Does anyone have a good realtor I can call? Better than even chance we're moving to Amarillo in the next 6 weeks.

Thanks.

Joan Van Doren

Mary Lou Lyons

We've used each of them at different times, and were very pleased with both. Mary Lou has a couple of Aggie kids, and Joan is the daughter of our first (and favorite) landlord here in Canyon (many moons ago) So I really can't pick one over the other.

Debbie Simpson is a friend, her kids are friends with our kids, and she and her husband are Aggies. But we've never used her professionally, so I can't honestly say how good she is.

And yes, these are all from Canyon, but they should all have Amarillo listings.

And Canyon is a better place to live.



Any questions about the area, post away. And hopefully others will give you some suggestions.

An interesting comment was made to my wife regarding Canyon last night.

We had been looking online for homes and saw several in the Hunsley Hills section that appealed to us. An Amarillo resident made the general comment that Canyon was very nice, very tight-knit, but also very "closed" to outsiders. "You'll move in there and you'll love the area, but it will take years for residents to accept you."

Not knowing about the area, I was just curious about the family friendliness of the area in general.

We've pretty much decided to keep our kids in private school (St. Mary's).

I'd appreciate information or links on some other things:

- Youth baseball. I couldn't find a Little League in the area. Does anyone have experience with WTYBA?

- Tae Kwon Do instructors/facilities.

We moved here in 1994. By 1999 I was president of the local soccer association. Didn't seem "closed" to us. Maybe it was different when Canyon was much smaller, and the attitude hangs. With all the growth lately, I doubt it is true today. We count among our friends some of the folks with families who have been here 3-4 generations.

I'm almost wondering if the opposite is true. At the ballot box, Canyon has to fight opposition from Amarillo residents who reside in Randall County. For instance, it has been a continuing fight to restore the 1908 Courthouse. Amarillo residents seem to think the courthouse is "Canyon's courthouse" despite it being the seat of their county. (Much of Amarillo spills into Randall County)

If you are coming from Houston (as your profile says) you will be amazed and thrilled with the family friendliness of anywhere in the Panhandle. It is different from most of the rest of Texas. This is from my Houston native wife, not from me.

You choice of a kid's school is up to you, though I think you'll also find public schools much safer and better than Houston publics. If you have chosen St. Mary's, then you'll probably want to stay with Amarillo. Though you could drive the 17 miles from Canyon to St. Mary's in about 20-25 minutes. I'm guessing that's better than Houston.


Sorry, I'm pretty ignorant about baseball and Tae Kwon. Though there is a North Randall County Baseball Association.

In Canyon, I find a "Tracey's Gym Sports" which includes a "Kaniwa Dojo". Phone (806) 236-9041 or 236-4841. In the country between Canyon and Amarillo, there is West Texas Karate

I have no idea if either of those will work for you.

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 3/10/2011 9:22a).]

Thanks for the update - again it was just a passing comment regarding Canyon.

As for schools, we're really interested in keeping our boys in a parochial school. My wife will be working in central Amarillo so the thought is that she would be able to drop them off/pick them up. 25 minute commutes sound like a dream compared to ours now.

Oh, and thanks for the recommendation on the realtors. I called Mary Lou this morning and she sounds like she will be great to work with.

If she wants to know who sent you, our daughter Jess was a high school classmate of her daughter Lyndsey.

No offense taken regarding the Canyon comment. Sorry if I came off as defensive.

I think it's great that you are concerned about your kid's education and are exercising school choice. Just pointing out that the public schools are not bad either.

Thanks. I'm sure I'll have more questions as we go.

for tae kwon do try

Top of Texas Taekwondo, 7607 Canyon Drive, call 355-0202

DJ Hunt Went to my youth group at St. Mary's a long time ago. I went to school there, and my parents are still insanely active in the church and school.

