
Salute!

The Clarendon Enterprise - Spreading the word since 1878.
Brenda Kay McAnear Barrett passed from this life at 4:47 p.m. on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, at the age of 75 years, and five months, and six days. She had been battling a lengthy illness to which she finally succumbed.
She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Jerry Wayne Barrett of Canyon; three sons, Jay Barrett and wife Pam, Brian Barrett and girlfriend Julie Smith, and Chris Barrett and wife Christie; six grandchildren, Kristen Flowers and husband Darren, Benjamin Barrett, Parker Barrett and wife Kendra, Jeron Barrett, Trey Barrett, and, Payton Burkhart and wife Victoria; five great grandchildren, Leah Ji’an Flowers and brother Koen Shade Flowers, Eli Burkhart, Augustina Burkhart, Hayden Burkhart, all of whom were the light of her life; four sisters, Judy Monk and husband Bill, Debe Land and husband Steve, Sheliah Babbitt, and sister-in-law (and in-love) Mrs. Jimmy “Patty” Dean McAnear; and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and many, many friends – especially Rebecca Sotelo, Jessica Bristol, and Ms. Vicki Ward.
Friends and family were a major component of her character. She often hosted summer holiday cookouts with many as 50 persons in attendance.
She was preceded in death by her father and mother, Sellkirk and Lorene McAnear; her sister, Barbara; her husband, Ralph Harmon; and two brothers, Jimmy Dean McAnear and Cody McAnear.
Brenda was born in the Adair Hospital in Clarendon on November 15, 1944. She began her education in the Elementary School at Goodnight before transferring to Clarendon. In 1963, she was voted “Class Favorite.” (And she was that: “Class” and a Favorite!)
Over the course of her life, she lived in Clarendon, Shamrock, and Plainview as well as Hardesty and Texhoma, Okla., before settling in Canyon, where she has lived the last 47 years.
First a pastor’s wife, mother, and homemaker, she began her career working outside the home as a clerk in Simpson’s Western Auto in Texhoma, Okla. When the family moved to Canyon, she retired for three days and then took a job with Energas (then Pioneer Natural Gas), where she worked until she was able to take an early retirement.
She next worked as a secretary, at Mesa Verde Elementary in Amarillo, where she worked another decade before retiring permanently. She dearly loved all the kids and was beloved by them as well.
Active in politics, was elected president of the Potter/Randall Democratic Club and was the State Democratic Executive Committeewoman for the 31st Senate District. In the latter role, she was active in the campaigns that led to the election of the first Hispanic to a statewide office, Justice Raul Gonzales, and also Attorney General Danny Morales
It was her support at the historic Driskill Hotel in Austin, that enabled an Amarillo man, the Honorable Morris L. Overstreet, to have his name placed on the ballot to become the first African-American man elected to a statewide office.
She was also active in the campaigns of the senatorial bid of Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Governor Ann Richards, State Comptroller John Sharp, Potter County Judge Elisha Demerson, and County Judge Lewis C. Brazier. She was proud to have helped a Boys Ranch graduate, Bill Sarpalius, be elected to the office of US Congressman.
As committeewoman, she received an invitation to the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. In Washington, she stayed in the home of one of her Energas trainees, Ms. Elva Hippolito, now of Plainview
She has had an active life and brought joy and laughter to all those she encountered. She was greatly beloved and will be greatly missed.
A service was held at the Clarendon Sandell Drive-in at on Saturday evening, April 25.
The family requests all donations be mailed to Clarendon College, Brenda Kay Barrett Memorial Scholarship Fund, PO Box 968, Clarendon, TX 79226.
Sign the online guestbook at www.robertsonfuneral.com
The spread of the COVID-19 virus in Donley County appears to have leveled off in recent days, but Judge John Howard, MD, is cautious about being too optimistic at this point.
“This is an important week to see if we hold a trend of fewer people presenting with symptoms,” Howard said. “Our efforts to separate people have definitely resulted in fewer cases.”
The number of local residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 was 24 as of Tuesday, a net gain of one from the week before. There were actually two new positives in that timespan, but one previously confirmed positive case was determined late last week to have resided in another county and was removed from Donley’s total.
In addition to holding the line on new cases, 19 of the 24 positives were listed as recovered this week, leaving five active cases, and the number of negative local test results grew to 57.
