Texas Tech University officials appear intent on increasing the school’s presence in Amarillo.

It’s obvious of the school’s plan with the announcement that Texas Tech plans to build and develop a college of veterinary medicine way up yonder … in the Texas Panhandle.

We all ought to welcome the addition.

Texas Tech already runs a pharmacy school here, courtesy of a lengthy and intense local fundraising campaign in the mid-1990s; and that school came after Tech had established a medical school campus here.

When you think about, Amarillo’s higher education footprint is growing on a number of levels.

West Texas A&M University is in the process of turning a one-time downtown Amarillo office building into an urban campus, which no doubt will expand the Canyon-based university’s presence in the Panhandle’s largest city.

Let us not forget that Amarillo College’s presence here for decades has been significant. AC runs three campuses just in Amarillo. It also has branch campuses in Dumas and Hereford, making it a regional junior college.

The buzz today, though, belongs to Texas Tech University.

Tech Chancellor Bob Duncan led a large university delegation of officials today to announce plans for the veterinary school. Duncan said today the school’s aim is to ensure that students learn their profession here — and then stay here to practice it.

So, the footprint is set to expand and the community figures to reap the benefit.