I took Tae Kwon Do at Kim's when I was a kid in the late 80's/early 90's. My cousin and my niece go there now. I don't know any of the other instructors, but Grandmaster Kim was a great instructor and a really nice guy. You might check them out.

http://www.kimsusa.net/taekwondo

Okay, this just got very real.

Any specific comments on the Woodlands and Grey Hawk areas of Amarillo?

Also, any thoughts on La Paloma Golf Club vs. Amarillo Country Club?

Golf...no help from me. Never got into it.

Both are really new developments, hard to know their character. I guess you know that Greyhawk is Canyon ISD (feeds to Randall high) and Woodlands is Amarillo ISD and feeds to Tascosa High.

Right now, I think Amarillo High is the premier AISD high school, but I'll let the Amarillo folks fight that one out. I know you plan to do private school, but it may factor into your resale value.

Woodlands is close to some low-rent areas of Amarillo, but probably not close enough to matter. GH is just plopped down on farmland between Canyon and Amarillo, so not many close neighborhoods, though Amarillo is growing that way.

WL is in rolling country on the south edge of the Canadian breaks, GH flat as a pancake.

Traffic of course is not even in the same league as Houston, but there's a lot of growth out Tascosa Road that puts a lot of traffic up and down it. And there are developments popping up between Canyon and Amarillo, so the traffic around GH will get worse. The intersection of Hollywood and Soncy is bad and getting worse.

A lot depends on where you will be working. Is that something you can share, or do you need to keep it to yourself?

I hope someone who lives in Amarillo will come give some more specific advice.

Can't add a lot to Canyon's comments. I've lived in Amarillo for just 27 yr (in Sleepy Hollow). I have many employees from Canyon. Personally, I like Canyon a lot for a smaller town feel. At both GH and Bushland (I'd plug their schools, too) [all my kids are Sandies, AHS, & my wife works for AISD], I get a little worried about water supplies long term. But who knows if Amarillo might annex those to bring City water there eventually. I know the Bishop Hills area tried that (I don't recall exactly how that came out).

On golf (I play AMA munies), La Paloma is now merged with Tascosa CC. AMA CC is big $s to join (last I heard aout $30,000 many years ago, so unless you have a write off or a donor, it's out of the reasonable situation).

When I moved here, there weren't many areas to buy small rural acreages like now. Both my wife & I would prefer the more rural country feel, every time I fill up on gas, I feel that ~$4/gal. My daughter lives in a scenic area on Lake Travis near Austin, but has a 30 min drive just to a decent grocery store. My 10 min communte to work (~12 mi), sure seems nice at times.

Canyon and Spider, thanks for the replies.

I'll be working out of the house, but my wife will be working in downtown Amarillo. Woodlands is appealing due to the short commute to work, and it is close to the school that we plan (not set in stone yet) to send our kids to.

Grey Hawk is appealing for some of the reasons that Spider mentioned. It's near impossible to buy 4-5 acres of land in Houston within a reasonable commute. That's a HUGE plus coming from a family that has a standard subdivision lot with neighbors 10 feet away on both sides. I hadn't considered the water thing (one of many things I'll have to learn about differences in the area vs. Houston).

We also saw a few houses in an area called The Colonies and one in Wolflin (older houses).

We're certainly going to check out Canyon as well, though that will be a longer drive for both work and school.

The golf thing isn't a huge deal, but it's a big interest of ours as a family. I'll be able to write off some/most of it as a business expense, but I don't know if I want to go down the road of 30K up front.

Oh, and the job thing - can't quite disclose that yet.

One of my employees has a house on the market in the Woodlands. Email me at tah1 at att dot net if you want his info. He was thinking of moving to Dallas for a better job possibility for his wife and teleworkimg some. But his wife had a good job interview here this week so they may not be that eager to sale until they hear more.

Tascosa & La Paloma CC has been nearly free to join and about $300/mo in dues (I may be off some; another co-worker is a Tascosa member & plays regularly and he might provide more specifics). TCC is building a new club house. I haven't played either course. TCC is the home course of Aggie golfer Ryan Palmer on the PGA Tour.

