Opinion Archive

Father’s Day hits differently when your dad is no longer with you.

I lost my dad last spring, and this will be the second year in a row where I won’t be able to call him, send him a card or take a trip home to see him like I did four years ago, which happened to be the last Father’s Day weekend we spent together.

Moms for Liberty, MFL, is an organization devoted to maintaining good citizenship and high standards.

Recent attack by a Santa Rosa County democrat party official calling the group a hate group is in fact hate. Hate for country and irresponsible behavior is for the democrat party standard operation procedure.

Preserve Navarre, for the last two and a half years, has been involved in informing our residents and businesses about the path to incorporation for the City of Navarre Beach.

We have held monthly meetings, member socials, presentations to Navarre Beach Leaseholders and to Navarre Beach Area Chambers of Commerce Board.

Ever had one of those days where you are trying to hurry up and get the most important work done so you can go home early in the heat of the day (83 degrees – 75% humidity) and mow your yard?

Well, I have – and that day is today.

James Calkins is not new to making controversial statements, but last week at a Board of County Commission meeting, he crossed a line.

He openly refused to apologize and in fact, to the shock of the audience, doubled down on his words.

For almost four hours, the line of people stretched around the walls of the enormous church foyer then curled around a corner and extended back into the church’s sanctuary.

Hundreds of people had come that evening to pay their last respects to my wife’s brother, Dave, a testament to a life well lived by a man well-loved.

More basketball courts. That’s what Navarre needs.

Not more Dollar Generals. Not more storage units. Not more gas stations. We have enough of those.

I have been a firearms dealer for 46 years, the last 39 years in Santa Rosa County.

I have always strived to facilitate the sale and transfer of firearms to law abiding citizens and keep accurate records. I have had a good relationship with the federal ATF and a clean record. However, ATF has recently changed their rules and enacted a “zero tolerance” policy, resulting in ATF aggressively putting gun store owners, including myself, out of business.

I recently attended the graduation ceremony for my son-in-law, Jon Crider, who graduated with his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Mississippi, otherwise known as Ole Miss.

He also wrote for Navarre Press for a year before he married my daughter in 2016 and left for Mississippi to pursue his doctorate degree. You may see his byline in the coming weeks. He starts teaching at Belmont University in the fall and will be working on data driven stories as a data journalist this summer.

Today is the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Forecasters are finding this year’s hurricane season hard to predict. They have said the current warmer ocean temperatures would normally be expected to increase tropical storm and hurricane activity, but we also have an El Nino event brewing, which usually has the opposite effect.