ABILENE, Texas (BigCountryHomepage.com) – Bridging the gap between digital and television news this week, you, surprisingly, kept clicking on more upbeat articles. In this week’s top five stories on the KTAB/KRBC website, you wanted to learn about triumphs, animal rights, upcoming events, and more!

This week’s top 5 in BCH’s Big Country Beat weekly countdown

Last week, we kept a close eye on reports coming from the Mall of Abilene regarding some unwanted guests: Bats. According to experts, these bats likely made their way to the mall, not for the department stores or food court, but to escape the blazing heat.

Reporter Ashly Ibarra first looked into the reports Tuesday, August 8. She spoke with Big Country Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, an organization which helped the mall remove the critters humanely.

We had two other reports, before reporter Noah McKinney’s last update on Thursday, August 10, became the number five most clicked story for the new week. In his article, he goes over a near viral Facebook post from the rehab center hashing out screenshots of text messages between the operator and the mall’s manager. In those images, the texts suggest the manager wittingly disposed of the bats by leaving them out in the sun to die.

When we reached out to the Mall of Abilene, it declined to provide a statement, but confirmed that its staff would work with other removal and pest control organizations to facilitate the remaining bats’ removal.

Almost miraculously, an Abilene mother and her 12-year-old son survived a rollover crash on a dark road when a tire, rim intact, got in their way.

As Noah McKinney reported Candis Mora’s incredible story, they were traveling back home on US-84 after moving her daughter into the dorms at Western Texas College in Snyder for her sophomore year, and it was too dark to see the tire before it was too late. She said her pickup truck flipped four times.

“We both thought that we were gonna die. Like, I thought that was it… Just to be able to come out of it the way we did, there’s no way,” Mora told BCH. “The emergency people, like everyone, was just baffled by the fact that we were walking.”

The heat’s been getting to us all. We know to limit our time outside, and our pets. But what about our vehicles and home air conditioning?

Reporter Ashly Ibarra talked with a mechanic and an HVAC technician who both warned all about the unexpected dangers of the heat we’re having.

Joseph Roy, with NAPA Auto Parts of Abilene said, “The heat contributes immensely to the wear on a battery, especially here in Texas. With the temperatures outdoors and the temperatures under the hood, it gets to be extremely hot and shorten the life of a battery.”

Meanwhile, Rodwick Dowston with Legit Heating and Air said triple-digit temperatures could damage your A/C unit.

After the Abilene Police Department revealed the results of a prostitution sting at a massage parlor, BCH was the first to report on it. The sting yielded the arrest of three employees. Clearly, though, people were most interested in reading between the lines.

Between both KTAB and KRBC’s Facebook pages, there were more than 430 comments and 400 shares from here to Houston, even Colorado.

The images above are courtesy of the West Texas Fair & Rodeo

Most surprisingly, the number one story for the week was completely positive. Are y’all ready for the 2023 West Texas Fair & Rodeo or what?!

This article of the fair’s music lineup was looked at nearly 22,000 times in just the last six days.

The most notable entertainer will be internet sensation Mason Ramsay, also known as the “Walmart yodeling kid.”