Category Archives: local news

environmental news, local news

Rain, rain, rain … and there's still a drought

Those of us who live on the Texas Tundra are enjoying the rain that’s pelting these parts.

We had more than an inch of it today, according to the National Weather Service office at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.

This means we’re more than 2 inches over normal precipitation for the year to date.

Great news? Absolutely!

Is it a drought-buster? Hardly.

Can we predict what the weather will do for the rest of the year? We cannot predict for the rest of the week.

I stopped by Amarillo City Hall about a week ago and noticed the city’s “Every Drop Counts” water-use monitor over the first-floor elevator. The water use goal for that day was 48 million gallons; the actual use that day was 19 million gallons. Folks who normally water their lawns time of year didn’t turn the sprinklers on to irrigate their grass.

I reckon tomorrow’s water-use meter will register similar figures.

That, too, is great news.

I prefer to stay in water-conservation mode, no matter how much rain we get.

You see, it’s going to take a literal deluge to eradicate the drought threat that continues to draw down the water flowing through the Ogallala Aquifer, which gives our region its life.

The recent rainfall — and the prospect of more of it in the days and weeks ahead — gives City Hall, the water conservation districts, the counties and even the state a chance to remind us of what some of us sometimes forget when we get any significant moisture.

It’s that the drought hasn’t let up. The Texas drought remains a serious threat to our way of life — and even our lives.

 

local news, national news, political news, State news

Libraries make the to-do list

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I made a declaration today while driving home from church.

The next time we’re in Dallas, I told my wife, I want to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

For that matter, the next time we get to College Station, I want to see the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

What’s more, I now intend to see all the presidential libraries before I check out — even those that aren’t yet built.

Some folks want to see all the national parks (I’m one of them, too), or visit all 50 states (I’ve set foot in 47 of ’em), or ride every roller coaster in the country (I’ll pass on that one, thank you very much).

Presidential libraries offer up a fascinating view of history — from the perspective of the individual whose history is being examined.

I did a quick count of the libraries I’ve already seen: The Lyndon Johnson library in Austin, the Herbert Hoover library in West Branch, Iowa, the (Jimmy) Carter Center in Atlanta. That’s it.

Without question, of the three presidential libraries I’ve visited, the most compelling one was — get ready for this — the Hoover library. Why?

Well, I knew about the Great Depression occurring on President Hoover’s watch. I knew that he lost re-election in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.

What I didn’t know when I visited the library with my wife and then-infant son in 1973 was that President Hoover was a tremendous humanitarian. He helped feed much of Europe after World War I. President Woodrow Wilson named him as head of the U.S. Food Administration after the United States entered the conflict in 1917.

The Hoover library, which isn’t a pretentious site, devotes a tremendous amount of space to explaining his humanitarian work and, quite naturally, doesn’t tell the visitor all that much about the Great Depression.

***

My interest in the George W. Bush library is rather personal. I didn’t vote for him in 2000 or 2004, or for Texas governor in 1994, for that matter. However, I have some personal affection for the 43rd president.

I was privileged to have three conversations with him, starting in 1988, when he and I rode an elevator together in New Orleans during the Republican National Convention that nominated his father to run for president. I said, “You’re George W. Bush, yes?” He nodded. He asked me my name. I told him and said I was the editorial page editor for the Beaumont Enterprise. “Oh, I’ve heard of you,” he said.

Sure thing, George. He hadn’t yet been elected to any public office, but he was a natural politician.

I met him seven years later, after moving to Amarillo. I was granted a 90-minute interview with him in the governor’s office at the State Capitol Building in Austin. The meeting was supposed to last 45 minutes. I found him to be charming, engaging, funny — and smart. He had been governor just a few months during the first half of 1995 and I found him to be a quick study on Texas government and public policy.

We met again three years later as he ran for re-election. He remembered our previous meeting in 1995 and we kind of caught up on some things we discussed in Austin.

It’s a safe bet I’ll get to his library on the Southern Methodist University campus. I might make the visit on our next trip to the Metroplex, which is certain to happen soon, thanks to the presence of our granddaughter, Emma.

I doubt I’ll see anything there that details the mistakes he made during his two presidential terms, such as the Iraq War and the economic free fall. Then again the LBJ library doesn’t deal too much with the intense criticism the president got over his Vietnam War policy, nor does the Carter Center tell you much about the “malaise” he implied gripped the nation during his four years in office.

