Tag Archives: KFDA NewsChannel 10

entertainment news, medical news

You go, Cindy Stowell!

17xp-jeopardy_web1-master768

I’ve been doing something quite unusual the past few days.

I have been planning my days around a TV game show. “Jeopardy!” airs in Amarillo on KFDA NewsChannel 10 every weekday afternoon at 4:30. I’m planning to tune in once again Monday to see how a young woman from Austin does on her fifth appearance as a contestant.

Cindy Stowell has won more than $100,000 while dispatching opponents over the course of four days. Her back story is astonishing to the max.

Stowell has died. She left this world on Dec. 5, about a week before her appearance on “Jeopardy!” was to begin airing. She competed while suffering from cancer. She knew she had little time to live. So did a few program staffers and the show’s  host, Alex Trebek.

Stowell agreed to donate her winnings to cancer-related research charities.

“Jeopardy!” producers aren’t divulging how much longer Stowell will be on the show; as the champ, she competes until someone beats her.

The New York Times reported today that this show — already immensely popular — has developed a unique following as the nation watches this amazing, brave young computer programmer compete in the amazing brain-teaser game.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/us/cindy-stowell-jeopardy-death.html?_r=0

As the Times reported: While it’s not unusual for the show to establish back stories for the contestants, the viewers’ knowledge of Ms. Stowell’s condition ‘is to share a sad secret with her,’ Seth Rosenthal wrote at SB Nation.

“’I sit in awe of a brilliant woman earning every last dollar she can for the causes dearest to her; building a sum of infinite potential in the face of her own finality,’ he said. ‘I have never rooted harder for anyone to win anything.’”

Neither have many of us. This story breaks my heart and lifts my spirits … all at once. Amazing!

local news, media news

Anniversary reminds me of how things can work out

retirement.pic_

This is another in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

Everything happens for a reason. Is that too cliché to repeat here? Probably, but I just did it anyway.

An anniversary is fast approaching that reminds me of how life can throw you curve balls. You just have to be patient, keep the faith, rely on the love of others — and by golly, things can have this way of working out.

Later this week marks the fourth year since my full-time journalism career came to a sudden end. I wasn’t quite ready for it to conclude in that manner. It did, though.

I won’t belabor you again with the particulars, except to say that at the moment I learned that the job I’d been doing at the Amarillo Globe-News for nearly 18 years would be handed over to someone else was like being punched in the gut — and the face — at the same time.

I collected myself, went home, decided in the car on the way to the house that I would quit, came back the next day, cleared out my office, had an awkward conversation with my soon-to-be former employer and then left.

My wife and I departed Amarillo that very day for an eight-day vacation back east. We had a wonderful time seeing friends in Charlotte, N.C., and in Roanoke, Va.

We came home and started thinking about what we would do next.

I was too old — 63 years of age at the time — to seriously consider going back to work full time. I knew I couldn’t get hired because of my age.

Oh, sure, employers said they didn’t consider that. I know better. Ageism exists, man.

I decided to start the transition into retirement.

I’ve been working a number of part-time jobs in the four years since my departure from the craft that in many ways had defined me over the span of nearly 37 years. I was able to keep my hand in the profession I love so much: writing news features for KFDA News Channel 10, blogs (until recently) for Panhandle PBS and helping produce the Quay County Sun weekly newspaper in Tucumcari, N.M.

Along the way I made a startling discovery.

It was that while I didn’t want my career to end when it did and in the manner that it did — I am now happy that it did end.

We’re continuing that transition into full-time retirement. We plan to travel more. We plan to be our own bosses. We intend to see this continent of ours up close. All of those plans are proceeding.

We’ll have some more major changes in our life coming up. I won’t divulge them here. Our family and closest friends know what they are … so I’ll leave it at that.

My wife has told me I seem less stressed out these days. Hmmm. Imagine that.

The Associated Press and United Press International style books always instructed us to “avoid clichĂ©s like the plague.”

Thus, the cliché about things happening for a reason seems so trite.

Except that in this case, it’s flat-out true.

local news

Amarillo is dangerous? Don’t think so

crime-scene-tape

A Houston law firm has tarred Amarillo with a designation that I think many of us who live here would dispute.

The Darrow Law Firm says Amarillo is the fifth-most-dangerous city in Texas.

No. 5 in the state! We live in a dangerous community, the firm declares.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/31953135/amarillo-ranked-no-5-most-dangerous-city-in-texas

These surveys sometimes are hard to stomach, particularly when they portray your community in less-than-flattering contexts.

According to KFDA NewsChannel 10: “The Darrow Law Firm looked at three factors for their ranking: Crime, police, and community. Out of 34 cities in the state, Amarillo ranked 3rd highest in crime, 14th-lowest in police investment and 24th-highest in community risk, per capita.”

