I used the Waze app on a recent road trip and was a good “Wazer,” reporting and confirming road hazards along the way. “Vehicle on shoulder ahead,” the digital assistant would announce, sounding to me like she was annoyed. Sometimes there was a vehicle and sometimes it was there no longer, and I would dutifully give a status update by selecting the appropriate button. It was on that road trip that I realized that I needed to have my eyes checked. Sometimes I reported that the vehicle was no longer there when in fact it was. I needed a “whoops, my bad” button.
Every day, week and month is busy in the news business because news never sleeps. However, this month has been especially busy, and we are only halfway through. We have high school graduations to cover and a Visitor Guide to design, get to press and then distribute before Memorial Day Weekend. On top of that, we have staff taking vacations and going to graduations for their family members. And it is Navarre Press’s 25th Anniversary in a week and a half. We have known this milestone anniversary was coming for the last – 25 years, actually. However, we haven’t slowed down enough to even think about it. Maybe we will have something ready by the end of the year. Navarre Press began with the first graduating class of Navarre High School – so this is Navarre High School’s 25th graduating class which is set to graduate on Friday, May 30.
In Florida, zoning boards are statutorily required and used to ensure controlled land development. They review applications for variances, special uses and rezoning requests and send their decisions and recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners.
Navarre has a new boys basketball coach. And I really like the hire.
The Raiders named Todd Arasmith as their new coach last week and based on the reaction on social media, I’d say the school hit a home run on this one. It’s exactly what Navarre needed to do.
With the recent death of Pope Francis, the Roman Catholic Church has scheduled a conclave to begin on May 7. As a former Roman Catholic, now a born-again Christian, and a protestant pastor, I am interested in the conclave’s election process, so I decided to watch the 2016 Oscar-winning movie “Conclave.”
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that you buy tickets to Navarre’s Centennial Celebration which will be held on June 21. The tickets are $100 each and almost every dollar of that ticket is being spent on the food, the decorations, the party favor of a commemorative coin, and the entertainment. You will enjoy learning about Navarre’s founding in 1925 and the recording history of this area dating back a century before that. You don’t have to be a history nerd to hear the stories that will be told. In fact, our history has every element of what makes a good story – fantastic, but true. You will hear stories of murder, sheriff’s politicking, love, lust, marriages, adoptions, divorce, more death (or was it murder) money, fame, fortune, and then losing it all again – all wrapped up in what was going on with the rest of the world and in Northwest Florida. You will be amazed at how busy our little unincorporated area of Santa Rosa County has been in the last 100 years. All that, and a phenomenal band, Six Piece Suits and scrumptious food.
In 1999, congress declared May would be National Military Appreciation Month so the citizens of our country could publicly thank everyone who puts on the uniform of their branch of service.
It’s time to take a step back in the sports world and restore some sanity to it.
Because when you have someone make a threat to shoot an umpire, that’s a problem. A big problem.
One of the required courses in the seminary from which I got my degree was apologetics. For those not familiar with the term, apologetics is not a course in which you learn how to say you are sorry in meaningful ways. The term comes from the Greek word apologia which means “to make a defense” and is found in the Apostle Peter’s first letter to the churches in Asia Minor. He exhorts Christians to turn away from evil and be zealous for what is good, and “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy.” Knowing that such a life will be noticed in a world that does not honor Christ the Lord as holy nor is typically zealous for what is good, he continues, “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” The field of apologetics is engaged in teaching Christians how to defend the Christian faith.
Last week I was writing about my critics and this week I started scanning pages of one hundred-year-old copies of the Milton Gazette, which is now the Santa Rosa Press Gazette. I found the following printed on May 1, 1925 – which could have been my column last week – just said in a different way…
