{"id":36421,"date":"2019-04-03T00:02:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T00:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36421"},"modified":"2019-04-03T00:02:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T00:02:29","slug":"casting-my-gaze-over-my-shoulder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36421","title":{"rendered":"Casting my gaze over my shoulder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=AmarilloISD%20%23downtownAmarillo%20%23KETR%20%23TAMUCommerce&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/amarillo-banner.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-36422\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/amarillo-banner-300x154.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"154\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/amarillo-banner-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/amarillo-banner-768x393.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/amarillo-banner-1024x524.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/amarillo-banner.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I love my life in my new home. There&#8217;s much to explore about Collin County, the rest of North Texas, the Metroplex. The growth all around our home is astonishing.<\/p>\n<p>However, I remain committed to casting my gaze backward, perhaps for beyond the foreseeable future. I know that might seem counterintuitive, looking backward as we move forward.<\/p>\n<p>However, the community my wife and I departed in 2018 has some issues that are boiling. Two of them stand out:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Downtown Amarillo<\/strong> is moving into a new existence, with a new energy and a new purpose. I want to keep my eye on how that progresses. I have high hope that the city&#8217;s future is looking brighter week by week.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Amarillo Independent School District<\/strong> is facing some potentially critical policy debates over the short and perhaps the medium terms. The board of trustees is suffering a lack of community confidence. It has fumbled &#8212; in my view &#8212; in its handling of the resignation of a high school girls volleyball coach and the alleged misconduct by one of the elected trustees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am in touch with Amarillo ISD residents who are intent on getting to the bottom of matters. I intend to stay in touch with them and I intend to keep talking about those issues on this blog. I want the Amarillo ISD to resolve these problems constructively and permanently.<\/p>\n<p>But I have to tell you that based on what I am hearing, there well might be some more AISD issues to tackle than what I&#8217;ve laid out with this brief blog post.<\/p>\n<p>I also intend to get more involved with the community where my wife and I &#8212; along with our precious puppy, Toby &#8212; have settled. Princeton is a community on the move. My still-developing relationship with KETR-FM public radio will allow me a chance to get more deeply acquainted with the individuals and groups who are calling the shots in Collin County and throughout KETR&#8217;s listening area.<\/p>\n<p>So . . . retirement has brought some new challenges my way. They involve getting involved with our new surroundings.<\/p>\n<p>And keeping tabs on the community we recently departed, but did not leave behind.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=AmarilloISD%20%23downtownAmarillo%20%23KETR%20%23TAMUCommerce&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love my life in my new home. There&#8217;s much to explore about Collin County, the rest of North Texas, the Metroplex. The growth all around our home is astonishing. However, I remain committed to casting my gaze backward, perhaps for beyond the foreseeable future. I know that might seem counterintuitive, looking backward as we &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36421\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Casting my gaze over my shoulder<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6251,9],"tags":[316,1063,1436,8436,3007,7493],"class_list":["post-36421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-news","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-isd","tag-collin-county","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-ketr-fm","tag-metroplex","tag-north-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36423,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36421\/revisions\/36423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}