News

90.1 KZNK Brewster, providing HPPR service to northwestern Kansas and portions of Colorado and Nebraska, will be off the air intermittently today due to HVAC issues exacerbated by today's warm weather.

Playas benefit from practices that result in good soil health.

Improving the health and quality of the soil is one of the easiest and most effective ways producers can increase crop productivity, hence profitability, while benefitting wildlife and improving the environment. No-till practices, plus the planting of cover crops, mean less soil moves as runoff into playas during rain events.

Many Colorado cattle ranchers are beginning to recover from the drought, but for many the rain is too little and too late.

Fanatical: adjective.  Filled with excessive and  single minded zeal...enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion.  

Recent torrential rains brought flash flooding to low-lying portions of Lamar and southeastern Colorado.  Heavy rains and strong winds closed Highway 50 in low areas.  Several railroad underpasses were closed until waters receded reported Russ Baldwin for the Prowers Journal.

This week on High Plains Morning, instead of our usual CD of the week, we will feature the music of Cat Stevens and Yusuf, as he is now known.  From his early recordings in the mid 60's to his massive hits in the 70's, and music from the current phase of his career after his return from retirement in 2004. Cat Stevens and Yusuf-all this week on High Plains Morning. 

We’ve enjoyed a lush garden this summer with tall corn, big cabbages, sweet potato vines that could be jungle instead of food, and towering tomato plants. Imagine our horror when we visited the garden one morning to find an interstate of raised trails weaving in and out our plantings. This was my introduction to a live mole.

HPPR and Process Art House welcome Amarillo native Rodney Branigan to The Fibonacci for a Living Room Concert on Saturday, August 2!

This is Rodney's first appearance at an HPPR event!

The Fibonacci is located at 3306 SW 6th Ave. We'll open the doors at 7:00, and the show will start at 7:30. We'll have the usual great coffee from the good folks at Evocation Coffee Roasters and cookies from Kristy Fuller, who has taken over baking duties from Molly.

As a young man, Elisha Pullen never imagined he would spend his days on the farm.

Growing up near rural Bell City in southeastern Missouri’s “Bootheel” region, Pullen longed to leave the farm and get an education.

“I grew up in the day and time when we had to do a lot of chopping and stuff like that. Hard labor,” Pullen said. “I’m going to college, I’m getting my degree and I’m going to work in the air conditioning.”

Catfish have always been a favorite of mine for many reasons. I love catching the big blues, usually during the cold weather months, and I dearly love the often non-stop catching that is common this time of year on lakes with high numbers of channel catfish. Dusted with a liberal amount of cornmeal and dropped into hot cooking oil, catfish fillets fried crispy are a culinary delight.

The WT graduating class of 2012 entered the job market with better prospects and significantly less student loan debt.  The Amarillo Globe-News reported the average WT grad had student loan debt of $19,774 compared to the national average of $29,400.

Former Senate President Steve Morris is one of 104 Kansas Republicans backing Paul Davis in his bid to be governor according to a recent article in the Garden City Telegram. 

The “who” part of the Farm Bill is pretty clear.

With trillions dollars of government spending up for grabs, lobbyists from all ends of the spectrum – representing environmental interests, biotech companies, food companies, farmers – flocked to Capitol Hill to find their piece of the Farm Bill pie.

Monday’s performance by Old Crow Medicine Show at the Globe-News Center was significant for a number of reasons.  

On a recent trip to Philadelphia Skip explored a treasure trove of local food, fresh produce, and other special items just made for those who love farms and gardens and what they grow.  A historical setting that once served the Eastern U.S. as a huge train station has now become a huge market for all things tasty and tasteful.

When U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced passage of the Farm Bill in February, she echoed a refrain from a car commercial.

“This is not your father’s Farm Bill,” she said.

While Stabenow, the Michigan Democrat who leads the Senate Agriculture Committee, was referring to what proponents heralded as “reform” of some programs, her remarks were accurate on another score. The massive Farm Bill, which will spend $956 billion and set U.S. food policy for the next decade, is no longer the purview solely of agricultural interests.

Plains Cotton Growers support the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District’s proposal to limit groundwater use on private farmland in Texas.  

Colorado already draws thousands of visitors each year for skiing, hiking, beer drinking and, most recently, marijuana sampling. In 2012, those visitors spent more than $16 billion in the state. Tourism officials want more and they’re looking to do it by bringing well-educated “traveling foodies” to the state.

Playa wetlands benefit from practices that result in good soil health.

Texans voted overwhelmingly to fund new water infrastructure projects last November.  State water planners are preparing for a more populous Texas, but not a hotter one reported Neena Satija for The Texas Tribune.

It's been almost 17 years since Toad The Wet Sprocket released their last record 'Coil', and it feels like they never left.  The new record 'New Constellation' is familiar enough to be instantly recognizable yet different enough to realize that the band has matured gracefully.  We will listen to this new music from the Santa Barbara based quartet this week on High Plains Morning, heard Monday through Friday from 9am to noon.

Although 25 percent of Americans live in rural areas, only 10 percent of doctors do.  Finding physicians willing to live on the prairie is a serious problem in Kansas.  Kearny County Hospital had that problem.  The small hospital is rural, very rural with five people per square mile, but the little hospital has found a solution according to a recent article by the Kansas Health Institute.

All eyes in the stands focused on a bright yellow Volkswagen parked in the center of the Big top.  Both doors opened simultaneously, allowing two clowns wearing towering top hats and oversized, floppy shoes  to step into the spotlight.  Then two more characters in bright, outsized  attire squeezed out, and then two more and two more and two more  like an out of control tube of toothpaste until there were 12 clowns crowding around that little  VW.  If those weren’t enough to dazzle the crowd, two more popped out. 

Once upon a time there was a myth that motivated pioneers to go west and settle the Great Plains.  Told that rain would follow the plow that they were “changing climate for the better”, these hardy souls broke up vast seas of sod working to make their farming Eden a reality. 

This week on Amarillo Symphony Presents, hear the Symphony No. 7 of Ludwig van Beethoven and listen to a chat with Amarillo Symphony musical director Jacomo Rafael Bairos as he draws the connection between Beethoven and Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX.

The performance of Beethoven's 7th is from the symphony's "Innovators" concert in September of 2013, the opening to the symphony's previous concert season.

Also hear a selection from the Symphony No. 5 of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a performance from November of 2012.

A furry beast, a brave rider and a roaring crowd make up the list of ingredients for the Western rodeo tradition known as “mutton busting.” Think of it as bull-riding, but for 6-year-olds, and the furry beast is actually a wooly sheep.

The spread of Zebra mussels in Texas lakes has caused for new regulations that all fishermen/boaters should be aware of. Beginning July 1, boaters must drain all water from their boat and on-board receptacles before leaving or approaching  a body of fresh water anywhere in Texas.

This is another first for HPPR's Living Room Concert series- we have sold out this performance on July 18.  We are taking stand by reservations, and will accommodate  as many people as possible.  We thank you for the great response and for your continued support of HPPR and live music!

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency is touring farm country, trying to assure farmers that the agency isn’t asking for more authority over farmers and ranchers’ lands.