But I do want to see W’s version of his presidential history and perhaps judge it against what I understand about it.

 

local news, political news

Candidates shell out big dough for a volunteer job

You’ve got to hand it to the 16 men and women running for five spots on the Amarillo City Council.

They’ve raised and spent a lot of money to obtain what, in effect, is a volunteer job.

Campaign filing reports released Friday show the candidates have raised more than $281,000 in campaign cash for the council. The tab is continuing to climb and the final campaign expense list won’t be released until after the May 9 election.

Think about this for a moment.

These individuals are running for a spot on the council that pays 10 bucks per meeting. The council meets once a week on the third floor of City Hall. So, it’s $40 for most months; $50 for those months that have five Tuesdays in them. They get reimbursed for expenses incurred while doing city business. If they travel, say, to a Texas Municipal League meeting, the city will pay them back for travel expenses.

A couple of dynamics have popped up in the waning days of the campaign.

One of them is the negative campaign being waged by Place 1 incumbent Ellen Robertson Green and challenger Elisha Demerson, a former Potter County commissioner and judge. Another has to be the relative silence in most of the other races, even though the candidates have raised what seems like a lot of cash to spend.

I’ve had friends who are closer to this race than I have been tell me they think some of the incumbents are in trouble. Other friends, though, are suggesting that the turnout will be low — which is typical, sadly — and that the incumbents will skate back into office.

I’m not going to handicap this contest. My reporting job for NewsChannel10.com kind of takes me out of the local political prognostication business.

I will add this observation, however. If the candidates are going to spend nearly 300 grand collectively for an office that basically pays them nothing, then I suspect a serious commitment to public service from all of them — incumbents and challengers alike.

That speaks well for Amarillo.

local news, media news

Growing old is turning out OK … so far

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

The older I get the more I learn about myself.

One of things I am learning is how adaptable I have become. Actually, I’ve know about the adaptability for some time. My family and I moved from Oregon — where I grew up and spent most of my first 34 years on Earth — to Texas. I adapted just fine.

My journalism career brought tremendous change over the course of 37 years. In August 2012, when I started sensing my days were numbered at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for more than 17 years, I fell back on my last line of defense in an effort to keep my job in the face of a reorganization scheme. I told my employer: “You’re asking me to make changes in the way I do things. Well, my craft today bears next to zero resemblance to what it was when I began, so the changes you’re asking me to make amount to a tiny fraction of the change I’ve already gone through.”

That pitch didn’t work. They assigned my duties to someone else and I walked away.

Adaptability: That’s my middle name, yes?

Well, I have found a whole new world of new things to which I can adapt.

I’m still writing. This blog is one outlet. I also am writing for Panhandle PBS — the Amarillo College-based public TV station formerly known as KACV-TV. I blog about public affairs programming: PBS documentaries, news specials, Panhandle PBS’s “Live Here” public affairs program. It’s a blast, man. I’ve taken on another writing assignment, for KFDA-NewsChannel 10. I write for the station’s website — newschannel10.com — and they use those news stories as the basis for weekly on-air broadcasts. That, too, is big-time hoot.

Now I’m taking on another task. Let’s call it “managing editor in absentia” for the Quay County Sun in Tucumcari, N.M. I’ve been asked to assist in producing the paper each week — from my home, using my laptop, cell phone and e-mail communication with a reporter who’ll produce the text. I’ve implored my friend, David Stevens — who works as executive editor  for the parent company that also publishes daily papers in Clovis and Portales, N.M. — to please keep looking aggressively for a permanent managing editor. He assures me he will.

But you see, what I’ve discovered is that there really is a market out there for old guys with (lots of) gray in their hair.

I still am looking forward to retirement, although it’s looking less likely that I’m a candidate for The Pasture any time soon.

My wife and I still have plans — eventually — to relocate closer to our granddaughter and her parents, who live just a bit north of Dallas. I hope to take much of my work with me, if it’s possible. The Internet Age has made that kind of transition available, even to old guys like me.

They have that saying about hindsight’s perfect vision. Our foresight remains quite fuzzy.

Neither my wife nor I ever could have imagined this stage of our life together turning out this way.

Hey, everyone needs some surprises in life.

Adaptability makes it easier to cope with them when they show up.

local news

Opportunity knocks … once again

Old men do have a future, even if it could be fleeting and temporary.

