Local Student One Of 100 To Take Part In Steve Harvey Mentoring Weekend
May 20, 2009
An eighth grade Carver/Century K-8 School student is one of just 100 young men selected to take part in the Steve Harvey Mentoring Weekend this June in Dallas.
Arkelle Elliott was selected based upon a father-figure essay he wrote to take part in the program with comedian, actor and radio personality Steve Harvey. Elliot will attend the mentoring weekend June 18-21.
“Mrs. Harris encouraged me a lot,” Elliot said of his teacher Detria Harris. “I wrote an essay about what it was like to have a father figure.”
“He told me from the day he turned it in that he was going to pack because he was going to win,” Harris said.
The event includes a weekend of seminars and team building activities. The program is led by Harvey and is designed to build a foundation for young men, according to the program’s web site.
The Steve Harvey (pictured left) program “will expose young males to business professionals, athletes, celebrities and ministers that will assist them in focusing their hopes into dreams and transforming their dreams into reality,” the web site says.
The program is for young men from a family with a single female head of household.
Elliot and the other 99 program participants will take part in sessions to include “Tool Time”, “Style is Success”, “Handling Your Money”, “What It Takes To Get Into and Stay In College” and “New Ideas To Make Money”.
Pictured top: Arkelle Elliott, eighth grade student at Carver/Century K-8, is one of just 100 young men that will take part in a Steve Harvey Mentoring Weekend in Dallas this summer. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Firefighters Battle Early Morning Brush Fire
May 20, 2009
Firefighters were dispatched to an early morning brush fire on Pine Barren Road.
The fire, reported about 12:10 this morning, was on Pine Barren Road near Breastworks Road. The McDavid Station of Escambia Fire Rescue called for assistance in fighting the blaze from the Florida Division of Forestry.
Forestry arrived on scene and deployed a bulldozer into the woods to control the fire about 1:30 this morning.
Escambia Deputies Still Looking For Bank Robbery Suspect
May 20, 2009
Escambia County deputies are still asking for your help in locating a bank robbery suspect after a Tuesday morning holdup in Pensacola.
Investigators have received several tips about the identity of the suspect after his image appeared on NorthEscambia.com and other media outlets, and they said they have narrowed their suspect list to about five people.
Ted Roy, spokesperson for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department, said the white male, about 5-foot 10-inches tall, robbed the Regions Bank on North Davis Highway about 9:10 Tuesday morning. The suspect was wearing a gray sweatshirt and was armed with a black semi-automatic handgun.
Witnesses told deputies that the suspect was last seen southbound from the bank on Davis Highway. A K-9 unit from the Pensacola Police Department was deployed but lost the scent, mostly likely because the suspect entered an unknown vehicle, Roy said.
There were no injuries in the robbery.
Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department at 436-9620 or Crime Stoppers at 433-STOP (7867).
Pictured above and below: Surveillance footage from a Pensacola bank robbery Tuesday morning. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Looking Forward: Century Holds Visioning Day
May 20, 2009
Century held a day-long “visioning day” Tuesday to take a look at what the town has to offer and to discuss ways to make it a better place.
Participants representing many state, federal and local agencies joined business and community leaders for a bus tour of Century. Following the bus tour and lunch, participants listened to information about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Fund and held an open group discussion about the town’s needs.
The visioning day gave the participants an opportunity to become familiar with the economic and community development environment in Century with the goal of fostering new partnerships between government, community and industry.
Joseph Mueller, Florida state acting director for the USDA Rural Development program, was joined by program directors to present an overview of agency programs in housing, utilities, community facilities and business programs that might benefit the Century community.
“We want to give you the help you need to complete the visioning process,” Mueller told the group.
The bus tour highlighted several locations around town. After visiting the Century Industrial Park, the group had the opportunity to see Century Woods Apartments, a USDA Rural Development project.
The bus tour also included the Habitat for Opportunity Building on Pond Street, Showalter Park, Carver/Century K-8 School, the Alger-Sullivan Lumber Company building, Camellia Gardens Apartments, the Anthony Pleasant Sports Complex, and Oakwood Village.
For more photos from the Visioning Day, click here.
Pictured above: The Century Visioning Day bus tour passes the empty Helicopter Technologies building in the town’s Industrial Park. Pictured below: Participants take part in the day’s events. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Lovely Weather For A Bath
May 19, 2009
Monday’s mild weather provided the perfect opportunity for a splash in the official NorthEscambia.com cheap plastic bird bath. Today’s weather will be mild as well, with a high forecast in the upper 70’s under sunny skies. A chance of rain returns to the forecast at 40 percent for Wednesday. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Century Appoints Council Member’s Father-In-Law To Consolidation Committee
May 19, 2009
The Town of Century has named their appointee to the consolidated government study commission created by the Florida Legislature.
The council, on a 3-2 vote, named Charles Scott, Sr. to the commission. Scott is the father-in-law of Century council member Sharon Scott. He was nominated to the post by Mayor Freddie McCall.