Just a word of advice, some of the newer developments on the south side of town have some really horrid clay soils that are really tough on foundations. Also, the areas north that feed into tascosa would be a tough sell for me. I know you talked about sending your kids to St. Mary's but I wouldn't want to be tied into Tascosa HS, and I'm not sold on any of the current private HS.

Tony - thanks for the reply.

That leaves me in a tough spot if we continue to look at homes in Amarillo. For the most part the houses are clustered in the NW part of town (Tascosa HS) and the southwester portion of the city which you just referenced with respect to soils.

That leaves Canyon, which is not a bad thing at all, but certainly puts us farther away from both the school and my wife's new job.

What's the story behind Tascosa HS? The realtor we are talking to also mentioned it as something to be aware of.

As long as your house is not built in an old playa lake, the clay/loam soils are not that bad. The playas are a soil known as Houston Black Clay, and it is the really horrible shrinking/swelling dark clay soil you have in abundance around Houston.

We've been through some bad droughts the last few years. So if you are buying used, just check for cracks. If a house doesn't have problems after the last 5-10 years, it probably won't have problems.

And you can treat the soil before building to minimize the problem, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Bottom line, while there are are some problem soils/areas, the area in general is better than Houston. And the new developments aren't any different from any of the other flat areas of Amarillo. They just got converted from farm land 10 years ago instead of 100.

Spider69 and I both could probably look at a soil map for you if you have questions about a certain address.

Though this brings up another inspection item. Greyhawk had a HORRIBLE hail storm 5 or so years ago, even by Panhandle standards. I'm talking hail stones that came through the roof, and I'm not exaggerating. Make sure the roof interior is inspected for proper repair.

High Schools are always an interesting thing, and opinions are colored by school and neighborhood loyalty. There are certainly web sites out there to compare school demographics and academic achievement.

And as a disclaimer, a lot of the following may sound prejudiced and stereotypical, but I think it is accurate. And obviously, there are great kids from all areas and thugs from the "nicest" areas as well.

AHS has been more the white collar high school, with Tascosa being more blue collar. Caprock is the Hispanic high school, Palo Duro the Black high school.

In Canyon ISD, Randall is the new high school, built when Amarillo grew south into the CISD attendance area. So it takes in a lot of the white collar spillover from Amarillo High, but it also takes in some of the trailer parks between Amarillo and Canyon. Canyon High takes in most of rural Randall County and all of the city of Canyon. The attendance line got shoved north right before my last kid graduated, so it takes in some of the trailer park area, too.

Bushland is a new high school, only about 5 years old, though they had a Jr. High before that feeding into AHS and THS in Amarillo. My impression is that Bushland is the up-and-coming high school in the area, with its growth based off lots of new development on the west side of Amarillo and in the country near Bushland.

River Road school district is struggling, they have a poor student base and a lousy tax base. Highland Park doesn't have a good student base, but they have a good tax base, so they have good facilities.

Bottom line, if you have to rank schools in the area as to how they stand right now on academics, facilities, safety:

1)Amarillo High
T2)Canyon, Randall, Bushland, all very close, but in that order
5)Tascosa
6)Highland Park
7)Caprock
8)River Road
9)Palo Duro

I'm sure the Amarillo folks might have different views.

I live in Bushland and my kids go to Bushland High School and Junior High. If I can help you out, let me know

As canyon said, the whole southwest side isn't bad, but portions are. My uncle runs a foundation repair business, and as soon as they started putting big expensive houses over a former playa in SW amarillo, he put up a billboard right outside of it. It paid off very quickly. If you have specific areas in mind let me know and i can get more info about them.

quote:

---

as soon as they started putting big expensive houses over a former playa in SW amarillo

---

I bet I know exactly the neighborhood of which you speak.