Two Donley County residents who were hospitalized and on ventilators in Amarillo have also now reported to be off the ventilators and recovering. Late Tuesday, one of those patients was being released to come home from the hospital, according to social media.
Eighty-one local people in all have been tested at the Clarendon Family Medical Center. Four of those tests were pending Tuesday.
Howard said it’s too soon to say when businesses can re-open and what life will look like under a “new normal” and said the community will still have to do careful monitoring to make sure there isn’t another surge in the disease.
“Everyone must assume personal responsibility to stay safe themselves and to not transmit the disease to others,” Howard said, urging citizens to continue to avoid social distancing requirements and the county’s stay at home order.
By Emma Platoff, The Texas Tribune
It’s impossible to know for sure how the new coronavirus got to rural Donley County, but locals bet it took U.S. Route 287, like everything else.
The highway carries 14,000 cars through on a normal day, about four for each of the 3,387 people living in the perfectly rectangular county near the Oklahoma side of the Texas Panhandle. Drivers stop at the Allsup’s or Cornell’s Country Store as they blaze from Dallas toward Denver or back again.
When known coronavirus cases are mapped for each of Texas’ 254 counties, Donley County looks like a sickly glitch, an outlier: It was reporting nearly 7 cases for every 1,000 people as of Sunday. The state’s next-highest known rate of infection was under 5 per 1,000, also in a Panhandle county; in Dallas, that figure was less than 1 per 1,000.
But the statistical aberration may better reflect Texas’ limited coronavirus testing than Donley County’s poor health.
When it got there, the virus that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide met with formidable opposition: a group of pastors now tending their flocks at a local drive-in theater; a one-family newspaper providing faster, more accurate information than the state health department; and a single local doctor, who also happens to serve as county judge, determined to protect his neighbors by testing as many as he can.
The way county Judge John Howard figures, this farming and ranching community 60 miles from the nearest hospital may actually be better off than some big cities and small towns with fewer confirmed cases. Well over 2% of Donley County residents have been tested; at most six-tenths of 1% of Texans have, although the state testing total includes some people who have been tested more than once. His coronavirus picture may be a grim one, but at least it’s clear.
“If I’m doing four times as many tests as they are for the state as a whole, I’m going to get more positives,” Howard said. “If I hadn’t done any tests, I wouldn’t have any positives. But as the only medical provider in the county, I decided early on that I wanted to know who has it.”
The first hints that Donley County would not be spared came in mid-March. As spring breakers made the long trek down from the Colorado mountains through the county seat, Clarendon, and its attractive rest stops, Roger Estlack, who runs the local newspaper, got a tip from his sister-in-law that the town’s few stores were being pillaged. Locals, used to recognizing their fellow shoppers, suspected the crowds emptying the shelves at their only grocery store came from out of town.
Life’s interruptions were just beginning. A local church postponed two fish fries; a drive-in theater delayed its opening. Perhaps most smarting, the Clarendon College Bulldogs had earned their first-ever spot in the National Junior College Athletic Association basketball finals, but the tournament was canceled before they could compete.
Howard watched warily as the outbreak spread across Europe. He knew early on he would need to test widely if he was to prevent the virus from spreading to aging neighbors it could kill. LabCorp, the private company Howard uses to run all his labs, initially gave him just five collection kits, and he administered the first on March 17.
A longtime Marine Corps flight surgeon, Howard moved to Donley County more than two decades ago to become the only doctor in town. He prefers rural medicine to big-city hospitals — it’s what he calls “high-touch versus high-tech.” In 2014, his community voted him county judge.
Before cases began to appear in the Panhandle, Howard warned those feeling “complacent” that even remote communities would not be spared.
“It’s bound to spread more easily in a place like [New York City] than if you’re a rancher in West Texas,” Howard said. “But even a rancher in West Texas has to come into the grocery store and go to the gas pumps.”
Things started to change in Clarendon on March 19, when the first cases were reported in Amarillo, just an hour’s drive away. The city and county issued disaster declarations.
Howard, meanwhile, was still waiting on test results as the promised five-business-day turnaround extended to seven, then eight, then 10.
