Opinion Archive

Let the healing begin  

When the board decided to end the work of the TT Wentworth Jr. Foundation four years ago, we believed our efforts had been completed. We left our work on the history of northwest Florida and the contributions made by the Wentworth family in the good hands of the UWF Historic Trust and Pensacola State College. However, sometimes history finds us.  Recent revelations about our founder’s leadership in the KKK now compel us to return to right past wrongs wherever possible. This is where we now find ourselves as the family and former board members of the foundation.    

There is a dog food commercial that makes me laugh. It begins with slow-motion footage of a sleek wolf bounding through the woods. The wolf leaps effortlessly over a log but then mid-leap, is transformed into a golden retriever that nails the landing and bounds off.

A voiceover explains that inside every dog there is the spirit of a wolf, so buy this company’s dog food. What makes me laugh is that, nearby, our “wolf,” a 15-year-old, 20-pound snaggle of fur, is laying on the floor snoring loudly and sporting a “male wrap,” which is kind of a doggie diaper.

The area lost one of its founding members this week when Ira Mae Bruce passed away.

Her family had been in the area since the 1800s, and she served on multiple boards, including the Board of County Commissioners, where she was the first female elected to that position and only one of two. Seems to me there needs to be a third or fourth but not because of their gender.

It’s not as if I haven’t seen playoff losses before in football.

Navarre has been through its share of them in the five years I’ve covered the team.

Every memory is still vivid.

About 10 years ago, my husband and I bought a beautiful lot in Holley by the Sea about two blocks from the water. It’s more than an acre, completely wild and unusable – at this point – for anything but animal habitat.

We like it that way.

The Navarre Press asked readers to tell us what they are thankful for this year. Here’s a sampling of our favorites.

‘I am grateful for many things’

That my youngest daughter graduated college (ceremony and all) in December, before the lockdowns.
That despite having to cancel a trip to NYC (with my daughters) and a dream trip to Italy (birthplace of my grandparents), that our family was lucky enough to have gone to Alaska and France the last two years. Great trips.

Do you have friends on social media who forward “fun” online surveys to their entire friend list? The surveys ask things like, “List the states you have visited” or “Which of the following have you done: Skydive? Gotten a tattoo? Rode a motorcycle?”

Maybe I missed the memo. Maybe I was left off the press release list that was sent out by the Florida High School Athletic Association.

Or maybe I just need to clean out my email because an important one from the FHSAA is buried under the rubble of other emails that include requests for your checking account number so that you can have $100,000 deposited into your bank today.

The one thing every business needs is customers, and they are in short supply in Gulf Breeze. Editor Wendy Victora Rudman spent time there last week and talked to a number of business owners struggling to survive. They are not asking for charity, just business. Do it for yourself, not them. It is important to Santa Rosa County and to all of us that we remain vital before and after the bridge reopens.

Michael Carter takes the handoff and starts heading up the field, thinking for a moment about running inside before cutting to the outside and running untouched into the end zone.