A grant from the Amarillo Area Foundation (AAF) will go a long way toward helping Amarillo College students stave off food insecurities and keep their focus on academics even if beset by unexpected expenses like when a car breaks down or a utility bill exceeds expectations.

The Amarillo College Foundation is pleased to acknowledge a generous $125,000 grant from the AAF, funds that will be used to support the College’s Advocacy and Resource Center (ARC) – particularly its Food Pantry and fulfillment of emergency aid requests.

Cash prizes will be up for grabs once again at Chalk It Up, the summertime sidewalk art contest at Amarillo College that has attracted crazy-good creations every year since its inception in 2017.

Online registration is now open for the popular annual event, which takes place Saturday, July 27 on AC’s Washington Street Campus.

Amarillo College is pleased to announce that a total of 742 full-time students attained academic excellence worthy of inclusion on the Spring 2024 Dean’s List.

To be included on the prestigious list, students must attend AC full time and earn a grade point average of 3.6 or higher.

Students who achieved Dean’s-List status for their academic excellence in the Spring of 2024 are listed alphabetically.

In the mid-1990s – as gas hovered at $1.20 a gallon, Tickle Me Elmo was all the rage, and the Grateful Dead finally gave up the ghost – Dr. Jim Laughlin rolled a practice piano outdoors and gave birth to June Jazz at Amarillo College.

Almost three decades later, while much has changed, the Washington Street Campus still comes alive like clockwork on Tuesday nights in June for an outdoor concert series now aptly known as The Jim Laughlin June Jazz Series.

On any given day, Raul Zuniga, a highly motivated student worker in the Amarillo College Music Department, might be found unlocking the practice room doors at dawn and tidying up after a nighttime concert – and plenty more in between.

For the sum of his significant contributions to the department he serves, Zuniga has been chosen as AC’s 2024 Student Employee of the Year.

Two members of the Amarillo College faculty whose dedication to student success has been widely hailed by the students themselves have been named recipients of AC’s prestigious John F. Mead Faculty Excellence Award.

Dr. Jonathan Jenkins, assistant professor of biology, and Catherine Stout, instructor of nursing, each received AC’s foremost faculty accolade during the College’s twin commencement exercises on May 10 at the Amarillo Civic Center.

The Machining Program at Amarillo College is proud to announce that one of its students is a SkillsUSA state champion, an honor accompanied by an invitation to attend a national event.

Adrian Zapata demonstrated unparalleled skill in the Programming 3-axis CNC Milling competition at the SkillsUSA Texas State Leadership and Skills Conference in April at Corpus Christi. In capturing first place in the statewide contest, Zapata now qualifies to compete at the National SkillsUSA Conference this summer in Atlanta, Ga.

For the second year in a row, Chris George, instructor of computer information systems and cybersecurity at Amarillo College, has received the distinguished Instructor Excellence Award from the Cisco Networking Academy.

The award, just as it did in 2023, recognizes George as an “Expert Level Instructor” and for being ranked “among the top 10 percent of instructors globally in student feedback and performance.”

The uplifting experience Jose “J.J.” Ruiz had while attending a high school choir camp at Amarillo College convinced the promising tenor to continue his music education at AC – even if it meant a daily commute from his home in Dumas.

Two years later, the payoff far outweighs what was no small commitment of time and resources just for travel alone; for Ruiz has just accepted a full scholarship to attend and study music at Texas Christian University.

On Gerod Strother’s watch, Amarillo College’s Automotive, Diesel, and Auto Collision programs are firing on all cylinders, and it’s no wonder: Strother, the coordinator for all three programs, is eminently qualified to lead and to teach.

Strother holds a master’s degree in transportation and logistics management from American Military University, a credential he earned during 21 impactful years of service in the U.S. armed forces. He retired from his second branch of the military in 2020, and he spent the next two years as program coordinator and automotive instructor at Texas State Technical College in Sweetwater.

Amarillo College will conduct a pair of Spring commencement ceremonies on Friday, May 10 at the Amarillo Civic Center, where as many as 1,153 spring and summer 2024 graduates will be eligible to take part in the back-to-back rites of passage.

The first ceremony begins at 3 p.m. and will be a celebration of graduates from AC’s Health Sciences, Industry, and Public Service communities.

When the original signatories of the Rural Nursing Education Consortium (RNEC) met at Amarillo College on Feb. 26, 2019, the document they inked that day articulated an ambitious goal: to establish a pipeline of homegrown nurses that would meet staffing needs of the Consortium’s hospitals in the Texas Panhandle.

Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe, Distinguished Research Scientist at Amarillo College, is pleased to announce the acquisition of a collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation likely to bolster the flow of AC STEM scholars to West Texas A&M University.

Ranasinghe said the $75,000 grant will be used to obtain an Ice Nucleation Cold Stage, an instrument for researching and teaching cloud microphysics in science and engineering classes. The NSF earmarked these particular funds to benefit minority-serving institutions.

Amarillo College is pleased to announce its upcoming Men in Healthcare career exploration event, which is from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Thursday, May 2 in the Lecture Hall on the West Campus, 6222 SW 9th Ave.

This event is part of the College's ongoing effort to encourage and support men in pursuing non-traditional gender careers, particularly in the healthcare field.

The Board Regents at its April 23 meeting took no action in its search for the next president of Amarillo College.

The search is now closed, and Regents will revisit the presidential search at a future meeting.

In the meantime, Denese Skinner, vice president of student affairs, will continue to serve as interim president.

Each spring, Amarillo College recognizes its most outstanding students at a formal and celebratory Honors Convocation, which this year was conducted on Sunday, April 14 at the Amarillo Civic Center.

The College commends and congratulates the following students for their significant academic achievements.

The two individuals who have been selected as finalists to become the next Amarillo College president are scheduled to attend 75-minute open forums during the week of April 15-19 in Ordway Hall on AC’s Washington Street Campus.

The open forum featuring Dr. Laura Boyer will be from 3 to 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16.

A patriotic musical about America’s first female soldiers – The Hello Girls – the unsung bilingual women who operated telephones and helped turn the tide of World War I – will cap Amarillo College’s Theatre Arts Program season.

The Hello Girls will enjoy a six-day run over a couple of weeks at the Experimental Theatre on the Washington Street Campus. Performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. on April 26-27 and May 2-4, and the run will be capped with a matinee beginning at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 5.

Abhijit Bhaduri, bestselling author of Career 3.0 and noted management consultant who has led HR teams at Microsoft, Pepsi, Colgate and Tata Steel, will share his insights with students about careers and the future of work on Wednesday, April 24 at Amarillo College.

Bhaduri’s talk, which is titled “Career and the Future of Work,” will be presented from noon to 1 p.m. at Ordway Hall, which is located at the corner of Washington Street and SW 22nd Avenue.

The first students to complete the Construction Technology Program that Ernie Sheets launched a couple years ago at Amarillo College will cross the stage at Spring Commencement, and their mentor’s emotions will be running high.

“Sometimes I get a little teary-eyed just thinking about it,” said Sheets, who at AC coordinates construction technology and additionally serves as chairman for all the manufacturing programs. “Those students have become things they didn’t realize they could be,” – carpenters, cabinet makers, a plumber, and more.