Northview DCT Students Work Hard, Visit Six Flags
May 21, 2009
The following was written and submitted by the DCT class at Northview High School.
The Diversified Career Technology/ Career Education Clubs of Florida class at Northview High School recently had a busy week. DCT is a class for students, who have jobs and who want to keep the job while attending school. The students in DCT work very hard to maintain good grades, while holding down a job. These students take core classes and then are released from school to gain valuable experience by doing on-the-job-training at work.
They receive a grade for both classroom and OJT work. Northview has a rather large class this year with 27 members. The class is led by President Jessica Mothershed, Vice President Summer Sanders, Secretary Melissa Garrett, Treasurer Amie Sutton, Parliamentarian Gretchen Boughner, and Hospitality Chairperson Kaydee Wheeler
All have done an exceptional job of keeping things running smoothly. The other members include Michelle Bellamy, Josh Black, Andrew Bowlan, Richard Braun, Brittany Brown, Tiffany Chance, Matthew Coffey, Stephanie Doucette, Whitney Flurnoy, Jasey Gibson, Jesse Grimes, Denise Hart, Blaine Jeter, Dalton Justice, Ryan Lambert, Adam Martin, Steven Meadows, Dustin Odom, Caitlin Roley, Haley Smith and Ashley Snow.
In appreciation for being a great class, our DCT Coordinator, Tommy Weaver, and our Principal, Mrs. Gayle Weaver, accompanied the class to Six Flags Over Georgia on April 25th. The trip was a blast and a great success.
Jessica Mothershed, president, said, “I had a wonderful time. I loved spending time with my friends and seeing their faces on some of the rides. It was priceless.” Ashley Snow, said, “Six Flags was really exciting and because Amie Sutton and I had flash passes we rode almost every ride.”
Summer Sanders, said, “I loved spending time with classmates and it made memories that will last forever.” Amie Sutton, said, “The trip to Six Flags was awesome and I had a great time with my fellow classmates. The memories of that day will be remembered for ever.”
The DCT class recently held the Annual Employer-Employee Banquet at David’s Catfish in Atmore. The banquet was an opportunity for the employees to show appreciation to their employers for all the employers have done for them in the past year. There was great participation by both employers and employees. After a great meal by David’s, the group was presented a program by Mrs. Paula Miller, Director of Human Resources PCI-CIE, highlighting opportunities available with PCI-CIE. It was a very informative and interesting program. The CECF Club was honored to have Dr. Michelle Taylor, Workforce Education Specialist Escambia School District, and her husband, Mr. Tommy Taylor, former Director of Workforce Education, as special quests.
The trip and banquet were great, and the DCT class of 2008-2009 is very proud of their accomplishments this year.
For more information about the DCT program at Northview High School, click here.
More Info On Century Wireless Internet Proposal
May 21, 2009
After the Century Town Council heard a proposal from Rodney Thomas from the Virginia consulting firm Resources Building Tomorrow, LLC to build a community wireless access network in Century, NorthEscambia.com asked for more information about the plan. Here is what we received:
Dear Sir (s),
This morning I am sending this message over one our Access Points on a Network in the East Side of Richmond, Virginia. Currently we have three (3) service areas locally, two (2) more under contract in Richmond, three (3) under contract in Memphis, Tennessee, one (1) in a rural area of Central Virginia and our efforts through Rodney Thomas and Resources Building Tomorrow, LLC for Century, Florida.
We have come to value the efforts, relationships, and ethic both he and his organization represent in their ongoing efforts to develop education and economic standards for underserved citizens in all communities.
Just a few answers for your bloggers;
1) Broadband speed is 768k-1meg; that’s pure throughput and allows a subscriber to do audio, email, video, voice-over-internet, distance learning; etc. Our Enhanced Community Access Networks (e-CAN) provide a dedicated broadband circuit to every subscriber.
2) The eCAN provides broadband on the 802.11bag set of protocols and utilizes spectrum with at 2.4GHz; with backhaul at 5.8GHz and some transfer at 900MHz. 802.11n can also be deployed on “custom” build request.
