Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Amarillo News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Good morning. Two Pantex employees got a commendation from Amarillo Police this week after they helped arrest someone last year. Alex Rodriquez, a mechanic, and Jarod Harrison from emergency management were driving home from work when they saw a person acting aggressively. They intervened, helped police make the arrest, and the department recognized them formally for it this week.

KELI That's the kind of thing that doesn't make headlines until someone notices and decides to say thanks. But here's what's underneath: two people who work at one of the region's largest employers saw something and chose to act, knowing the risk. That matters because Amarillo depends on people who work at Pantex and live here showing up as citizens first. Watch whether the department names the person they arrested and what the original charge was—that detail got left out of the initial reporting, and it might explain why the intervention mattered more than the headline suggests.

HAST Staying with the Panhandle, a Kress city official is sentenced. The former city secretary pleaded guilty to theft from the city in 2021. She got three years probation and ordered to pay forty-eight hundred dollars in fines and restitution.

KELI Different scale, but same structure. Public trust in a payroll office, gone. The money came back, the sentence is done, but the city's auditing processes—or lack of them—stay in question.

HAST Two Amarillo ISD teachers got appointed to state boards this week. Cassidy Estes from AISD and Matthew Driver from Bushland ISD were named by Governor Abbott to the new Texas Classroom Commission. It's twenty-one educators statewide tasked with shaping public education policy and student achievement.

KELI The commission exists now. Those two are in the room where decisions get made about what your local schools teach and how they're funded. Track what the commission recommends about Robin Hood funding—that's the state law that redistributes school dollars from wealthy districts to poor ones, and it's been a flash point on the Capitol for years.

HAST On blood supply: Coffee Memorial Blood Center is pushing donors to give now. The national Red Cross declared a blood crisis—only the second time in its history—and is rationing O-negative blood to individual hospitals. O-negative is the universal donor. If you can give, the center's asking you to walk in or call to set up.

KELI Lighter footing for this one. Little Bees Playhouse in Wolflin Square is opening a kids' automotive repair shop today at ten. They're hosting a ribbon-cutting for the new space.

HAST Before we close, a history note. On this day in 1990, Ian Gow, a British Conservative MP who had told the IRA the government would never surrender, was assassinated in a car bombing at his home.

KELI That's the Amarillo News Drop. Full script and sources at inkwell.wiki/news/amarillo.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. The same workshop behind this drop just published the Magnificat — the song Mary sings in Luke, where the powerful are pulled down from their thrones and the hungry are filled.

HAST It reads less like a carol than a manifesto. Find it at inkwell dot wiki, slash giv.