“When you do a test on 3/17 and you get a report back on 3/24, and then you do a test on 3/19 and you get a report back on 4/2, how does that help me take care of that patient?” he questioned. “It doesn’t. It doesn’t.”
Frustrated, he turned on March 26 to a new company, Ipsum Diagnostics.
Soon, the city halted construction on two major projects, including Clarendon’s first-ever public swimming pool. Monroe’s Peach Ranch, a fruit stand on U.S. 287, saw slower traffic and lower profits. A school board election was postponed.
Leaders of several churches convened a joint service at the local drive-in on March 29. They broadcast their sermon to about 100 people and several dogs over FM radio, station 88.7, occasionally asking parishioners to honk their car horns in an ill-tuned “Amen” chorus. Volunteers in gloves and masks gathered collection envelopes in Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets.
“Somebody asked me, ‘How long are you gonna do this?’ And I said, ‘Until this is over or Jesus comes back,’” said Jim Fox, a Baptist pastor who coordinated the service.
The next night, Howard got a call from a state worker in Lubbock: Donley County had its first positive case, someone who had been tested in a hospital outside the county.
The news reached Estlack the next morning in his office, where he was readying the weekly print edition of the Clarendon Enterprise. He scrapped an article on a recent Clarendon College Board of Regents meeting and got to work on the virus news.
The Enterprise’s small staff is mostly Estlacks: Ashlee, Roger’s wife, who helps with social media; Ella, his 11-year-old daughter, who takes photos; and Benjamin, his 13-year-old son, who has been authoring a “Cub Reporter” column since he was 6. The only full-time reporter as well as its editor, publisher, “janitor and bottle washer,” Roger Estlack quickly became a pivotal player in the county’s coronavirus response, calling and texting Howard constantly and updating the case count most days on the paper’s website.
On April 3, Estlack convened a virtual news conference featuring Howard, Donley County Sheriff Butch Blackburn and other local leaders — “new territory, not just for this newspaper,” Estlack said. With a bushy mustache and an even keel, Howard addressed his constituents, sitting in front of an American flag, a Texas flag and a list of the Ten Commandments. Beside him, in a bright blue button-down and a star-shaped gold badge, Blackburn interlaced his fingers over his belly, looking solemn.
Invited to comment on Facebook, locals fretted their questions up the chain. Did they need written permission to feed cattle just outside town? Could they still deliver eggs to customers? Could they have family over, even if they didn’t live in the same household? And what could Howard tell them about who was ill so far?
Howard offered little identifying information — describing a sick resident as a woman in her 30s limits the guessing pool substantially in a place like Clarendon — and less undue comfort.
“Everything you touch should be considered to be contaminated,” he said. Anyone might brush a contaminated gas pump, then touch her face because a “Panhandle wind blew some dust in your eye.” He was calm but serious: The virus could spread rapidly.
By then, Howard had begun receiving rapid test results from the new lab. Faster data made the spread look faster, too. By April 8, there were 13 cases in the county; two days later, there were 21. The county’s current total is 23. In a small town, most people knew who was sick even without public announcements. And even without doing robust contact tracing, Howard could make inferences: Three people seemed to have all gotten the virus after spending time together socially. Prayer chains formed among churches, naming the ill.
Meanwhile, the state still reports that surrounding counties remain healthy. Of the eight counties that ring Donley, four have not reported any cases at all.
“In a rural area, in farming communities, for all practical purposes they’ve been practicing social distancing forever,” said Kel Seliger, a Republican state senator from Amarillo who represents the vast grid of rural Panhandle counties.
Howard said counties that aren’t on a major thoroughfare may see less viral spread. An absence of testing also helps explain the disparity, local officials and medical experts say.
In some rural counties, “there’s no confirmed cases cause there’s no testing,” said John Henderson, the president of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals and former executive of a hospital 60 miles from Clarendon in Childress.
“I dare say it’s widespread in other communities,” Howard said. “But they may not be testing at the rate that I’m testing.”
Ray Powell, judge of Donley’s neighbor to the south, said, “If we have anyone in Hall County with that virus, we don’t know it.”
A hospital in Hall County went bankrupt in 2002, and the county’s health clinic closed two years ago when the nurse practitioner running it retired. A couple of years ago, when Powell’s wife was diagnosed with lung cancer, they had to travel 90 miles each way to Amarillo for appointments.
