Community Archive

The year of relentless challenges has finally come to an end and what better way to celebrate the new year then by taking a quick dip in the cold water.

More than 300 people came out to Juana’s Pagodas New Year’s Day for the 12th annual Penguin Plunge. Some registered as “penguins” and plunged into the chilly water of Santa Rosa Sound, while others registered as “chickens” and stood on the sidelines. Either way, all proceeds benefited Healing Paws for Warriors, a nonprofit that provides service dogs to veterans in need.

The Navarre Garden Club helped brighten Christmas for 50 local families this year with its Angel Tree Program.

Ann Marie Corbett, representing the Navarre Garden Club, is shown in this photo delivering Angel Tree Christmas gifts to an unidentified representative of Caring and Sharing of South Santa Rosa County. 

Six years ago, newlywed Tammy Kuss ended up on a “little rock in the Pacific Ocean” known as Guam with her military husband.

Friends and family were 3,000 miles away, and she had to learn how to transition from life as a single woman to sharing everything, including a home.

In the season leading up to Christmas, Gary Diamond worked in package delivery to make extra money to buy presents for his family.

Diamond, who had worked his way up to captain at the Navarre Beach Fire Rescue, was that way – always taking care of others.

So it makes sense that when he died early Saturday morning, during a domestic incident in Molino, he was putting other people’s needs ahead of his own, family members  say.

Readers were asked to submit Christmas photos of their pets.

Here are some of the those photos.

On sunny days, ladies strolling along the sidewalk of Harvest Village Court are frequently greeted with wolf whistles from the front porch of one residence.

The unscrupulous flirt is Pretty Boy, an African gray parrot and favorite feathered family member of the Salas household.

Our gift to you this year is a collection of the top reader-submitted photos from 2020.

We received hundreds of entries and culled them down to less than a dozen. Look for more of readers’ top photos in future stories and Facebook posts.

Winter officially starts in Santa Rosa County Monday, Dec. 21. The shorter days and lower temperatures are the most obvious traits of this annual cycle.

The local birds and animals are aware of the difference more keenly than the human residents, mostly because of the reduced volume of available food.

Flattened in the grass and paralyzed on a football field in Clinton, a young Mississippi University pre-law student had a moment of clarity. His neck was broken.

“Feb. 7, 1981, a date I will remember for the rest of my life,” he said of the injury.