News Archive

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.

Boston, also affectionately known as the “Hub,” is now connected to the Gateway to the Gulf Coast. American Airlines will begin offering service between Logan International Airport and Pensacola International Airport in June 2022, bringing even more nonstop destination options to Pensacola travelers. This route is a part of the Northeast Alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue, Logan Airport’s largest carrier.

Rep. Jayer Williamson filed a bill to the Florida House of Representatives Dec. 27 that would require a referendum for any prospective municipality incorporation, making Williamson’s “personal requirement” a Florida law.

HB 1035 would include a paragraph in F.S. 165.041 requiring the “passage of a nonbinding referendum … supporting the incorporation of a new municipality approved by 60% or more of the qualified electors within the area of the proposed municipality.”

After a year of internal transitions, Santa Rosa County has a new – and old – attorney in place. Tom Dannheisser, county attorney for more than 20 years, has stepped back into that role after serving as a county and circuit judge.

The 823rd REDHORSE squadron will conduct monthly training January 6 consisting of approximately four detonations starting around 8 a.m.

There is a chain link fence now up between the football field house and Bennett C. Russell Stadium, and that is phase of one of a plan to make the Navarre High School campus a little more secure.

Leo is a 5-year-old green ring-necked parrot who usually lives with his mom Jeanna Barnes in Navarre, Florida, off Highway 399. On Dec. 29, Leo slipped out an open door, and still hasn’t returned home.

“I am heartbroken,” Barnes said, “He’s my sweet boy.”

A Panama City was arrested in Santa Rosa County after we e k s – l ong obscene communications he allegedly had with a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl. He was on his way to meet the supposed 13-year-old in a Pensacola park, according to the Pensacola Police Department.

William Edward White, 42, was arrested and charged with using a twoway communication device to facilitate a felony, using a computer to seduce or solicit a child and misrepresenting his age, and traveling to meet after using a computer to lure a child.

Brig. Gen. Scott Cain, the 96th Test Wing commander at Eglin Air Force Base, imposes Health Protection Condition Bravo-Plus effective today to combat an increased spread of COVID-19 in local communities.