3) The Community owns the eCAN and can utilize the facilities as they see fit. That means broadband internet service becomes available; at below market pricing for broadband internet and voice services that generates cash flow or value for the Community. We simply provision and mange the broadband/network assets; that is a defining difference between our offering and anything else available. —-The Community owns the Network—-
4) We also provision and make available a Community Portal; but by no means do we ever force a subscriber to go anywhere on the internet.
4) Funding is provided privately through partnerships or through grants made available by the Agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture. So; the build out does not represent a financial risk for the Community.
5 – Local Jobs and maintenance. We are simply managing assets and are committed to local labor, organizations, and/or training programs. Our efforts with Mr. Thomas should be viewed more as an integrated resource that is going to pursue all of the possible “fits” available for our Partner Communities; such as Century.
6 – Our e-CANs are for real users; the Virtual Computing Lab for k-12 that students simply can not currently use and the tele-medicine applications for the elderly and infirmed that are not currently accessible come to mind.
7 – Our programs include a total computing package; we also pass-though at cost off-lease low-cost laptops starting at $250.00 and low-cost desktops starting at $125.00. Existing landline telephones can be adapted for voice-over-internet starting at $45.00 and actual handheld WiFi telephones start at $75.00.
8 – The eCAN is secured for the Community and every subscriber at two levels: though log-in and password requirements; and from the media access contoller on each individual computer used on the network
We look forward to moving through this process. The eCAN model has immediate impact for residents of underserved communities and is a business model thay provides lasting value.
Thank your efforts, time, and consideration.
Very Best Regards,
Howard Bryan Bonham III
SIPCO
Laburnum Data Center
Internet Junction
Richmond, VA 23220
School Board Selects Appointee To Consolidation Commission
May 20, 2009
The Escambia County School District has made their appointment to the government consolidation committee.
School board Chairperson Patty Hightower nominated Deputy Superintendent Norm Ross to be the district’s only member of the 25-member panel to formulate a plan to consolidate Escambia County, Century and Pensacola. The motion was seconded by board member Jeff Bergosh.
The appointment passed the board 5-0 at their Tuesday night meeting.
The consolidation plan must be approved by voters before becoming reality.
Bank Robber’s Camper Shell Found Burned In North Escambia; Surveillance Photos Released
May 20, 2009
The camper shell from the truck believed to have been the escape vehicle in a Tuesday bank robbery in Atmore has been found near Bratt. And authorities have released surveillance photos from the crime.
The suspect in Tuesday afternoon’s armed robber of the First National Bank & Trust in Atmore was identified by police as Chad Floyd Jeter, 30, of 12066 Highway 31 in Canoe. He is believed to be armed and dangerous; police say a 22 caliber semi-automatic assault rifle was used in the bank robbery at about 3:30 Tuesday afternoon. Jeter is 5-foot 11-inches tall, weighs about 140 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes.
A burnt out camper shell matching the description of one from Jeter’s truck was found on an isolated stretch of Pine Barren Road just north of Breastworks road following an early morning brush fire (pictured left, click to enlarge). Atmore Police, the Escambia County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Department and the FBI are investigating. Police say the words “Steel City” that were on the back of Jeter’s truck have been removed.
Atmore Police say Jeter walked into the bank with the rifle and demanded money. He fled the scene with an undisclosed amount a money, leaving a note behind stating that he believes the military has been watching him.
“This subject left notes stating that he was upset with the military and left information behind that he may be headed to one or several military bases to kill there. Suspect has also made statements that he would kill police,” Atmore Police said in a press release Tuesday night.
Atmore Police say that Jeter may be heading to a military base, and he is believed to be in a relationship with a female that resides in the Ft. Rucker area.
Jeter was last seen dressed in a dark trench coat and a navy blue baseball cap, possibly with a New England Patriots logo. He fled the area headed south on Pensacola Avenue.
He was last seen driving a white truck, possibly a GMC, with a rounded camper shell on the back. The camper shell had a sticker of three military men saluting on the side, police said. The words “Steel City” are written in orange or red on the tailgate of the pick-up. The camper shell and the “Steel City” wording have since been removed and burned in the Pine Barren Road fire.
