Melissa Bartlett

If 2020 taught us anything it is that we need to find ways to survive. A lot of people started side hustles to make some money. We had to figure out a way to make money

It has been a few years since the Toys R Us on Soncy closed down. Well to be fair all of the Toys R Us's closed down, so it was not just ours. That building, though, has pretty much been quiet since then.

What can I say about my friend Vicki McLean? She is a fabulous person. She really is that. I met her back in 2008 when she came in to visit me at a radio station I worked at many moons ago. She would come in and talk about Dracula. Oh and of course the Nutcracker Ball and any other great ballet they…

I don't know how many times I heard that Covid would be over as soon as November 4th. I thought that was ridiculous from the first time I heard it. I still do. Guess what? November 4th was yesterday and as far as I can tell Covid is still a thing. Am I right?

Happy State Bank is doing it again. They are growing even more. They are adding 14 new branches this weekend. They took ownership of the Centennial branches earlier but this weekend they will officially become Happy. The growth doesn't stop there.

It may be cold outside but if this story doesn't melt your heart you may need to get it checked out. Imagine being an eight year old and knowing your mom is not there every night to tuck you in because she is serving in the military.

I have never early voted during an election. Never. I have always just really loved the excitement of going on Election Day with my daughter and showing her how to vote. The excitement was real. Now my daughter early voted on her own in the Dallas area.

Who would have thought that when we started 2020 that not only would we have new words in our vocabulary. You know like social distancing, covid, maskne. We also had to deal with new conditions too.

As we are getting closer to the month of November there are some more changes coming to some of our local schools. When the pandemic hit in March the kids were all on Spring Break. So the schools ended up extended the break for a bit while they decided what to do with the outbreak.

I guess if you want to be that half glass full kind of person you have to realize that all this covid talk has brought us some good things. We have finally had the time to slow down a bit. We also got to spend more time with our family.

So early on in 2020 things already hit Family Support Services hard. Their office in Downtown Amarillo had a fire. A lot of damages occurred. In fact their building was destroyed. So they already had to find a place to home them.

This year has been challenging for a lot of our non-profits here in Amarillo. The donations have gone down of course. There have been a lot of cancelled events which usually brought them in money and donations too. After already taking this hit it is never good to hear news like this.