My heart felt good after reading Chrys Holley’s excellent comments, “Long may Old Glory wave and be respected by all,” posted in the Navarre Press on Oct. 5. It’s a damn shame that hundreds of NFL football players are not standing and saluting the American flag while our National Anthem is being played before the game.
My reading of Tamara Fountain’s impressive resume, presented in the Navarre Press Aug. 10, made me a happy camper. The article was well written by reporter Jamie Gentry, Navarre Press.
I’m sure you have heard by now but this is worth repeating. You are reading one of the best newspapers in the state of Florida – and we have the trophy to prove it. Last Friday in Naples, Florida, our newspaper earned 16 first place awards for journalism, three overall first place awards (meaning first place in all divisions) and the top award of Newspaper of the Year! They found our coverage to be second to none in sports, health/medical, in-depth reporting, headline writing, photography, First Amendment defense, the overall design of our newspaper, local tax reporting, environmental reporting and nearly every other section of our paper. We are so proud to be part of something so much bigger than ourselves (Navarre Press core value) and to provide our readers with excellence only. Thank you for being our cheerleaders! You can see all of the coverage that won throughout this issue and in the spread of section B.
First I would like to say I am not a politician nor do I aspire to be one. I typically would not respond publically to news articles and I do not use the media as a venue to advance an agenda or political view. However, in recent weeks Navarre Press had continued to write negative articles about Holley Navarre Water System most of which are inaccurate, slanted, one sided, misleading, taken out of context, and/or sensationalized, making a response necessary. One editorial written by Sandi Kemp herself was an outright attack on my character personally and was replete with complete untruths. So first is the matter of correcting the information in her opinion piece dated May 25 2017 titled “A House of Cards”:
It seems escape rooms are all the rage right now and Navarre is fortunate to have one. It opened recently and Navarre Press had the opportunity to visit and find out more about this entertainment business model. The trend started in Japan in 2007 and now they are worldwide – including Navarre. You can read more about it on our Business page. It would be a great team-building exercise for businesses. Maybe even for our county commissioners – it would require them to come together to create a solution to the puzzle of clues to be able to get out of the room. Hmmm…work together to solve a problem. What a novel concept.
So a certain county commissioner here in Santa Rosa County – he’s the political version of a crazy fan — opted to go on Facebook last week and call the Navarre Press a fake news media outlet.
Spring has sprung and so have all of the spring colds and stomach bugs. Almost everywhere I visited this past week was shorthanded due to illnesses. We were not the exception. However, we pulled through and put together another stellar issue of Navarre Press. I’m looking forward to reading it at the same time you do. I do get a sneak peek, but I don’t know everything that is in the paper nor have I read every word before it comes out. I have very talented team members that take care of that for you. On Tuesday evenings if I’m not overly inspired for a topic for my column I grab the proofs of the paper and start looking through them for inspiration.