West Texas A&M University criminal justice professor Harry Hueston disagrees with the findings. He told the station that studies such as this tend to paint communities with too broad a brush.

I am sure that a recent crime victim might agree with the assertion that Amarillo is a dangerous place. We’ve been fortunate in that regard, so we see the study in a different light.

I know this: I am not going to take any extra-special precaution to guard against someone intent on doing harm.

I’m cautious enough as it is.

Here’s the study. Take a look.

http://www.houston-criminalattorney.com/most-dangerous-cities-texas/

Don’t be scared.

local news

Down to just three jobs

retirement_road

This is another in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.

Four jobs have turned to just three.

More or less.

I worked my last shift today as a “regular” part-time employee of an Amarillo auto dealership where I’ve been working for more than two years.

No, I didn’t quit. I merely asked to work on an “as-needed basis.” Someone calls in sick? Or goes on vacation? Or gets stuck in the snow and ice? Call me. I’ll be available . . . maybe.

My availability will depend mostly on whether my wife and I are on the road tooling around the country towing our fifth wheel, or visiting with our granddaughter — and her parents and two brothers — in Allen, Texas.

This retirement status has been slow to take root. I’m continuing to have too much fun as a freelance blogger for two media outlets. I’m continuing to write news features for NewsChannel10.com, which is the website for KFDA-TV in Amarillo. I also am writing blogs for PanhandlePBS.com, offering perspective on public affairs programming. The third job involves editing news copy and proofreading pages for a weekly newspaper in Tucumcari, N.M.

I’m now officially a Social Security recipient, joining my wife, who decided to take “early retirement” a couple of years ago. Social Security says that at my age I am able to collect “full retirement benefits.”

But the idea of going to work two or three — or sometimes four — days a week became something that I found less appealing now that our household income took a dramatic boost once Social Security benefits began arriving.

I don’t intend to quit the auto dealer job entirely. However, as retirement inches closer, I am looking forward to spending a lot more time at home doing what I enjoy the most . . . which is to write.

And, oh yes. I also will keep pounding away from this platform.

 

local news

SW wind = smell of money

feedlot

Dave Oliver is a fine TV meteorologist.

However, the KFDA NewsChannel 10 weather man needs to be a bit more precise when he asks rhetorical questions about wind direction in the Texas Panhandle.

Oliver — aka “Doppler” Dave — was giving a weather report Tuesday night. He informed viewers of the upcoming warm weather we’re going to have for most of the rest of the week.

He was going through the usual stuff, showing viewers maps, cloud flow, talking about “computer models” and so forth.

Then he said the wind pattern was going to shift in Amarillo. He said it would change to a southwesterly flow, meaning the wind would come from southwest of the city.

“You know what that means?” Oliver said, before answering his own question — which was that the wind would be dry and wouldn’t produce much moisture.

No, Dave. That’s not what a southwest wind means to many of us who live in Amarillo.

It means it’s going to stink to high heaven out there.

The southwesterly wind means those feedlots in Hereford and Randall County will send their aroma this way. That’s what happened today, just as Oliver predicted.

The wind shifted. It was dry, all right, just as Oliver said.

It also stunk up the place with the “smell of money.”

local news

Sad Monkey RR to smile again

sad monkey

One of my four part-time jobs enables me to write news stories for KFDA-NewsChannel 10 TV here in Amarillo.

We call it “Whatever Happened To …” and it explores issues that might have dropped off people’s radar. The Sad Monkey Railroad once ran through Palo Duro Canyon. Then it shut down when the owner couldn’t comply with demands being made to make the train accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities, under federal law.

Guess what? The train is coming back to life … sort of.

Canyon City Manager Randy Criswell informed the station that the train “has recently been purchased, and will be refurbished and loaned to the City of Canyon for display at one of our parks … the train is actually being moved as we speak to the Randall County Sheriff’s Office, where it will be restored by the inmates there.”

The train had been sitting on some property near the entrance to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. It had ceased operating on the canyon floor in 1996. The former owner, who’s now deceased, decided just to park the locomotive and several cars next to the park entrance road.

The coolest aspect of this is that the sheriff’s office will allow inmates — I presume they’ll be jail trusties who get assigned to these work details — to refurbish the ol’ Sad Monkey train. Sheriff Joel Richardson agreed to the deal that will save taxpayers a whole lot of public money. Think about it: The train’s been sitting idle for nearly two decades, through scorching heat and bitter cold all that time. The cost of repairing and dressing up the cars would be immense if the city had to hire, say, a contractor to do the job.

Sad Monkey won’t be running on tracks through the park where it will be put on display. It will serve as a sort of kids’ playground.

It doesn’t matter. The Sad Monkey train has been given new life.

I believe I’ll give thanks today to Sheriff Richardson for providing the manpower to fix it up — and to the new owner, Barbara Logan, for her generosity in rescuing the old train from further decay.