How do I know that? A new door has just opened for me and I’ve decided to walk through it.

I’ve accepted a challenge from a friend and former colleague who’s asked me to help him produce a weekly newspaper in eastern New Mexico. My friend, David Stevens, is looking aggressively for a managing editor for the Quay County Sun in Tucumcari. For the time being — and hopefully not too long — he’s going to rely on yours truly to help him with the task of publishing the Sun.

David — a recent inductee into the Panhandle Press Hall of Fame — edits the Clovis News-Journal and the Portales News-Tribune; the papers’ parent company also owns the Quay County Sun.

Here’s how it went down.

David sent me a text message today, asking me to call when I had a few minutes. I called.

“I’ve got an opportunity for you and you won’t have to leave the house,” David said.

“OK, what’s up?” I asked.

The opportunity provides me with a chance to work with a young reporter in Tucumcari, who’ll send me news budgets weekly. We’ll agree on stories he’ll cover for the next edition of the Sun. The reporter then will draft the stories, he’ll e-mail them to me, I’ll edit the raw copy and send the files back to him.

The Quay County Sun goes to press each Tuesday and is distributed the next day. During the day Tuesday, I’ll receive PDF files of the pages — again via e-mail — from the reporter who’ll build the pages at the Sun’s office in Tucumcari. I’ll proof-read the pages, call the reporter on my phone, recommend changes to the pages. My young colleague will make the changes and then put the pages, in newspaper jargon, “to bed.”

The Quay County Sun publishes about 16 pages weekly. I’m told we’ll be producing eight to 12 pages with news copy on them.

That, as they say, is the new opportunity.

My friend, David, is well aware of my other commitments: the blog I write for Panhandle PBS, the special projects reporting I’m doing for KFDA-TV’s NewsChannel10.com, and my part-time job at an automobile dealership in Amarillo.

This new gig is going to be a first-class blast.

My daily print journalism career may be over, but I keep turning these corners and running smack into unexpected challenges.

As I keep telling my friends and strangers I meet on my daily travels through life … I am having way more fun than I deserve.

local news

Politicians cut money for schools, then knock them

Those of us who know Shanna Peeples are still a bit awestruck by the recognition that has come her way.

She teaches English at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo and has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year for 2015. A new adventure awaits her as she prepares to carry the torch for public educators across the nation.

A comment came the other day from Jon Mark Beilue, a columnist at the Amarillo Globe-News — where Peeples worked before answering her calling as a teacher — that rings so very true.

Beilue noted, while praising the work of good and great teacher everywhere, how some of the sharpest criticism of public education comes from politicians who have voted to cut money from public school systems.

Peeples, in accepting her crystal apple from the president at the White House this week, thanked him for his unwavering support of public education.

http://agntv.amarillo.com/news/president-obama-awards-shanna-peeples

But every so often, we hear politician here at home decry public education, saying things about the quality of education our students are getting even a they cast vote to slash money aimed at improving schools.

How can they say these things with a straight face?

Oh, I almost forgot: Politicians say a lot of things without understanding or comprehending the irony of their statements and actions.

It’s good to remember what a politician — a state legislator, for example — does for the record while railing about the shortcomings of a valuable beneficiary of state government.

While we’re at it, we ought to hold those politician to account for their actions.

 

local news

All good teachers deserve our praise, honor

http://agntv.amarillo.com/out-beilue/national-teacher-year-big-deal

I’m not going to spend a lot of time and cyberspace elaborating on my pal Jon Mark Beilue’s excellent commentary here.

Take a look at the link and have a listen to Jon Mark’s tribute to a fabulous public educator, Shanna Peeples, who was honored today in a White House ceremony by President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and more than 50 of her colleagues who competed for the high honor of being named National Teacher of the Year.

Shanna honors her profession, her community and her state with this high honor. And as she said today, she represents all the hardworking educators who make a difference in the lives of the students they teach.

 

local news

Teachers: an underappreciated profession

Public school teachers — especially the good ones — need our appreciation and an expression of thanks for all they do to help our children find their way into the world.

One of them today received a high honor, indeed, from her peers. She happens to teach English right here in Amarillo. Many of her students are refugees, whose families have fled repression and deprivation.

