Margie Netherton is an Alabama native whose 1999 job interview at Amarillo College fell on a tempestuous day with twin tornadoes menacing the city. Noting that most folks appeared oblivious to the threat, she resolved to just go with the flow.
“I found it remarkable that the people on campus didn’t seem concerned,” said Netherton, a professor of English who retired in 2020 after 21 fruitful years at AC.
Amarillo College will receive a $331,268 grant from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) that will significantly enhance the College’s welding program, particularly through the acquisition of virtual reality (VR) training technology.
TWU Commissioner Alberto Treviño III will be on hand to personally present the Jobs and Education for Texans (JET) grant at 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 31 at AC’s Innovation Outpost, 1220 S. Polk St.
For years, Bell Textron Inc., formerly known as Bell Helicopter, has supported Amarillo College (AC) and its Kids’ College by presenting educational summer camps that aim to help develop the future workforce, and that tradition continues this month at AC.
The Bell Flight Camp for area middle school students will be conducted during the week of July 15, with the first three meetings (July 15-17) in session from 1-5 p.m. on the Washington Street Campus in Room 406 of the Byrd Building. The camp’s capstone session will be on Thursday, July 18 and entails a tour of the Bell facility, followed by a visit to the Texas Air & Space Museum.
It has been a year since Amarillo College’s FirstBank Southwest Center opened its doors to offer a range wellness, exercise and recreational opportunities to everyone in the community, and the “new” has not yet come close to wearing off.
In fact, quite the opposite is actually the case.
“When we get new members in here even now, they love the fact that it’s so fresh and clean and new, that it’s not crowded, and that we have such great workout equipment, gymnasiums and locker rooms,” said Craig Clifton, AC’s executive director of enrichment and wellness.
Amarillo College is pleased to announce that it will administer physical ability testing for anyone seeking admission to the AC Fire Academy at 9 a.m. Saturday, July 20 in the new state-of-the-art First Responders Academy.
The multi-million-dollar facility is located on Plains Boulevard and is adjacent to the Arts in the Sunset, formerly Sunset Center. Passing the physical ability test, which consists of simulated fire-scene activities, is among the requirements for admission to the Fire Academy.
Jeff Turner, chief executive officer for the Moore County Hospital District (MCHD) since 2008, has been appointed to the Amarillo College Board of Regents in a non-voting capacity.
The College expanded its Board of Regents in 2016 to include two non-voting members to represent its branch campuses in Moore County and Hereford. At the time, AC became one of very few community colleges in Texas to extend representation to its branch campuses.
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.
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.