News Archive

Brad Baker has been dedicated to the well-being of Santa Rosa County residents since he was 18 years old, when he ran across his first structure fire on the way to meet a friend to go hunting. From then on, he was hooked. He also started working at the county’s 911 center that same year, when it was housed in a closet at the courthouse and had one 911 operator on-site at night.

Residents of Hawthorn Drive in Holley by The Sea (HBTS) may have noticed a small yellow sign on a piece of vacant property across from Palmetto Lane at its junction with Hawthorne Drive.

When Firehouse Subs cashiers ask if customers want to round up to the nearest dollar, it truly goes to lifesaving causes.

Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation® recently provided a $25,835 grant to the Holley-Navarre Fire District and presented the results of the money Jan. 11 at the fire department. The funding went toward the purchase of battery-powered rescue equipment, which will be used to shave off time and ensure greater lifesaving capabilities for first responders in the community.

Growth is evident in Navarre and the same is true for Holley-Navarre Water System (HNWS).

The headquarters on Turkey Bluff Road as well as its warehouse and joint operations building will be getting a renovation in the coming months.

“This is a momentous occasion for us,” CEO Dr. Dallas Peavey Jr. said at a Jan. 11 ceremony.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program is accepting applications for a contracted nuisance alligator trapper in Santa Rosa County.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after a man was found dead in a trash pile at a Jackson County landfill Saturday.

The body had been in trash collected around 9:30 a.m. at the Baker landfill on Charlie Day Road by a garbage transportation company. The driver was on his way back to Okaloosa County to pick up another load when he got a call to contact law enforcement.

On Jan. 7 just after 9 a.m., the Flagler County, Florida Sheriff’s Office contacted the Florida Highway Patrol’s Tallahassee Regional Communication Center) in reference to a vehicle their agency was tracking that was occupied by suspects wanted in an ATM theft from their jurisdiction, according to a media release. That theft occurred at about 3 a.m. Friday morning.

Mariya Calkins, the wife of sitting Santa Rosa Commissioner James Calkins, is officially running for the District 3 seat in the Florida House of Representatives after Rep. Jayer Williamson announced he will not seek reelection after 2022.

The Florida Department of Education released district graduation rates on Jan. 6, with Santa Rosa County School District holding steady at 90.3%. Rates for Santa Rosa’s district, as well other districts in the state, have risen significantly in the past 15 years.

For more than 30 years, if you visited the office of the Santa Rosa Press Gazette, you’d likely meet Jim Fletcher.

He was editor before he was publisher. He was passionate about Milton and about local news and about his “family” of employees. On Jan. 5, his family learned that Fletcher, who was hospitalized on New Year’s Day, had died of cancer at an area hospital a few days later. He was 64.