We already live in a world, at least here in Florida, where athletes can transfer freely thanks to the free agency style set-up here in the state. We are about to live in a world high school athletes can get paid.
Never did I think I’d be typing those words out in a column at any point in my lifetime. Just goes to show you to never say never.
In our weekly COMPASS leadership prayer meeting, one brother prayed for a growing sense of community in our congregation. A strong sense of community is what characterized that first congregation described in Acts 2, a sense of community so strong that it was attractive to those outside the church. Their sense of community was not self-motivated but the evidence of their unity in the Spirit together with Christ through faith in His gospel. Because that same Spirit unites believers together in Christ today, that strong sense of community is possible in any gospel-believing congregation. A recent article in The Atlantic offers a less hopeful message.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting a lot of people in the 24 years of working at Navarre Press, and I wouldn’t make a list in order of importance because it isn’t something you can quantify. However, I’d have to say that Pat Quinn would be very, very close to the top. He was an awesome man in so many ways. He was fun to be with because he was funny, honest, observant, wise, and so many other adjectives. To say that he had led an interesting life would be an understatement. Let’s just say he couldn’t have gotten another ounce out of life because – he lived it – to the fullest. And, in doing so, he contributed greatly to every community and person that he was close to. The Gulf Breeze Zoo celebrated its 40th anniversary last month, and I asked our team to pull the pages and pages of stories we have written about the zoo over the years and a sampling of the results can be found on pages C6 and 7. One of the stories was about “Remembering Colossus” which was written by our reporter John Richardson, who passed away last year and who is another person that I had the privilege of calling my friend. This is an awesome story and will give you a taste of what Pat Quinn was like and how fortunate we are to have the Zoo in our community.
Last week, nearly every media outlet in the region met at the Santa Rosa County Emergency Operations Center to get prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. And if you haven’t seen the forecast for hurricane season in 2024, just know it ranges from bad to really bad. (Let’s hope forecasters are wrong this year.)
We are still a couple of months away from the first season in more than a decade of Navarre Raider football without Jay Walls on the sideline.
But what we’ve seen so far through spring football is the indication that the Raiders are going to be just fine as they continue to work in preparation for their first season under the direction Garrett Bagley.
Recently, our skies were the canvas for some spectacular natural phenomena – a solar eclipse and the northern lights. Despite having been born and raised in Canada, I cannot recall ever having seen the Northern Lights, yet people here in north Florida were posting stunning photos of them. My wife and I even doused the porchlight and stood in the driveway gazing into the northern night sky but saw not a glimmer. I woke up very early the next morning and decided to try again. It was raining. I still have not seen the Northern Lights.
I’m learning new traditions and entitlements as my children get older, and I find myself having conversations with them that weren’t even a topic when I was their age. My daughter’s husbands have brought up evaluating jobs on how long they will have off for paternity leave when they start have babies or continue to do so. Really? I was lucky my husband was in this country when I had babies.
I’m not complaining that the spring football game between Navarre and Pace was postponed a couple of weeks ago.
I was driving back from Fort Myers after covering a state baseball championship game the night before.
