Amarillo

State Education Board Adds to Conservative Voices Coming Out Against Patrick's Voucher Plans

As if there weren't already enough public voices coming out against Sen. Dan Patrick's neo-voucher scheme -- Republican Rep. Joe Strauss, the Speaker of the House, already noted that a bill diverting public dollars to private education would never make it pass his chamber -- there's another prominen ... More >>

What The Hell? 17 Inches Of Snow In Amarillo? (w/Video)

We're not saying a lot of people have travel plans that take them to Amarillo, but if they did today is a hell of a day to avoid the Panhandle. Amarillo is getting hit with a blizzard that is dropping 17 inches of snow in some places. That, no doubt, is a big ol' blizzard. Everything's basically c ... More >>

D'AHHHHH: Largest Donation Of Pet Food In Houston History Set For Today

The husband and wife team behind local pet store chain Natural Pawz are set to donate 100,000 pounds of pet food to the Houston Humane Society today at their new Almeda Road location. Biff Picone and his wife Nadine Jolie-Coeur collected the lion's share of the food from vendors they work with, in ... More >>

Stanley Marsh 3 Charged with 11 Sex Crimes; Hires Houston's Paul Nugent and Heather Peterson

Quirky millionaire Amarillo oil and heir and arts patron Stanley Marsh 3 was booked into Potter County Jail yesterday on eleven sex crimes involving boys under the age of 17. He has since been released after paying his $325,000 in bonds, according to court records. The arrest follows a half-dozen l ... More >>

Alleged Election Night Domestic Assault Has Local Attorney and Obama Fan Facing Felony Charge

An alleged domestic assault on election night has a local defense attorney and marine Iraq vet facing a felony family violence charge. According to court records, David Christopher Hesse was drinking beer and watching election returns with his wife Sandra Hesse in their Clear Lake-area home on Nove ... More >>

Cadillac Ranch Owner Stanley Marsh 3 Called Child Sex Predator in Lawsuit

For decades, those with an artistic bent have viewed quirky provocateur Stanley Marsh 3 and his Cadillac Ranch on the outskirts of Amarillo as one of the Panhandle's sole redeeming qualities, beacons of culture and mischief in a region barren of joy and fun. The ten vintage Cadillacs buried in the d ... More >>

Go Way Out to Eat: 5 Favorite Dining Destinations

Food & Wine magazine recently featured a series of articles on culinary destinations, or "...the world's best food pilgrimages," as they put it. While it was indeed interesting, I must say that places like Bangkok, Rome and India are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to food travels. The ... More >>

Shanice Lambert: Another Panhandle Teacher Accused of Sexual Misconduct

What in tarnation is going on in the schoolhouses on Texas's High Plains? The latest in the Shame Parade is Shanice Lambert, who looks much more glamorous on her Facebook page than in her Armstrong County mugshot. According to the Amarillo Globe-News, police in Childress accuse the 37-year-old teac ... More >>

Julie Ann Moore: Another Texas Teacher Snared in Student Sex Scandal

Booking photoJulie Ann Moore: There might be as many as three 15-year-old victims.​An Amarillo elementary school teacher is currently out on bond and has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in the back seat of her car during the halftime of a high school football game. Acc ... More >>

George Strait's Top 20 Songs Of All Time: Nos. 5-1

​As Rocks Off dives into the top slots of our favorite George Strait songs from his 30-year career - see Nos. 20-16, 15-11 and 10-6 - we are waiting anxiously to see if King George was able to knock Lil' Wayne's Tha Carter IV from atop the Billboard 200. A top seat for the brand-new Here For a ... More >>

Top Five Cannibal Country Songs

​Songs about singers and other songs has long been one of Rocks Off's favorite fields of study within the wide-ranging curriculum of popular music. Off the very tippy-top of our heads, ABC's "When Smokey Sings," the Replacements' "Alex Chilton" and the Pogues' "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda ... More >>

Top 5 Everyday Exotic Dinners

Jules:stonesoup​Unless I'm feeling particularly inspired, throwing a party or testing out recipes for a blog post, on a daily basis I often fall into the same old pasta, chicken, whatever rotation. There's only so many nights, however, that a person can stand the same old boring thing before o ... More >>

Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm

Delani Hazen: Allegedly Drunken Tractor Ride Lays Waste To Countryside, Cuts Power To Town

Hopefully not the ride in question​What had to have been a wild night in Amarillo last Friday got even wilder after 20-year-old Delani Hazen's friends either intentionally or unintentionally left her by the side of Interstate 40 just west of the north Panhandle metropolis. Apparently desperat ... More >>

Google Street View, Houston Circa 1891 and 1912

Milam & Pease: Current home of the Houston Press​We seem to be all about the zooming in on graphics today. A site called BigMapBlog apparently specializes in adapting old bird's-eye map illustrations of cities into Google Street View-like zoomability. They've got Fort Worth in 1891 and Amaril ... More >>

Last Night: Jason Aldean At RodeoHouston

Photos courtesy of Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo​Jason Aldean Reliant Stadium March 20, 2011 You can tell everything you need to know about Jason Aldean by looking at his steel guitarist's forearms Sunday. First, he had a steel guitarist. Of the handful of Rodeo acts Aftermath saw this year ... More >>