Google Maps

Yes sir. In our family that is called the "toy box" because he got these from the profits there.



and



[This message has been edited by tony (edited 4/2/2011 4:48p).]

Hate to correct anyone like Canyon. But Houston Black Clay, the State soil btw, is just in the Blacklands (Central to North Texas). Playa bottoms have Randall Clay soils.

That's what happens when I try to go by memory rather than look it up. Houston and Randall are very similar, are they not?

They're similar in structure. Both expansive clays. I grew up on black clay soils and my granddad farmed it all his life (died the evening after planting his last cotton crop with my dad). The Pullman clay loams around Amarillo are only slightly less problematic, especially for foundations, than the Randall clay. I've seen cracks in Pullman soil with water standing in the furrow. We joke at work about how many pliers, etc. are buried under our research farm that have fallen into soil cracks. Wish they'd germinate and spout.

I had to laugh, when I first told my wife that there were names for dirt she thought I was joking. Now she just thinks that people have to much time on her hands and are way to anal.

Tony,
Guess you or your wife may not know what the 'A' in 'A&M' used to stand for either. Hope none of your food came from the dirt. Dirt is what's on your boots, shoes, or car, soil is where crops and plants grow. Wish you had met Dr. Murray ****ord while you were at TAMU. I used to sit beside him at Graduations in the 1970s when I was on the faculty and watch him check off every Ag graduate he had in his Introductory Soil Science class. It was the majority of the College of Agriculture's graduates.

Well, things are moving along. We're flying into Amarillo to spend a few days looking at houses in Amarillo and Canyon (with a few in between).

Any personal favorite restaurants we should hit while in town? We're eating at B L Bistro tomorrow night (work function). Personally, I'm interested in some local flavor/atmosphere. Any suggestions are welcome.

Oh, and thanks for all the help so far on this guys. I hope we can meet in person and I'll buy each of you a beer or 6.

If you need anything, email address is TexAgs username at hotmail dot com. Cell phone is local area code, 671 exchange, A&M class year

Dean

*******

Mexican

Tacos Garcia on Ross in Amarillo
Pepitos on 23rd street in Canyon
Oscars burritos for breakfast burritos 23rd street Canyon

Feldman's in Canyon for all-around food, funky decor, model trains running overhead. Behind chicken express and south of the United Supermarket in Canyon.

Oriental food, hands down, highly recommended Sayakormans on the SE corner of the square in Canyon. Although the Kabuki Ramonza on the north side of I-40 between Coulter and Soncy in Amarillo is a lot of fun, especially when they turn on the indoor rain. It is one of those where they cook in front of you, so it is time consuming and not cheap.

Hamburgers, Blue Sky on the SW corner of I-40 and Western, Amarillo

If at all possible, take some time to drive out to Palo Duro Canyon and at least drive to the first overlook and take it in. It's 12 miles east of Canyon, so it will take some time to even do that. Add another 30-45 minutes to drive down into the canyon and back if you make no stops. You'll wish you could spend all day.

Probably the absolute best place to eat...Pick up something from a fast food place, drive out to Palo Duro Canyon (gate stays open until 10pm) Get there an hour or two before sundown (8pm) watch the sun go down and the stars come out. If you've never seen a Panhandle night full of stars, you will be amazed.

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 4/8/2011 12:52p).]

Dang Canyon hit most of the spots I miss since we moved. don't miss Coyote Bluff though, they have really good burgers.

Thriller manages to come into town on one of the windiest days of the year.

One wonders if it scared him off?

Nice chamber of commerce day you guys rolled out for us. With Mary Lou being on crutches we had quite the interesting day.

I think we have narrowed it down to one home in La Paloma, one in The Colonies, one in Greenways, and one in Hunsley Hills. We have a few more scheduled for tomorrow,

Canyon was nice. We even went by the WT rec center which is appealing.

At least the weather should be more reasonable tomorrow

Good luck

Thanks! And thanks for the tips on Bushland. We may head out that way tomorrow.