Jeter has a history of mental illness and was not taking his medication at the time of the holdup, authorities reported.
There were no injuries in the robbery.
Authorities took a possible suspect into custody a short time later near the Baldwin County line. Police transported the suspect to the bank for identification (pictured above), but the white male was not the armed robber, authorities said. The man was released.
If you have any information on this robbery, call the Atmore Police Department at (251) 368-9141 or your local law enforcement agency. Police say not to approach Jeter if you know his whereabouts as he is considered to be armed and dangerous.
The brush fire was reported at 12:10 Wednesday morning. The McDavid Station of Escambia Fire-Rescue and the Florida Division of Forestry responded to the call.
Pictured top: A man believed to be Chad Floyd Jeter as he robs an Atmore bank Tuesday afternoon. Pictured bottom inset: In this NorthEscambia.com exclusive photo, an officer (left) stands a possible bank robbery suspect (right, behind the car) outside the First National Bank & Trust in Atmore Tuesday afternoon for identification by employees inside the bank. Pictured below: Survelliance photos from inside and outside the bank showing the suspect and his truck. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Valentino Outlines Century, Pensacola And Escambia Combined Economic Plan
May 20, 2009
Commissioner Gene Valentino unveiled his economic development plant Tuesday afternoon at a joint meeting of the Escambia County Commission and the Pensacola City Council.
The plan, just as NorthEscambia reported last week, would see Century, Escambia County and Pensacola working together on economic development.
Under the plan, an independent economic development authority — the Pensacola Escambia Development Authority (PEDA) — to be led by a 15 member board with a $300,000 to $600,000 budget.
Each of the five county commissioners would appoint one member, Pensacola City Council two representatives and the Century Town Council would appoint one. The board members would select three persons with experience in military, education and minority business interests. The board would accept nominations from the community from “a variety of current future business assets” to serve in the four remaining board seats for a total of 15 members.
The majority of the funding for PEDA would come from a telecommunications service tax and franchise taxes on electric and gas service. It is expected that the increased taxes will cost the average Escambia household about $1.50 per month average in utility bill increases. A one percent utility franchise fee increase would net the commission about $6 million per year to use as economic incentives to lure industry.
The plan raised a lot of questions at Tuesday’s meeting.
Pensacola council member P.C. Wu said Pensacola brings great value to the table because the city owns the airport, the port and the ESP natural gas franchise. Because of that great value, council member Diane Mack said that Pensacola should have five members on the committee, equal to the five seats that would be appointed by the commission. Valentino’s plan allots the seats based upon population, with Century having a single seat.
Mack disagreed that the $1.50 per household assessment would generate $6 million; her math, she said, indicated it would be closer to $3 million. She also questioned if the commission’s appointments to the board would become too political, suggesting that each commissioner provide a list of candidates from which one would be chosen.
District 5 Commissioner Kevin White, who represents North Escambia, echoed Mack’s concern that appointments would become too political. Commissioner Wilson Robertson expressed concern over how the economic development committee would operate “in the sunshine”, following Florida’s stiff public records and open meetings laws.
Commissioner Grover Robinson did not speak in favor of the plan, saying that the county did not need to be in the business of selling itself.
Strong opposition to the plan was voiced by Gulf Power, with company officials saying that they would not support the one percent franchise fee hike in Valentino’s plan.
The next step for the plan is for the committees of the whole from both the city and the county to individual consider the plan and take any action they wish.
Watch Valentino’s proposal here.
Pictured: Escambia Commissioner Gene Valentino outlines his economic development plan at a joint meeting of the Escambia County Commission and the Pensacola City Council Tuesday afternoon.
Blog: Century Broadband Plan, How Fast Is It?
May 20, 2009
Monday night, a Virginia consultant presented his plan to the Century Town Council for the Century Community Access Network — a community wireless broadband network.
