Opinion Archive

Pensacola Bay Area Impact 100 has an ad in this issue explaining their mission and reasons all women should join. The deadline to join is March 1. See their ad for more details.

My life started in 1926 while Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States. In 1929 Wall Street crashed causing America to plunge into a severe economic crisis. Then came the beginning of the Great Depression.

Already 18 school shootings this year. Sad indeed! How many guns were found at schools; how many arrests were there?

Niceville kept finding the back of the net and there was little Navarre could do about it.

We have been going through all of the stories we have written from 2017 to get ready for our awards submissions from the Florida Press Association. Last year we came home with 28 awards, the most ever and we were voted as Newspaper of the Year. That will be really hard to top – but this is sure to be another banner year. Looking back over 2017 it is really hard to choose the best – they are all so good.

Should immigration serve the host country and its citizens or should it serve foreign countries and their citizens? The United States is no longer a frontier with a need for people to fill the void. Should immigrants fill empty jobs or take jobs from citizens? Our government has allowed immigration to explode, changing the character of our country for the purpose of political power or greed.

It’s 3:00 am. I can’t sleep. During visitation preceding a funeral recently, a pastor asked if I was still preaching the Gospel. My response: “At every opportunity God gives me.”  Three days later God gave me a whammy!

On the front page of Community we shared images of Holley Navarre Primary School students excitedly playing on newly purchased playground equipment for the first time. At a school where the student population has blown past projected growth and threatens to overflow capacity, providing enough space for children to play required a big investment.

We had the privilege this week of interviewing Navarre’s very own Earl Dean, who grew up in the deeply segregated south, here in the Florida Panhandle. To fit his story on a page and a half seemed insufficient and even after reading his story we know there is so much more to tell. We are captivated by what to many of us seems like something out of a movie because we didn’t live through that time period of segregation. And some of us did.

Congratulations to Centennial Bank.  Home BancShares, Inc. – Centennial Bank’s parent company, is ranked #1 on the Forbes 2018 “Best Banks in America” list, a rise from #8 in 2017’s rankings and #15 in 2016’s rankings.  This is the ninth consecutive year Forbes has ranked America’s largest banks, using financial data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Cindy Davidson is the Branch Manager of Navarre’s Centennial Bank. Be sure to tell her congratulations when you see her. And, when considering banks, consider Navarre’s Centennial Bank, rated best bank in America!