“So if anybody gets tested, they have to leave the county to do it,” he said. “We’re just sitting here wondering — do we have any running around? Surely we do because of our neighbor, Donley County.”
Howard says his role as county judge informs his practice as a doctor as much as the other way around. A confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis doesn’t much change a patient’s course of care, but data guides government decisions.
“From a doctor standpoint, I don’t need to test them,” Howard said. “But from a judge standpoint, from a public health standpoint, from a trying to take care of my own community standpoint … this is epidemiological data that’s useful to me.”
Officials believe the high case count has helped them corral locals into following their stay-at-home order. Clarendon Mayor Sandy Skelton said his constituents are resilient, not scared. He and his wife have continued to deliver Meals on Wheels weekly, though his 101-year-old mother is furious that she’s no longer allowed to tag along.
At Monroe’s Peach Ranch, along the highway, Collin Monroe is selling fewer and fewer jars of peach butter, wondering whether his high school graduation this spring will have to be done as a drive-thru. Local businesses are hurting, but most are family-owned stalwarts likely to weather the outbreak.
Several Donley County patients had to be hospitalized, and two were put on ventilators. But by this week, many of the county’s 23 cases had made it into the coveted “recovered” category.
The husband of a pregnant woman was among those who tested positive for the virus. Doctors delayed her inducement date, and now mom, dad and baby are all testing negative and doing well, Howard said.
Howard predicts that when the outbreak subsides and antibody tests reveal who had the virus, Donley County won’t look like much of an outlier anymore.
“Some small cities and counties are not testing anybody,” Skelton said. “Maybe they don’t want to know. But we want to know in Clarendon.”
Disclosure: The Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/20/donley-county-really-hardest-hit-texas-coronavirus/.
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A Pampa man is in the Donley County Jail this week after leading officers on a high speed chase from Gray County last week.
Sheriff Butch Blackburn said Henry Lee Perryman, Jr., was facing three felony charges in Donley County as well as four additional charges in Gray County.
The sheriff said Perryman, age 42, fled from Pampa police the afternoon of April 13 after violating a court order in a domestic situation. The Gray County Sheriff’s Office alerted Blackburn’s department about the chase as Perryman fled on Hwy. 70 in a 2012 GMC Sierra. DPS also joined the pursuit, the sheriff said.
A Donley County deputy shot the pickup’s rear tires as Perryman fled south into Donley County on Hwy. 70. The suspect got turned around and headed back north, side-swiping a bystander’s vehicle and attempting to run over a Gray County officer. Soon after that additional gunfire from a Donley County officer brought Perryman’s vehicle to a stop.
Perryman was arraigned on local charges April 14 by Justice of the Peace Pam Mason for first degree felony Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon, second degree felony Aggravated Assault Against a Public Servant, and third degree felony Evading Arrest with a Motor Vehicle, and total bond was set at $250,000.
Mason also arraigned Perryman on Gray County charges on April 15 for third degree felony Assault Causing Bodily Injury with a Previous Conviction, state jail felony Evading Arrest with a Motor Vehicle, and two counts of Class A Misdemeanor Violation of a Protection Order. Total bond on those charges was set at $25,000.
Local and area residents are invited to enjoy a Family Movie Night Friday with refreshments from the Mulkey Theatre.
The theatre’s ticket window will be open from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, April 24, to sell delicious Mulkey popcorn along with drinks and snacks. Residents can buy their refreshments and then enjoy the movie of their choice at home.
Everyone is asked to please observe social distancing as they make their purchases.
Donley County has reported no new cases of confirmed COVID-19 since Monday, April 13, and 13 patients are still listed as recovered, County Judge John Howard, MD, said this morning.
The total number of confirmed local cases dropped by one today – from 23 down to 22 – after it was discovered that one of the positive cases reported by the Clarendon Family Medical Center is actually a resident of another county. The updated data now shows that 20 local people have tested positive at the clinic out of 76 tests. Six of those tests are pending, and 50 have come back negative. Two other local patients were tested positive at facilities outside the county, bringing the total confirmed cases to 22.
Two residents remain hospitalized with COVID-19. One was reported on social media to be improving and was taken off the ventilator, and a family member told the Enterprise that the second patient is still on the ventilator but is alert and fever free today.
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