A lengthy video presentation detailed the plan — install a wireless network with multiple antennas, place routers at $34 per month each into homes and build a community high speed internet network. And the total cost to Century? Nothing, according to Rodney Thomas, of the Richmond, Virginia, consulting firm Resources Building Tomorrow, LLC., with federal funds footing the $146,492 setup fee. The proposal actually would be better than free — the town would make $10 per subscriber per month, everything would be installed and maintained by couple of companies. Thomas sweetened the deal with information that Century would own the network in five years, and his company would event apply for more money to renovate the Carver Community Center to provide a physical location for the project.
Sure sounded like a sweet deal, and it created many questions — the most basic of which was “how fast will Internet connection speed be?” From our Monday morning article (click here to read the whole story):
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.
Smoke and mirrors came to mind.
It’s the most basic question about any Internet service…how fast is it? “Broadband” was simply not an acceptable answer. It’s like buying a car; you don’t want to write a check for a car without knowing what kind of car it is and what features it has.
“Broadband” is general defined as any Internet connection faster than a 56K dialup modem. Let’s look at an example of downloading a 1.5 GB movie from Itunes. On a dialup connection, it would take you two days and 10 hours to download your movie. Ouch.
On the slowest DSL connection offered by AT&T in Century, 768K, it would take four hours and 43 minutes to download that movie. Better take a nap and wait to put the popcorn in the microwave. That DSL connection would cost you, by the way, just $20 per month. On the fastest DSL connection offered by AT&T in Century, 6 Mbps, that movie would download in 33 minutes, just enough time to call some friends to come over. The monthly cost? $42.95 per month.
Incidentally, if the NorthEscambia.com web server could connect to Itunes using just one Internet connection that serves the site, it could grab that entire 1.5GB movie in one second. “Smokin” is the technical term, I believe.
The point? There’s a big difference in speeds that could be classified as “broadband”.
Thomas told us in the council meeting that his service uses 802.11n routers that can operate at up to 108Mbps. The Internet speed is only as fast as the connection provided to the router. Such a router could be hooked up to a dialup connection, but there would be no blazing speed. And, just for the record, while he told us the system would use “n” routers, the written proposal he provided the council details the usage of “g” routers which are slower. It’s not an important difference, simply because the total Internet connectivity of the system would likely not match the router speed. Technical, I know.
His router answer was simply meaningless. We wanted to know, and pressed for the answer, how fast the possible internet connect would be. But there was no answer, just a comment about our questioning from Thomas’ friend and Century businessman Jack Moran. Again from our Monday article:
“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.” — Jack Moran
Computer geek? Maybe not. But knowledgeable? Humbly, yes. Our question was very legitimate; if you are going to pay for a service, you want to know what you are going to get for your money.
The written proposal that Thomas presented to the council is not real specific about the upstream speed, the total speed of the internet connection that every user will share under the plan. It does reference charging the town $900 per month for a “5.0 Megabit Ethernet Circuit”. That 5 Mbps circuit would be slower than a single DSL connection available in Century, and it would be shared hundreds of times.
Thomas told us after the meeting that the 5 Mbps speed in the proposal was incorrect. There was no mention of the mistake in his presentation to the council.
When we spoke to Thomas Tuesday morning, he told us that we would be emailed more technical information about the proposal or that his technical people would post comments on our story. By late Tuesday night, we had nothing.
Thomas is a grant writer and consultant and, by his own admission, not a technical person. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on our technical question that seemed to create so many problems. Not everyone that drives car knows the horsepower of the engine under the hood. They just know it gets them there.
But in examining the proposal presented to the Century Town Council for the Century Community Access Network, we found other problems. We will address some of those in a post on Thursday morning.
Northview’s Scooter Named MVP As East Beats West
May 20, 2009
His “West” team came up short in the Pensacola Sports Association senior All-Star game Tuesday, but Northview’s “Scooter” was on top his game.
The East beat the West 7-5 in the annual end of the season game at the University of West Florida. The matchup showcases the best high school senior baseball talent from across the area.
Northview’s James “Scooter” Hamilton was the only player on either team with three hits. He was 3 for 4 with two RBIs and a run scored. His performance earned him the title of the West team’s MVP.
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.
