News Archive

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.

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.