The Sheriff’s Citizen’s Academy I wrote about in my column last week was canceled due to lack of participation. Perhaps I should have highlighted it a few weeks earlier. I have always wanted to participate but one night a week, for three hours, for 10 weeks was more than I could carve out. However, I was going to do my best to make this time. Darn.
There was a little uproar on social medial last week about the Holley-Navarre Water Department proxy forms that were sent out for the election that is this Tuesday, Jan. 21. There is a story about this on the front of this issue. The water department has been conducting their elections this way for as long as we have been a newspaper which will be 14 years in May. If someone doesn’t like the way the water department holds elections, then perhaps they will change it when the get involved and run for the water board. The candidates for the water board are Chris Richardson, Daryl Lynchard, James Dabney, Ashely Strabla and incumbents Charlie Enghauser and Sheldon Hutchins. Please go vote Tuesday.
I was troubled when an initial search did not show Sharon Aydelott, a teacher at Holley-Navarre Middle School, as ever being on the pages of Navarre Press. However, when I read that she was teacher of the year for her school in 2005, I knew there must be a glitch. Sure enough, we interviewed Sharon after she won the honor in December 2005. We reprinted the article this week on our education page in honor of her. We received the press release on Christmas Eve about a murder and posted it immediately to our Facebook page. Then news started leaking that it was Sharon who was killed even before we even received the official press release, my heart sank along with everyone else. The story has appeared all over the world in gruesome detail. We elected not to publish all the details on our website because we knew that this was a time to mourn the loss of Sharon and to celebrate her life and contribution to our community and it was not necessary to detail the manner of her death. The minimal details were enough at the time. There will be a trial and if not a trial, there will be sentencing and the details will be detailed at that time.
As I’m writing my column my friend and former editor, Brenda Bordelon, and her husband, Matt, walked into the office – on a Sunday, knowing we would be here because she remembered the drill. And, they laughed when they heard I was working on my column because as always – that is the last thing that gets done before we put the finishing touches on the paper. And, oddly enough, I was reading my column from this time in 2007 when she walked in – which is right around the time Brenda left. I was writing about our next editor in that column. Matt told me I should just copy and paste it for this year’s column and no one would know, and he might be right. However, I would know. Brenda left the area in 2008 and now lives in the D.C. area. I really hate that all our new employees didn’t get to work with Brenda. She is a blast, and I’m blessed to be able to call her and Matt my friends.
I hope everyone realizes what a big deal it is to have a new luxury apartment complex with 250 units to be built in Navarre. First of all, it had to be financed. If you have tried to get a loan lately , you would know that. I’ve never known them not to be tough but apparently there was about two years where they didn’t even check your employment history. It is a good thing I didn’t know about that at the time, or I may have more house or office building that I could afford to pay – especially when the bottom fell out of the market.
Joyce Charles Enghauser live in North Shores in Navarre and she and her husband Charlie adopted a 10-month-old Beagle from the Pensacola Humane Society last week. The dog had not been treated very well by previous owners and was skittish. The minute she was let go in the backyard she jumped the fence and ran away. North Shores is on the south side of Hwy 98 and Lucy has been spotted on the north side of Highway 98. In fact, I saw her yesterday in front of our office in Harvest Village. I was leaving my office around 9 p.m. and when I walked outside and there was a little Beagle running north on Harvest Village Court – with a red collar. Lucy went to a dark area of the street and I didn’t see here anymore. That had to be Lucy. I immediately called Joyce because she wanted people to call with sightings. The Enghauser’s have a reward for $500 if you can bring her home safely. The phone number is 939-0156.
We have a new Navarre Press Pass Discount. Sail Inn is offering a free cup of soup when you buy a whole sandwich or sub and a beverage. They have the best soups ever. I had one the other day that was squash, chicken and kale. Yummy! Sail Inn is under new ownership since October and Chuck has made some very subtle, but essential, changes to the menu and quality of the food. For example, all of the meats and cheeses are Boars Head. And they have a killer Saturday Breakfast.
We have some great advertising to help you shop locally in our Holiday Happenings Gift Guide! We hope you will take the opportunity to visit their businesses and spend a little holiday cash. I l-o-v-e the cover that Dickie Williams’ designed for the guide. He took our new artificial reefs, turned one into a Christmas tree and then put the face of a Navarre “legend” on the scuba diver, which wasn’t a stretch since he is one of our most avid local divers and responsible for most of the reef footage that we have. Yes – it is Mike Sandler.
We are happy to have Stinky’s Fish Camp on our Neighborhood Favorite’s page. They will be open on Thanksgiving Day from 11 a.m. — 7 p.m., so if you don’t want to spend your entire day in the kitchen cooking and cleaning, make your reservations now! See their ad in this week’s issue for the menu.
We only have six more issues in 2013. I know – hard to believe. Soon there will be school and office parties, young adults returning home from college for a month of R&R and hopefully earning some money before they return. High School seniors are busy firming up their plans for college next year, scholarships will be announced, then we will have an awards ceremony, prom, figuring out what the kids are going to do this summer and what – if any – job will they have, figure out where we are going on vacation… and then the cycle continues. Of course that is if you have one or more children at your house. Everything has a season, including our lives. However, I can’t imagine ever being bored or not busy – nor do I want to. No matter how hard I try – I can’t get to a place where I can take any significant time off from work so that I can get “caught up at home.” However, it continues to be a goal of mine. Maybe next year since it is only six issues away.
