack into it in Beaumont. I adjusted nicely, I am happy to report.

I did enjoy modest success from 1984 on to the end of my full-time career.

My family joined me a few months after I got to what I call The Swamp. My sons came of age in Texas. My bride and I carved out a wonderful life here.

We stayed in Beaumont for nearly 11 years. Then we moved again. To Amarillo about 700 miles northwest of our home. Culture shock again? Yep! We stayed in Amarillo for 23 years. I enjoyed more success there. We made many friends in both of our stops in Texas.

My career ended in August 2012. I was “reorganized” out of my job. I quit on the spot and got on with the rest of my life.

What did all of this teach me about myself? It taught me that I am an adaptable creature. My years in Oregon gave me a comfort level I thought I would be reluctant to let go. I had spent two years away from home serving my country in the Army. Perhaps my time in the Army prepared me unknowingly for what would happen 14 years after I returned home when I got the call to move to a part of the country that was vastly different from what I knew.

Then opportunity knocked. I answered the proverbial “door.”

Have I reached a new comfort level in my new home state? Yes. Texas’s politics has changed dramatically since our arrival here 40 years ago, but I am not one to move on just because politicians who represent us make decisions with which I disagree.

I am still keeping up the fight. I will do so with this blog for as long as I am able.

The past 40 years have zoomed by. I am trying to slow it down a bit. Wish me luck on that effort.

local news, political news, State news

Non-GOP observers feeling the pain

The fight that is developing in Texas between non-believers of certain politicians and those who adhere to their every proclamation gives us non-Republicans considerable angst.

How come? Because I, as one of them, find myself rooting for the non-believers in their scrap with those who follow the will of the crooks who happen to hold high public office.

I want to point directly to the troubles that continue to dog Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The AG has taken dead aim at several pols who had the temerity to favor his impeachment in the House. His slate of candidates in this month’s Republican Party primary did pretty well.

One of Paxton’s “enemies” hails from a city I once called home. He is House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont. Phelan faces a runoff against some political newbie, a guy named David Covey. Paxton recruited Covey to run against Phelan. He finished first in the GOP primary, but the two of them are headed for a runoff to see who gets the nomination. Covey finished first and Phelan finished second, but Covey didn’t get the 50% margin he needed to win outright.

I am rooting for Phelan to win the runoff. Not that I care about his politics, per se. I just favor the stance he took in voting to impeach the crooked AG and the manner in which he conducted the House proceedings that led to Paxton’s impeachment. Phelan is a conservative and, frankly, not my ideal politician. Yet the AG refers to him as the “liberal speaker.” What a fu**ing crock!

This intraparty squabbling is playing out in states across the country. I drive through Collin County, where I live, and I see signs for politicians proclaiming themselves to be a “conservative Republican” running for office. How do they define “conservative”? Everyone’s a conservative Republican, yes? You have one conservative Republican running against another of the same ilk. How does a GOP voter choose?

The election season is playing itself out a little at a time. Those of us who sit on the sidelines watching this GOP internecine battle being fought are left to cheer silently for those who respect the system and who put the law above party loyalty.