Author: Dusty Ricketts

There’s no need to sugarcoat some things. The pandemic sucked. Millions of people worldwide died from the virus. It brought undue racist attacks against Asians here in America. It helped to bring a lot of anger to the surfaces in the states and abroad.

Ben Franklin did a lot of great things for this country. One of his bright ideas that I am not found of, and really hate to be honest, is daylight-saving time. Well, that’s not entirely true. I actually prefer daylight-saving time. What I don’t like is the switch back to standard time.

The other day, I watched “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and more than 40 years later it remains an excellent movie on its own and is still the peak of Star Trek in my opinion. One thing I really paid attention to in this latest viewing of the movie is just how great some of the lines are and how they really have inspired me and have had a small part in forging me into the person I am today.

I bought my first car in 2000, a brand-new blue Volkswagen Beetle. To this day, it’s still probably my favorite car that I’ve ever owned. Back then, buying a car was an exciting experience. It was far and away the most expensive purchase I had made at that point in my life and remained that way for many years.

There’s something that has bothered me about the way Gov. Ron DeSantis does business since he took office in early 2019 and it has nothing to do with his politics. I’ve been covering the news in Northwest Florida for close to 20 years now at different publications.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been back overseeing the Crestview News Bulletin and Santa Rosa’s Press Gazette for more than two months now. There have been some minor hiccups along the way, more on that later, but overall the job has gone better than I could have hoped.

In the 20-plus years I have been a journalist, I have covered hundreds of events, written thousands of stories. However, the story that had probably the biggest impact on my life wasn’t even a story that I wrote. In October 2016, I was the editor of two different weekly newspapers, one that sadly isn’t around any longer and the other is not the paper that it used to be because of budget cuts, which is just as sad. That was when we found out that Alaqua Animal Refuge had rescued dozens of Great Danes.

It’s hard for me to believe, but I have lived in Northwest Florida for more than 20 years now. I moved down here from Indiana back in November 2002. At the time, my best friend and his girlfriend, now his wife, moved to Okaloosa Island to take jobs at some local newspapers.

I’m not usually one for big New Year’s resolutions. They can be a hassle to keep up with and follow. Although they’re designed to motivate you to make positive changes in your life, they can end up making you feel worse if you don’t stick with them.