{"id":7086,"date":"2014-11-13T03:44:09","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T03:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7086"},"modified":"2014-11-13T03:44:09","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T03:44:09","slug":"r-i-p-jim-simms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7086","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P., Jim Simms"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sad news broke today in Amarillo.<\/p>\n

Jim Simms has died at the age of 73. He’d suffered from a degenerative lung disease that, as I understood it, was similar to cystic fibrosis. He struggled with an oxygen tank over the past several years.<\/p>\n

The sadness comes because the city has lost a serious public servant, someone who fought hard on behalf of what he thought was right the city he loved.<\/p>\n

Jim was a friend. He was as energetic a public servant as any I’ve ever known over more than three decades as a journalist. His enthusiasm was boundless.<\/p>\n

I made his acquaintance during my first year in Amarillo. I arrived in early 1995 and a serious debate was ginning up about the potential sale of Northwest Texas Hospital, which was owned by Amarillo taxpayers and managed by the Amarillo Hospital District; Jim Simms served on that hospital board.<\/p>\n

The AHD put the hospital up for sale and then accepted sealed bids from companies seeking to run the hospital. The district eventually accepted a bid from Universal Health Systems and then put a non-binding referendum up for a vote in 1996 that asked: Should the city sell NWTH? The vote came in decisively in favor of the sale.<\/p>\n

Simms became one of the key voices promoting the sale.\u00a0 That’s when I got to know about his tenacity and vigor.<\/p>\n

He’d served on the Amarillo school district board of trustees and since 2005 had served on the Amarillo City Council.<\/p>\n

Jim enjoyed a successful business career and then sought to give back to the community. The city’s newspaper named him its Man of the Year.<\/p>\n

Simms wasn’t always genteel in his approach to debating public policy, but he surely meant what he said.<\/p>\n

You knew where he stood and that, I submit, is a testament to this man’s honesty.<\/p>\n

The city has suffered a big loss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Sad news broke today in Amarillo. Jim Simms has died at the age of 73. He’d suffered from a degenerative lung disease that, as I understood it, was similar to cystic fibrosis. He struggled with an oxygen tank over the past several years. The sadness comes because the city has lost a serious public servant, … Continue reading R.I.P., Jim Simms<\/span> →<\/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":[9,11],"tags":[288,314,3339],"class_list":["post-7086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-medical-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-hospital-district","tag-northwest-texas-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086","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=7086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}