News

This week, the Hemphill County Hospital District announced that it had received results for four additional positive cases of COVID-19— one local resident, and three residents outside of this county, all test results that were returned yesterday. These are the first new cases reported in the last week, and bring the total lab-tested coronavirus case count to 73 inside the county, and 37 outside.

The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged many families into financial distress, and federal stimulus payments are an important way for people to feed their families and keep paying rent. But as of June, an estimated 12 million eligible Americans—over 1 million of them in Texas—had not received their $1,200 federal stimulus payments, known as “economic impact payments.” While the Internal Revenue Service reports some recent progress on people receiving their payments, the number of unclaimed checks is still quite large.

The first phase of utility-line relocation on US 60/83 will likely begin around the middle of next week, City Manager Joe Jarosek reported Tuesday. Amarillo Utility Contractors will perform the utility-line relocation work.

Hemphill County Underground Water District board members voted unanimously last week to raise the tax rate to 3.5-cents per $100 valuation for Fiscal Year 2020-21—a 25 percent increase over last year’s rate.

Sept. 9-13 marks the anniversary of arguably this area’s most important historical event—and sadly, its least known one. The Texas Historical Commission refers to Lyman’s Wagon Train Battle as the beginning of “America’s most important war, which you know nothing about.”

The end of a seemingly endless political season is in sight. The last day to register in the Nov.

About 1.3 million rural Americans who had jobs in July 2019 were unemployed one year later, according to the recent county-level employment data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. As tough as that sounds, the central areas of the nation’s largest cities had it worse.

In the last week, Hemphill County Hospital officials have reported seven new coronavirus cases in Hemphill County residents, and three new cases involving out-of-county residents. Of those seven local positive cases, three are students at Canadian ISD, and one is a staff member—doubling the number of COVID cases on local campuses reported in the first two weeks of school.

In the last week, Hemphill County Hospital District officials have reported 11 new coronavirus tests of county residents. Two factors have affected the sudden spike: the spread of COVID-19 cases in residents and staff at the Edward Abraham Nursing Home, since the first two cases were reported there three weeks ago; and the start of classes at Canadian ISD, which began last Wednesday.