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.

While approaching Amarillo College’s stately Ordway Hall in the fall of 1967 to conduct his very first freshman composition classes, Tom Hodges admits to feeling as though he’d bitten off more than he might could chew.

“On my first duty day there, those cornerstone statues, the gnomes flanking Ordway Hall’s main entrance, struck me as formidable,” Hodges said.