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The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted life as we’ve known it in West Texas.

Businesses across the region have dramatically changed their operations to adhere to new safety guidelines, while some have been forced to shutter altogether. School districts and teachers are scrambling to figure out how to educate students in the coming school year. And residents across the Big Bend are questioning how an economy largely based on tourism can continue to thrive during these uncertain times.

That’s why Marfa Public Radio wants to hear from you. 

By Mitch Borden

Midland Independent School District’s board of trustees Thursday night moved forward with the criteria for renaming Robert E. Lee High School and appointed several representatives to the panel charged with the task.

The move comes after the school board voted in late July to change the name of the controversial school, but what that change will look like is unclear.

By Aliyya Swaby and Cassandra Pollock, The Texas Tribune

Abbott’s decision to curb the role of local health authorities in school reopening decisions has added to the ongoing conflict between him and local governments during the pandemic, with mayors and judges voicing frustration over having their hands tied by the state’s response.

Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott moved to block local health authorities from shutting down classrooms before the school year has started. Since then, he has repeatedly said he is trusting local school leaders to decide whether and how to bring students back to classrooms this fall.

By Stephen Paulsen, The Big Bend Sentinel

Marfa city officials are moving ahead with plans for local contact tracing. At a city council meeting on Monday night, the council voted unanimously to approve such a program.

Local contact tracing efforts (coupled with state ones) are already the norm in places like Houston and Corpus Christi, where the existence of city- and county-level health departments makes it easier for health officials to coordinate at the state and local level. But Marfa’s contact tracing initiative would be a first for small-town rural Texas, leading some city leaders to dub it a pilot program.

By Abbie Perrault, The Big Bend Sentinel

On Friday, Presidio County marked a tragic milestone, recording its first COVID-19-related death. A Presidio resident passed away in an Odessa hospital’s COVID-19 unit. Within 24 hours, a second Presidio resident would succumb to the disease. By Monday, a third had died.

For over four months, the county had been able to avoid the deadly impacts of COVID-19, even as neighboring communities have seen higher case counts and the fatalities from COVID-19. Yet, as state data reports that Presidio County’s total case count has only reached 44 cases compared to Brewster County’s 186, Presidio County now has the most deaths in the tri-county area, and a 6.8% death rate.

By Carlos Morales

Big Bend National Park will partially reopen this week now that an employee who had previously been diagnosed with the coronavirus has recovered.

The employee tested positive late last month and is now “feeling fine,” according to a park official. Five additional employees who had contact with the person are now out of quarantine as well. Since the announcement of the confirmed case, there have been no additional reports of COVID-19 among staff or residents of the park.

By Alex Ura, The Texas Tribune

For months, as Texans have been asked to stay home to avoid the spread of the new coronavirus, Jennifer Edwards has been doing the rounds at gas stations in a trio of counties near the Texas-Louisiana border.

Volunteering as a census community organizer, the Tarleton State University professor reasoned that gas stations, like grocery stores, would continue to see foot traffic during the pandemic. Setting up a booth just outside the front doors offered her face time with essential workers to deliver an essential message — please fill out the census.

By Travis Bubenik, Courthouse News

Texas regulators on Tuesday moved forward with proposed administrative changes that are expected to become part of a broader effort to tackle the years-long problem of oilfield flaring, where companies burn off excess natural gas into the air.

By Stephen Paulsen, The Big Bend Sentinel

There’s a new coronavirus-testing company in town, and it isn’t Honu Management Group. Last week, The Big Bend Sentinel reported that the Washington State-based company was taking over testing sites from the National Guard after scoring a contract from the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

By Lomi Kriel, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica

Thousands of migrant children have been expelled by the Trump administration since March. Some have been held in hotels without access to lawyers or family. Advocates say many are now “virtually impossible” to find.

A teenage girl carrying her baby arrived at the U.S. border this summer and begged for help. She told federal agents that she feared returning to Guatemala. The man who raped her she said had threatened to make her “disappear.”

By Mitch Borden

Midland school officials recently approved changing the name of the city’s famous Robert E. Lee High School, along with its freshman campus. This comes as school districts across the country reevaluate campuses named after Confederate leaders.

The decision sparked celebration and rage across Midland as locals wrestle with the future as well as the history of one of the community’s most beloved schools.

By Briana Vargas and Joel Angel Juárez, the Texas Tribune

A year after the mass shooting in El Paso, where 23 people were killed at a Walmart in what was the worst attack on Latinos in modern U.S. history, Texas Tribune photographers document a city still in mourning.

By Mitch Borden

A 91-year-old man from the City of Presidio has died from the coronavirus while receiving treatment at Medical Center Hospital in Odessa. 

Hospital officials announced the death Friday afternoon saying the Big Bend resident died this morning due to complications with the coronavirus. This is the first coronavirus related death of a Presidio County resident officially announced — which County Judge Cinderela Guevara confirmed — and the third person in the Big Bend to die as a result of the pandemic.

By Mitch Borden

For the first time as President, Donald Trump visited Midland and Odessa, the two cities at the center of America’s most productive oil field — the Permian Basin. He had two goals in mind for the trip, to drum up funds for his reelection bid and reinforce his image as a champion of the oil industry.

Which he did as he outlined the stakes of the upcoming November elections to a crowd of supporters in front of an oil rig near Midland.

By Patrick Svitek and Mitchel Ferman, Texas Tribune

President Donald Trump sought to give a morale boost to the beleaguered Texas energy industry during a visit Wednesday to the Permian Basin, while also rallying oil and gas workers against Democrats ahead of the November election.

With the beginning of the academic year just around the corner, schools across Texas are preparing for a year like no other in recent memory.

Even as they contend with growing COVID-19 outbreaks in many regions, administrators and teachers have also had to navigate varying guidelines from the state. The latest directive from the Texas Education Agency says school districts can shift to four weeks of remote learning — before needing to provide in-person instruction for students whose families want it.

By Stacey Fernández, The Texas Tribune

The families of more than 20% of the 3.6 million eligible school children across the state have yet to apply for federal aid under the Pandemic EBT program.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that he has extended the deadline to apply for the Pandemic EBT card, which pays $285 for each student who received free and reduced-price meals, to Aug. 21.

By Edgar Walters, The Texas Tribune

Hispanic Texans are overrepresented in the state’s updated fatality count, making up 47% of deaths, but only 40% of the state’s population.

After months of undercounting coronavirus deaths, Texas’ formal tally of COVID-19 fatalities grew by more than 600 on Monday after state health officials changed their method of reporting.

By Mose Buchele, KUT

The amount of methane that fossil fuel companies burn off in Texas as a waste product could power every home in the state, according to some estimates. The industry practice known as “flaring” has been decried as wasteful and polluting by public health groups, environmentalists and even some in the industry.

Now, a survey of flares in West Texas suggests the problem could be even worse than previously thought.

By Carlos Morales

A newly confirmed case of coronavirus at Big Bend National Park has halted plans to reopen, according to an official familiar with the decision. 

This is the second confirmed case of the virus within the park community since the beginning of the month. Park officials first closed the Far West Texas destination in April as a precautionary measure. It was reopened for nearly a month before closing again at the beginning of July when a park resident tested positive for COVID-19.

By Mitch Borden

Ector County ISD administrators are preparing to welcome students back in just a few short weeks. The district is giving students and parents options on how kids will be educated in the upcoming school year, but says it is ready to quickly transition to fully remote learning if it needs to.