The ALL CAPS chicas

Friday Night: George Strait & Reba At Austin's Erwin Center

Photos by Marc Brubaker​George Strait, Reba McEntire Frank Erwin Center, Austin January 14, 2010 Friday night, Aftermath drove to Austin to catch one of the lone Texas stops on this round of tandem touring by the King and Queen of Country, George Strait and Reba McEntire, with Lee Ann Womack ... More >>

Gorillaz's New Album Includes Song About Houston

​ Christmas morning, Rocks Off got to hear the new Gorillaz album, The Fall, recorded entirely on an iPad by leader Damon Albarn as the super-group made their way through the States on tour this past October. Most every city on the run got a song dedicated to it, including Texas towns Ho ... More >>

Depraved Houston, a jacked-up rodeo and Jennifer Aniston

Lone Star Scorecard: All Tanya Tucker Edition

​The history of country music - or any music until recent years, for that matter - is largely represented by men, with female artists popping up more and more frequently as time passed and concert/record promoters realized there was a market for women in the business. In country, you started with ... More >>

HISD About To Hire Its Superintendent, And Some Critics Emerge

​We have word from HISD spokesman Norm Uhl that the district might officially name the new superintendent at 2 o'clock. If the choice is Terry Grier, as it's been reported, some people are already unhappy. (Update: It is.) "I'm very disappointed in the board," State Sen. Mario Gallegos, who serves ... More >>

Lone Star Scorecard: How Accurate are Your Favorite Songs About Texas?

​Many songs about Texas are written by residents wishing to celebrate some part of their beloved Lone Star State. Others come from non-Texans who are unable to resist the je ne sais quoi of the place that produced both Walter Cronkite and Karl Rove. One thing that many of them have in common, ... More >>

Christian Country Singer Cowboy Hat Amarillo Diner = Beating

www.deanstrickland.com​ In about 45 minutes, Rocks Off will publish the first in our series of musical guides to post-secession Texas (you know it's gonna happen, y'all). Today we're focusing on the Panhandle-area state of "Palo Duro." This as-yet fictional state includes the city of Amarillo, abo ... More >>

A Musical Guide to Post-Secession Texas: "Palo Duro"

View Five States of Texas in a larger map As any proud Texan can tell you, the Lone Star State is entitled constitutionally to split into five states if it so wishes. The scenario has rarely been more in the news than it has relatively recently, when Gov. Rick Perry played to the wingnut gallery in ... More >>

Amarillo's Big Texan Steak Ranch

Photos by Nikki Metzgar​Having seen the steak challenge at Amarillo's Big Texan on television, I had to drop by the restaurant when I swung through West Texas. For the unacquainted, the challenge touted on billboards hundreds of miles away requires you to eat a 72-ounce steak, a baked potato, ... More >>

Houston 101: "Amarillo By Morning," One More Goddamn Time

​Houston 101 is taking a bit of a road trip today in honor of George Strait. Our sister blog Rocks Off is counting down the days until Strait returns here for a non-rodeo appearance, and it put us in mind of the first time we'd heard a Strait song -- at the trial over one of the Texas political wo ... More >>

Ant Farm 1969-1971: Early Underground Adventures with Space, Land, and Time

Filmmaker Laura Harrison presents a work-in-progress documentary about going through fire (literally) for art

MySpaced Out: Gram Rabbit Stirs in the High Desert

Gram Rabbit, "California Christmas" In case you're still in your holiday hangover mode like I am, here's one wonderful holiday YouTube video that our gallant Mr. Rocks Off left out of his holiday onslaught. Cute doesn't begin to describe this one. While we are on the subject, high desert California ... More >>

Texas' Own Joe The Plumber

Swift Meatpacking Plant and Illegal Immigrants

Swift & Company pitted employee against employee when it replaced injured workers with illegal immigrants

Fadin' Renegade

Doug Supernaw's long, sad spiral

Bling Twango

Big & Rich delivers country music without prejudice

Bringing Out the Farm

Blaffer Gallery presents a retrospective of UH's most prolific art collective

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Slim Down in Houston

Downfall 2012, with Pimpadelic

Friday, November 29

World Class?

Houston can't join the ranks of other cities until it has an anthem of its own

Playbill

The Groobees

First Out of the Gate

Now that he's got Mayor Lee Brown's attention, can Chris Bell win your support?

Left Return

Once burdened by debt and internal politics, a rejuvenated Texas ACLU is back mixing it up with those who dare to trample on the U. S. Constitution.

Wide Open Shot

The Groobees piggyback on the success of a song

Fire and Ice

Teen's police confession indicates he lied about how he killed a punker

Punks, Jocks and Justice

There was a killing and now a conviction. Even those can't stop the fierce war raging between the Panhandle punks and athletes of Amarillo.

Oprah Does Amarillo

It's the Queen of Talk versus the Meat Men, and outside the courtroom, master media manipulator Winfrey is already the clear winner.

Letters

Fourth and Long

Dreams of Glory Die Hard in Semipro football

Postmarked Texas

Joe Ely sends a sad, beautiful Letter to Laredo

It began in the Panhandle with the promise of great riches, only to crash and burn in a Houston courtroom. The wreckage is still smoldering, and the truth is nowhere to be found.

The Toxic Tort Case

It began in the Panhandle with the promise of great riches, only to crash and burn in a Houston courtroom. The wreckage is still smoldering, and the truth is nowhere to be found.