Take a bow, Shanna Peeples.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-english-teacher-named-national-teacher-year-30609349

The Council of Chief State School Officers today named Peeples — who teaches at Palo Duro High School — its National Teacher of the Year. She was one of four finalists competing for the job. She’s the first Texan so honored since the late 1950s.

Shanna is a former colleague of mine who’s gone on to enrich many lives along the way. It’s an amazing story, when you consider that becoming an educator was not her first choice of professions. She’s done a lot of things in her life — and working as a journalist was one of them.

She gave up that career several years ago to pursue her real calling, which is to make a serious difference in young people’s lives.

Shanna was asked this morning why she loves teaching and she replied because teaching gives her the chance to “write the last chapter” in young people’s stories.

Public school teachers receive criticism all the time. Too little effort is made to offer high praise to the great work that many teachers do in our communities.

One of them stands as a symbol of educational excellence. She has brought great honor to her state and to her profession.

We’re all proud of Shanna Peeples.

local news, media news, Uncategorized

Non-endorsement sends dubious message

Let’s talk about newspaper endorsements and what they intend to accomplish.

Editors and publishers will tell you they aren’t intended to make voters cast ballots in accordance with what the newspaper management wants. The folks who run these media outlets seek to stay on the moral high ground. “We just want to be a voice in the community,” they say. “It’s enough just to make people think. We know we cannot make people vote a certain way and that’s not our intention.”

It’s all high-minded stuff. I used to say such things myself when I was editing editorial pages for two newspapers in Texas — one in Beaumont and one in Amarillo — and at a paper in my home state of Oregon.

But the reality, though, is that newspaper executives — publishers and editors — never would complain if elections turn out the way they recommend.

Is there a dichotomy here? I think so.

Which brings me to the Amarillo Globe-News’s non-endorsement today in the upcoming election for mayor. The paper chose to remain silent. It wouldn’t endorse Paul Harpole’s re-election to a third term as mayor, nor would it recommend voters elect Roy McDowell as mayor.

The paper did express a couple of things about Harpole. It said it is disappointed in the missteps and mistakes that have occurred on Harpole’s watch and it also predicted that Harpole would be re-elected on May 9.

Newspapers fairly routinely encourage community residents to get out and vote. They encourage them to make the tough choices. Pick a candidate, the newspaper might suggest. Hey, none of them might not be statesmen or women, but they’re committing themselves to public service.

Suppose for a moment that Amarillo voters — all of them — took the Globe-News’s non-recommendation to heart. What if no one voted for mayor? What if no voter decided that one of the two men seeking the office deserved their vote? Would the paper declare that a victory? Or would it lament the chaos that would ensue?

This is why I disliked non-endorsements back when I toiled for daily newspapers. I’ve always believed voters expect the newspaper to recommend someone in a race, even if no candidate deserved a ringing endorsement. If nothing else, some voters do rely on newspapers to provide some guidance to voters who might not have sufficient knowledge of all the issues that decide these important elections.

Recommending no one? That’s their call. However, it’s fair to wonder whether a newspaper should ask voters to do something its management wouldn’t do, which is make a choice on whom to support at the ballot box.

 

local news

Tragedy hands Amarillo PD a PR gem

The Amarillo Police Department has been handed a solid-gold public relations opportunity that has been born out of a tragic incident on a city street.

James Sutton was killed Friday night near Caprock High School, apparently while drag-racing along 34th Avenue. He lost control of his vehicle and flipped it several times. The 24-year-old motorist was pronounced dead on the scene. Police say he was racing two other vehicle when his SUV struck a curb and flipped. APD is looking for the drivers of the other vehicles.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/28896242/one-dead-after-wreck-near-school

A young man’s family is grieving over this senseless loss.

Senseless because the young man was doing something that has killed many other drivers over many years — perhaps since the invention of the automobile.

Street-racing is among any American city or town’s dirty little secrets. It’s underreported, yet it goes on virtually every night in cities across the country. Young drivers think they’re invincible to begin with, so they test their invincibility by challenging other young drivers to do something that is quite illegal, which is drive way past the posted speed limit recklessly, putting themselves and others in extreme danger.

Can there be a better tool to use in a campaign to dissuade young drivers from engaging in this kind of fearful behavior?

There now exists at Amarillo City Hall and in the city’s police department an opportunity to send a message throughout this city — and perhaps even far beyond the city — about the dangers of street racing.

Man, oh, man. It kills!