News Archive

A 34-year-old Navarre woman won $1 million on a Florida Lotto scratch-off ticket purchased at a Fort Walton Beach grocery store.

Susan Lynn Monson, 57, of the 3100 block of Clemson Road in Gulf Breeze was arrested Nov. 16 after an alleged intoxicated afternoon harassing people in Gulf Breeze.

According to a Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, deputies were initially called around 3 p.m. about a possibly mental ill person in the parking lot of Bealls Outlet. The woman, identified as Monson, allegedly walked through the parking lot banging on the hoods of cars and screaming.

America went to bed the night of Dec. 6, 1941 not knowing the course of the nation’s history would forever change early the next day.

A man who fled to Georgia after allegedly shooting a clerk at a Milton Tom Thumb store has been extradited to Santa Rosa County.

Hakeem D. Peterson was booked into the Santa Rosa County Jail Dec. 4.

Snow women in sparkling snowflake tutus, Santa in camouflage and reindeer antlered dogs lined up in 40-degree weather Saturday to dash for a cause in the Jingle Bell Run at Holley Navarre Fire Station 45.

With overnight lows predicted to hover in the 40s this weekend, Northwest Florida residents might be feeling a bit chillier than usual. But those temperatures, which will rise into the 60s during the day, are more than 10 degrees warmer than they were in the beginning of the week.
Pensacola recorded a low of 30 degrees on Dec. 1, according to Jack Cullen, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mobile.

The numbers are in, and it was a strong October for tourism, according to Santa Rosa County data.

October’s tourist development tax collections were up by nearly 27% from last year, about $340,000 compared to about $268,000 for the past two Octobers. October is the most recent month of data available.

Santa Rosa County voters handed local officials $45 million of revenue when they approved extending the half cent local option sales tax for another five years.

Now those officials must decide what they’re going to do with cash as it starts to roll in. In a lot of ways, the answer is the same as it was for the last five years of sales tax revenue, said County Administrator Dan Schebler.

A circuit court judge sentenced a Blackwater Correctional inmate to death Nov. 24 after he strangled his cellmate to death in hopes of receiving the death penalty.

Thomas Fletcher, 53, was serving a life sentence in Blackwater State Prison for a prior murder in 2018 when he strangled Kenneth Davis to death in their cell in the early morning hours. Fletcher confessed to the crime and plead guilty, waiving his rights to hearings in the hopes that he would secure death.

Waste Pro’s monopoly of Santa Rosa County trash collection ended before it could begin as county commissioners Nov. 24 unanimously approved another hauler’s permit appeal.

Waste Pro was set to take over as the only collector in Santa Rosa County Jan. 1 thanks to a contract with the county, but with the approval, Adams Sanitation will be scooping up about 3,000 of their roughly 26,000 would-be customers.