Councilman Henry Hawkins and Ann Brooks cast their votes to appoint Century resident Annie Savage to the commission.
“He’s my father-in-law. I got to vote for him,” council member Scott said of her vote for her father-in-law. “I want somebody that can get around,” she told Savage, who can often be seen walking with a cane at Century Town Council and Escambia County School Board meetings.
“I presume that this thing isn’t going to fly,” McCall said of the consolidation that must be approved by voters in 2010 prior to combining the governments of Century, Pensacola and Escambia County into one. “It’s the City of Pensacola gurus that are behind this.”
“In case this happens, we need to have a part in it,” Council President Ann Brooks said.
Century was given one of 25 seats on the consolidation committee.
Century Explores Getting Into Broadband Business
May 19, 2009
The Town of Century will get into the broadband Internet business if a Virginia consultant’s plan is approved by the town’s council.
Rodney Thomas, of the Richmond, Virginia, firm Resources Building Tomorrow, LLC, presented a proposal to the council Monday night to build a wireless broadband system in the town with federal grant money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Fund.
“This is something that is becoming as necessary as water, sewer and electricity in your community,” Thomas told the council of the plan dubbed the “Century Community Access Network”.
Under the plan, Thomas said residents would be charged $34 a month for broadband access, $10 of which would go to the town. “If you have 500 subscribers, you have $5,000 to go back to the town. If you have 5,000 subscribers, you have $50,000 in one month,” he said. The written proposal he provided council members was based up 1,721 households in Century The U.S. Census Bureau’s estimated population of Century was 1,923 total persons in 2007.
The project would also attempt to generate revenue be selling advertising on a community home page that all subscribers would be forced to visit upon signing onto the service.
When asked by NorthEscambia.com Publisher William Reynolds how fast the broadband service would be, Thomas replied that it would be “broadband speed”. When pressed for a further answer to define how fast “broadband speed” would be, Thomas said he did not know technical answers. Looking through some papers, he said that it would use “802.11n” routers, a not yet defined standard that provides speeds up to 108 Mbit per second. But Thomas did not provide an actual speed estimate for the internet connection.
Century businessman Jack Moran, saying that he has been Thomas’ friend for five years, told the council, “I am put off by the hostility of the tone of some of the questions. I am not the computer geek that William is, but I know something about it. This is an opportunity for Century to…bring itself into the 21st century.”
Thomas told the council that he could have a technical expert visit a future council meeting to explain some of the technical aspects of the service and provide a working demonstration.
The Century Community Access Network would work by placing a wireless, or wi-fi, antenna on a location such as a water tower. The signal from that antenna would be amplified and repeated by smaller antennas around town, providing services to wireless routers placed in homes or businesses.
Coming up Wednesday: NorthEscambia.com’s publisher will take a more in-depth look at the Century Community Access Network plan, and explain the reasoning behind the questions referenced in the article above.
Pictured above: Consultant Rodney Thomas (left) explains the proposed Century broadband network Monday night while Jack Moran (right) looks on. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Updated: Security Doors Being Installed At Molino Park, EWMS, Northview
May 19, 2009
(Updated 11:00 a.m.) The Escambia County School District is spending $210,105 to install two security doors at each of 29 schools, including Northview High School, Molino Park Elementary and Ernest Ward Middle School.
The doors can be locked and unlocked from a central access point in each school’s office and include a panic button to quickly control the doors. The doors provide a level of defense against a school intruder, according to officials.
Each school on the list of 29 will receive $348 worth of electric hinges, doors valued at $1,824; an access panel for $1,581;two panic buttons for $792 and $600 worth of wiring for the door.
A company representative for Warren Hollow Metal Doors said that while Bratt Elementary was originally approved by the school board for a set of the doors, Bratt had declined the installation. The doors originally intended for Bratt will now be installed at Northview.
The doors will be paid for from the school district’s budgeted Access Control Revenue fund.
Ernest Ward Students Participate In Public Speaking Contest
May 19, 2009
Sixth grade students at Ernest Ward Middle School recently participated in a public speaking contest with one student advancing to take third place in the entire county.
Every sixth grader at EWMS took part in a school-wide 4-H Tropicana Public Speaking Competition. School winners were Tamara Wise, first place; Morgan Ward, second place; Shalmali Bhadkamkar, third place; and Tristan Portwood, honorable mention.
Tamara represented EWMS at the county contest at the 4-H Langley Bell Center, placing third in the county. It was a close contest; the top three contestants were separated by just three points.
Sheriff’s Town Hall Meeting Thursday
May 19, 2009
Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan will hold a town hall meeting at the Southern Panhandle Restaurant in Century at 6:00 Thursday evening.
The public is invited to attend. Morgan will discuss law enforcement issues across the county as well as local issues impacting North Escambia. The sheriff will also accept questions for the audience.