For many years newspapers were locally owned by editors and publishers. However, today many are run by corporations from out of state. As a result, many communities have lost the personal relationship between the family owned publication and the community. Gene Howe, who served as editor, publisher and columnist of the Amarillo Globe-News from 1926 until his death in 1952, believed the community was where the focus should be and the newspaper should do all that it can to help their readers. Despite the fact that Howe was not born in Amarillo, Texas, his passion and love for the city and its inhabitants compensated for it. During the Dust Bowl and Great Depression Howe and the Globe-News helped Amarillo survive the dust and economic storms that blew through the Texas Panhandle, an area that has not been written as much as other parts of Texas. Through his “Tactless Texan” column, which served as a pulpit to the community, to the various contests and promotions the newspaper sprang up, including the creation of Mother in Law Day, Gene Howe gave the newspaper another dimension little has been studied about, the role of the editor and publisher in guiding a community through a dramatic era. Understanding Howe’s ethos can allow others to examine the roles editors and newspapers play in communities throughout the country.

The diploma thesis deals with using of reinforcing composite materials in asphalt layers. These geosynthetic materials are in road construction used especially to reduce spreading cracks and extend the service life of the construction. As par of this work, test specimens of different types of asphalt layers were produced. These samples were subjected to laboratory testing, where the results of different reinforced asphalt slabs were compared. Within the diploma thesis primarily deals with the testing of the shear bond strength between asphalt layers in order to determine what are the other influencing factors of the test. Another part of the thesis is the 4-point bending test, during which a special technology in the form of a DIC camera was used to monitor the behavior of the asphalt layer over time.

This diploma thesis deals with the use of glass fiber geogrids and geocomposites in road construction. The reinforcement elements are inserted between the wearing and binder asphalt layer. This diploma thesis summarizes the knowledge connected with reinforcing of asphalt roads using glass fiber. It examines the effect of reinforcing fiberglass elements on the resistance of asphalt layers loaded with traffic. At the same time, it deals with the application of a various amount of tack coat and subsequent behavior of the asphalt layers. In this work, laboratory tests of bond strength between layers on cores and four-point bending were performed.