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Nearly 200 volunteers enlist in Saturday’s GO! Weekend initiative

4 years ago By News Staff

A team of nearly 200 volunteers has enlisted to help with this year’s 6th Annual Go! Weekend—a project initiated by Canadian’s Church of Christ in July 2015, which has grown each year since in both community involvement and outreach.

Secured by safety lines and a prayer

4 years ago By News Staff

Canadian’s population must have gotten a significant boost, recently, from the legions of construction crews replacing haildamaged roofs on homes and businesses all over town. This scene at the First Baptist Church on Main Street caught our eye early Wednesday morning, as a team of West Texas Roofers tethered themselves with safety lines to climb the sharply pitched surface. The church sign offered prayerful words, which can’t have hurt, either: “Faith is not knowing what the future holds, but knowing who holds the future.” We drove away thinking of one our favorite old hymns, sung Ry Cooder: “Jesus is on that mainline, tell Him what you want.” PHOTO BY LAURIE EZZELL BROWN

Finding a cure ... for coronavirus vaccine hesitancy

4 years ago By News Staff

The new buzzwords in the local medical community are “vaccine hesitancy,” a term that assumes an even more urgent undertone as the delta variant spreads, and Texas’ coronavirus test positivity rate is reported to have exceeded 10 percent, this week, for the first time since February.

This was the 200 Hall at Hemphill County Hospital in November of 2020. The entryway was draped in plastic, marked with signs warning visitors not to enter. The hall—which had been converted to serve as the hospital’s COVID Unit—was restricted to medical personnel and the acute care patients who were hospitalized there. Local doctors were warning the public that if they had a heart attack or stroke, and were taken to Hemphill County Hospital, they would not be transferred to an acute care unit elsewhere beca

While western states suffer, Texans relish respite from drought

4 years ago By News Staff

The U.S. experienced the extremes this week, with expansion of drought in the West, a robust monsoon in the Southwest, a tropical storm making landfall in the Southeast, and extreme flooding in Southeastern Texas. In the drought monitor maps at right, extreme to exceptional drought plagues much of the western part of the country, while most of Texas is unusually drought-free, with only 5 percent of the state experiencing drought conditions, ranging from abnormally dry to severe. Most of the Texas Panhandle has been richly blessed with rainfall this spring and summer. In Hemphill and surrounding counties, residents are enjoying lush, green vegetation; relatively pleasant temperatures; and welcome relief from the familiar threat of wildfires. In the five-day outlook from today to Monday, sunshine and warmer temperatures are in store for the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, with a small chance for showers and thunderstorms over the weekend. It’s a pretty sure thing that no one will complain if it happens, either.

Applications for TFS prescribed fire grants are open thru Aug. 15

4 years ago By News Staff

COLLEGE STATION—Texas A&M Forest Service is now accepting grant applications for the State Fire Assistance for Mitigation–Plains Prescribed Fire Grant through August 15. The grant will provide $74,514 in total funding for prescribed burns.

Last Cowboy’s Court welcomes area ranchers to July 4 branding event

4 years ago By News Staff

Hemphill County ranchers gathered Sunday afternoon at The Last Cowboy’s Court hotel for an opportunity to burn their brands into the cedar posts on the front porch of the hotel office. Limited tours of the hotel rooms—each of which is designed as a tribute to this area’s historic family ranches—were also offered to the guests.

Rock of Ages

4 years ago By News Staff

Kyle Northcott (in photo above) reported last week that a small pine tree that had grown through a crack in a giant rock in the yard outside of his home had finally succeeded in busting the boulder and that emergency remediation was underway. We were curious to know more about its history, and Kyle shared this information:

EDC focuses efforts on marketing Canadian’s many assets and recruiting new residents

4 years ago By News Staff

Economic Development Council board members took a decisive step forward in its plan—now several months in development— to market Canadian and Hemphill County as a place to live and do business. On the recommendation of the newly-installed board president, Remelle Farrar, the council voted unanimously to appoint a seven-member team of local leaders and volunteers tasked with the job of marketing and recruitment.

City’s annual street sealcoating project expected to begin this week

4 years ago By News Staff

City Manager Joe Jarosek reported this week that Bryer’s Paving of Amarillo, the contractor for this year’s street sealcoating project, had begun staging equipment and supplies here this week, in preparation for an anticipated Thursday, July 15 start date. The $85,330 project to lay 32,000 square yards of sealcoating within the city should be completed in two days. Residents with homes in the impacted areas (see map at left) should be notified by the contractor in advance that they will be working in their neighborhood.

Biden administration provides Texas $29,713,240 to support rural COVID-response efforts

4 years ago By News Staff

As part of the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, this week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is providing Texas with $29,713,240 to support COVID-response efforts in rural areas. While vaccinations continue to increase, this funding through the Small Rural Hospital Improvement Program (SHIP) will go to 115 small rural hospitals in Texas for COVID-19 testing and mitigation, important parts of the COVID response especially as the country faces new variants.

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