Navarre Beach Sand Sculpting Festival is this weekend, September 27-29 and it’s the 4th annual competition and Soft Pack National Championship on Navarre Beach. Amateur teams and individuals (limited to the first 20 applicants) will compete for prizes. Ten of the world’s top soft sand sculptors are coming to compete so there is sure to be some sand sculpting that will impress you.
Enjoy the Taste of Pensacola Beach featuring Andrew Zimmern this Saturday and Sunday. It’s a free family event showcasing signature dishes from local chefs, kid’s activities, live music on Sunday, and even a Mermaid Parade! See their ad in this issue and visit TasteofPensacolaBeach.com for the full schedule of events.
Get ready for Navarre’s only 10K! The 2013 American Cancer Society Man Up 5K/10K is at 4:30 p.m. on September 14 on Navarre Beach. Runners are encouraged to dress in the lightest blue and/or wear the funniest beard! There is an after party at Juana’s. You can register now at active.com. See their ad in this week’s issue for more details.
Monday is Labor Day, which means that summer is coming to an end. We have had relatively cool mornings with low humidity this week and the days without rain seem brutally bright and hot. I haven’t looked at my July 2012 power bill as compared to July 2013, but I’m sure it is a lot lower due to the rain and cloudy days. So, there is something good to say about all of the rain we had this summer. However, the rain brought to light the fact that many neighborhoods in Navarre are lacking in stormwater protection. The handling of stormwater is not a new topic. In fact, the ancient Greeks collected storm water. However, if you bring it up around here, the concept of taking care of stormwater and the fact that it should be part of basic infrastructure is “Greek” to some. The City of Tampa actually has a “Stormwater Division.” They have 600 miles of stormwater pipe, more than 250 miles of ditches and culverts, and more than 100 treatment ponds. And get this…the staff annually cleans 21,000 miles of curbed roadway with a fleet of street sweepers to reduce flooding by preventing sediment and debris from entering the drainage system. And, I bet they have a vacuum truck that sucks up standing water so that it doesn’t “muck-up” the culverts and swales that do exist. I know Tampa is a lot bigger than Santa Rosa County, but the basics are the basics. Panama City is close by and they own a vacuum truck. We need a vacuum truck for times like these. There is still standing water and we haven’t had an extended hard rain in more than a week. The reason there is still standing water is because of the muck that will never perk water again, and because a lot of the holding ponds are full to the brim. Have you seen the ponds to the side of High School Road? It almost looks like the water is standing higher than the road. We need to be praying that we don’t get any more tropical moisture this season — and heaven forbid the “H” word.
Inside this issue, we have a story on page 9B about the founder of Navarre from a perspective which I’ve never heard before — and I have heard the story from a lot of people, some of which are no longer with us. I heard that Wyman’s wife, Noelle, who named Navarre, came on Wyman’s land to tend to the pet cemetery when she was shot. I had not heard that she had trespassed before. I had also not heard that she was carrying a gun when she was shot. I wonder if there are police reports around from the early 1930s. Regardless….marrying and divorcing that many women in the early 1900s was almost unheard of. Also, I heard that the Roberts brothers that killed his parents were hanged in Crestview, but then there is another account that their sentence was commuted to life in prison because they were young and brothers. Someone should write the real biography of Col. Guy Wyman – with the backup documentation. The story is interesting no matter how it is told. However, it is too bad that we have this sordid history to point back to as the founding of Navarre. Regardless, it isn’t where you have been, but where you are going. Navarre is going places — good places, and we aren’t going to let the past taint our future. However… there is the makings of at least a made for TV movie. Someone should start working on that script.
Reason #530 to be a subscriber…a recent subscriber from New York was visiting Navarre and left her wallet at a local store. The store saw her press pass card in her wallet and called us on Saturday to see if we had any contact information. We emailed the subscriber and the wallet was successfully recovered that day.
We live in a beautiful place and it is easy to take it for granted because we see it so often. I’m talking, of course about what it looks like when you cross the bridge over onto Navarre Beach. If we didn’t have that beach, we would just have a messy, dirty, littered, faded-sign stretch along Highway 98. You would think that having such a beautiful beach would inspire people to clean up their acts, but it is just taken for granted. Anyway…back to the beach. Deep sigh. We have a beautiful beach and water and it has been made even more beautiful by the efforts of the Marine Sanctuary Committee – which is the signature committee of the Navarre Beach Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Full disclosure: I sit on that board. However, the efforts of the Marine Sanctuary Committee were well into play before I was on the foundation board. Because of the sanctuary’s efforts, Navarre had artificial reefs placed in the Gulf in September and they are already showing phenomenal growth of biomass in less than a year. And, today, thanks to scuba diver and foundation board member, Mike Sandler, we have awesome video of an octopus on one of the artificial reefs. It is a “common octopus,” but it isn’t really all that common.
Colonel Bud Day passed away Saturday, and I’m going to borrow from Senator Don Gaetz’s release that he sent out on Tuesday because Gaetz said it perfectly. “Col. Day was a modern day war hero and was the nation’s most highly decorated veteran since General Douglas MacArthur, earning more than 70 medals during his service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, including the Medal of Honor. After escaping his captors in Korea and again being held captive in Vietnam for more than five years as a cell mate to and lifeline for U.S. Senator John McCain, Colonel Day returned home, retiring in Fort Walton Beach where he continued to fight for his soldiers as a tireless advocate for Veterans’ benefits to ensure all those who served to protect our precious freedom receive the care and compensation they deserve.”
We like to support our local sports teams and the Blue Wahoos have added a lot of excitement to the baseball fans in the Panhandle of Florida. If you haven’t had the chance to go to a game, you should definitely try to attend a game, because after that – you will be hooked. A fun way to go to a game is with a group of people and it just so happens that the Navarre Beach Area Chamber of Commerce has a trip planned for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, August 27. I think they made it a Tuesday night on purpose so that I couldn’t go. They know that is our production night. Anyway, it would be great if you could go. They are taking a shuttle to and from the game and/or you can meet them on the special party deck. The tickets include entry to the game and the deck, with all you can eat food and non-alcoholic beverages for 90 minutes (1.5 hours) after the chamber groups arrival. Please call the Chamber at 939-3267 if you are interested. Of course, it would be great if you were a chamber member regardless – but if you say “I’m a prospective chamber member” then I’m sure they wouldn’t bat and eye and take your money on the spot. This would be a great way to meet new friends and catch up with some old ones.
