Opinion, Out and About

Out and About

April 11, 2019 | Sandi Kemp

Newspapers are the best place to work if you never want to feel like it is ground hog day – day after day – because every day is different and exciting. And, if you are a curious person, you get paid to be curious or as other people call it – nosey. I remember in Jr. High School, someone complained to the science teacher that I was nosey. And, he stood up in the class and said how important it was to be curious or nosey. The problem is – I’m curious about too many things. I have literally hundreds of how-to and other non-fiction books that I’ve started, and I don’t finish before I move on to the next – bright shiny object.

Yes, I could be a tad attention deficit as well, but if I am, I use it as a super power. Literally, we are at the office by 8:30 a.m. (sometimes 4 a.m. if I can’t sleep) and before you know it people are saying goodbye and it is 5 p.m. They don’t know where the day goes either. The same thing for weeks, months, and years. They go by very quickly. When we are looking for something in our archives, I usually guess that it happened a year or two ago only to find out it happened three years ago. Thankfully, Navarre Press has online archives because archives, aka recorded history, is very important to our community. I also subscribe to newspapers.com for our research at Navarre Press, and personally as well as the online editions of the papers to either side of us. However, they do not offer complete archives. We have had to go to Tallahassee and UWF and once to the national archives in St. Louis, Missouri, to complete research on our historical stories for Navarre Press. There is one very important historical story which you haven’t seen yet…but you will. And, it will be AWESOME…

We are working on a series of stories that explain the who, what, where, why and how we receive our water in Navarre because most take it for granted that they can turn on a water faucet and water – drinkable water comes flowing out. The Holley Navarre Water System has received a lot of press about the board shenanigans, but that shouldn’t reflect on the employees and their mission to provide affordable water to our community and to our surrounding communities. There are a lot of very dedicated employees at our water system that take a lot of pride in the work and don’t show up for just a pay check. They are there for something larger than themselves –their/our community. Unfortunately – a few members of our community have decided to take out their frustrations on the employees instead of doing the adult thing and show up at board meetings and have a conversation. They have been working on the side of the road and been yelled at, stopped at a gas station and been questioned about the board or told they were good for nothin…you know the rest. The next board meeting is at 6 p.m., April 16, if you care (enough) to go. Otherwise, we will be there covering the meeting as we have for the previous 18.85 years.

We were very sad to hear of the passing of a legend, Lt Col Richard E. (Dick) Cole – the last remaining of the Doolittle Raiders. He had an awesome life that he lived well and will be forever remembered in the annals of history as a hero was part of a herculean effort that helped improve morale – and more during WWII. He was featured in Navarre Press in October 2018 and again a few weeks ago.

Quote of the Week: “Our only course of action was to climb up to what we thought was a safe altitude and fly until we ran out of fuel and bailed out,” Lt. Col. Dick Cole, Last of the Doolittle Raiders, (September 7, 1915 – April 9, 2019.) Quoted from an oral history interview posted on the National WWII Museum web site.

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