TEAM Santa Rosa is courting an aerospace company that could become the first tenant at a controversial county industrial park.

Cindy Anderson, TEAM Santa Rosa Economic Development Council Inc.’s executive director, said during her annual report to the county commission in August that a company TEAM is calling “Project First” is interested in the park because of its location.

“It needs the interstate,” she said.  “It doesn’t want to be a mile off the interstate, two miles off the interstate, 10 miles off the interstate – it wants to be on the interstate. It trucks things in and out – it’s an aerospace and defense company, but it’s all about the roadway and being there on the interstate.”

For more on this story, check out the Sept. 9 edition of the Navarre Press, or subscribe online.

School officials missed guessing the exact number of enrollments at Santa Rosa County schools this year by less than 0.3 percent, but they still will struggle to meet class-size requirements.

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Four open Gulf Breeze City Council seats will be filled without an election.

Mayor Beverly Zimmern and councilmen Dick Fulford, Dana Morris and J.D. Schluter all qualified for the Nov. 2 city election, but only Fulford had a qualified challenger, David Landfair. Fulford withdrew from the race on Thursday in a short letter to City Clerk Marita Rhodes.

“I have decided to withdraw from the Gulf Breeze City Council elections for Seat D,” he wrote. “It has been a pleasure to serve this outstanding community for the past three years and prior years of 1977 to 1980.”

For more on this story, check out the Sept. 9 edition of the Navarre Press, or subscribe online.

Navarre High School’s hard hitting defense not only handcuffed Fort Walton Beach’s running and passing attacks, but it also set up the Raider offensive with a fumble recovery in the third quarter that led to a touchdown. The Raiders scored again in the final quarter to open their season with a 14-0 win.

“This is the kind of football that we’ve been training so hard to achieve,” said Raider coach Chad Lashley. “It starts with a hard-hitting, nose-to-nose defense that just keeps on pushing, providing the offense with opportunities to score. The guys showed that they can respond to adversity and never quit on themselves.

For more on this story, check out the Sept. 9 edition of the Navarre Press, or subscribe online.