Opinion Archive

Sometimes less is more. In business, supply and demand is a key factor in making money and paying bills – two issues that seem to a major problem for the Santa Rosa Bay Bridge, aka the Garcon Point Bridge, aka Bo’s Bridge (in reference to former Florida House Speaker Bolley “Bo” Johnson, a Milton politician who spearheaded the effort to build the bridge and then later went to federal prison for tax evasion).

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.

Sinking ships take on water – it’s what they do. The half-sunken boat in the Sound near Juana’s Pagodas has been taking on water for well over a month now, but the boat isn’t the only one going down. The story and details of the owner are seemingly sinking as well.

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.

The world in which we live today is one of instant gratification. Do first, think later. Gotta have it now.

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.

While classrooms might not have yet been filled with students, school was most definitely in session last week. Shots rang out, smoke filled the air and fire alarms pierced the quiet that usually fills the halls of schools this time of year. First responders busted through the doors to find they had left the world of what they know and entered into a world where they have to rely on each other just as much as rely upon their training. The shots were, of course, blanks and the smoke from a machine rather than a fire. The “injured” were covered in makeup rather than blood, but don’t tell that to the first responders…they had those injured out of the building quicker than this reporter could snap more than a handful of photos.

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.”

When a black was elected President, I was thrilled, thinking: “Only In America!”

What is a community center? Ask ten different residents that question, and you are likely to get ten different answers. It’s a subjective idea, and can be a very fluid topic.