Jay Lindsey Named Tate Head Football Coach
June 25, 2015
Jay Lindsey has been named head football coach at Tate High School.
Lindsey was named interim coach in late March.
Lindsey was offensive coordinator for the Aggies last season and led the team through the spring. He has nine years coaching experience, including his time at Tate and years at Pace High school.
Lindsey’s appointment follows the resignation of Ronnie Douglas, who stepped down to spend more time on his business ventures.
Billy “Bill” Floyd Fitzpatrick
June 25, 2015
Billy “Bill” Floyd Fitzpatrick, 83, passed away peacefully on June 18, 2015, surrounded by his family and friends. He is preceded in death by Carolyn “Faye” (Brown) Fitzpatrick, his first wife of 55 years; and sisters, Allene Harris and Ruthy Cooke.
He is survived by his loving wife of five years, Betty Jo (Castleberry) (Hyatt) Fitzpatrick. He is also survived by his eldest daughter, Barbara Faye Holt, (Gary) and their children, Samantha, Joanna and Miranda; his son, David William Fitzpatrick, Sr., (Diane) and their children, Erika Burkett, (Anthony), Kristina, Carolyn and David, Jr.; his youngest daughter, Laura “Beth” Davis, (Thomas) and their children, Laura Kiker, (Hunter) and Andrew; and three great-grandchildren, Lila Faith Kiker, Millee Grayce and Gabriel Anthony Burkett. He is also survived by Betty’s children, Claudia Simmons, (Tommy) and their children, Kent and Neil; Charlotte Peacock, (Lloyd) and their children, Cassie and Beau; Lynn Dieterich, (Russ) Lynn‘s daughter, Tasha Thaxton; Catherine Stevens and her daughter, Hannah Jo; and Joel Hyatt.
Bill was born in Lorena, Texas on February 6, 1932, to Della “Laura” Lee (Grier) and Floyd Arnold Fitzpatrick. He studied accounting and finance at Baylor University. At 19 years old, he joined the Navy flight training program in Pensacola, where he met his first wife, Faye, on a blind date. They were married on March 25, 1955. He graduated in 1958 with a Bachelors of Arts degree from the Florida State University’s School of Business. He began his accounting career at Chemstrand/Monsanto. Then he worked for Pierre Brown, P.A. where he studied and passed the C.P.A. exam. Brown, Fitzpatrick and Brown, C.P.A., P.A. was formed and he worked there about 10 years. Bill then worked as the comptroller at Instrument Control Service, Inc. for a short time. In 1979, he started Bill F. Fitzpatrick, C.P.A., P.A. and retired in 1999.
Bill was blessed to be born into a loving Christian family and continued his Christian faith throughout his life. He also accomplished the art of being a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend. Being a believer in Christ as his Savior from an early age, he was an active worker in the churches he attended throughout his life. Bill was known to all as an honest, kind, patient, generous and compassionate gentleman. His outward faith in God was highly visible to everyone that knew him.
Family was also very important to Bill and he considered himself blessed to have all his children living close by. He enjoyed participating in all his children’s and grandchildren’s activities such as camping, church softball, bowling and fishing. He had a blast watching his family grow up right in front of him. His children gave him nine grandchildren that he referred to as his “sweet little lumps of love.” His only wish was to grow old gracefully and enjoy every minute of it with his family.
In 2010, he was joined in marriage to Betty Jo Hyatt whom he loved dearly and enjoyed spending his last five years with her.
Pallbearers will be Anthony Burkett, Andrew Davis, David Fitzpatrick, Jr., Hunter Kiker, Greg English and Gordon Gunn.
Honorary pallbearers will be the Caring and Sharing Sunday School Class of St. Luke United Methodist Church and the Cantonment Rotary Club.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. on Friday, June 26, 2015, at St. Luke United Methodist Church on Nine Mile Road.
Bill’s interment will be at Lathram Chapel United Methodist Church Cemetery in Cantonment.
Services will be directed by Reverend Larry Anderson and assisted by Reverend Johnny Webb and Reverend Rual Morris.
In lieu of flowers Bill requested that memorials be made to St. Luke United Methodist Church.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is in charge of arrangements.
Judge Considers Challenge To Abortion Waiting Period
June 25, 2015
Only days before a new Florida law would start requiring 24-hour waits before women can have abortions, a Leon County circuit judge is considering whether to place a hold on the law while a constitutional challenge goes forward.
The law (HB 633), which passed in April, is slated to go into effect July 1. The day after Gov. Rick Scott signed the law, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a constitutional challenge and sought an emergency injunction.
On Wednesday, Chief Circuit Judge Charles Francis heard arguments from the ACLU and the Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office and then said he’d issue a ruling quickly on whether to grant an injunction.
Both sides are expected to appeal an adverse ruling.
The new law adds to the information that physicians performing abortions must provide to women to obtain their consent. Under the law, the information must be provided in person to women at least 24 hours before the procedures are performed — requiring women to make two trips to abortion clinics.
Supporters of the law contend it will give women more time to reflect on their decisions. Opponents contend it will place obstacles before women seeking abortions, especially women who are victims of violence and women who are low-income and live in rural areas.
In a one-hour hearing Wednesday, ACLU attorney Renee Paradis pointed to Florida’s “explicit” constitutional right to privacy as the basis for challenging HB 633.
“Florida is one of only five states with this kind of strong privacy protection in the Constitution,” she said. “None of those five have a waiting period. The only one that tried to have a waiting period was struck down by the courts in Montana.”
But Blaine Winship, special counsel to the attorney general, said the state has a vested interest in its residents’ well-being.
“The state wields the police power to protect the health and safety of the people,” he said.
Winship also contended that nothing in the new law removes a woman’s right to get an abortion.
“The question of whether there is a 24-hour wait for her to contemplate the full impact and ramifications of her decision is obviously what we’ve been talking about today,” he said. “It’s what the Legislature aimed to try to protect.”
Lawmakers included in the law exceptions to the 24-hour wait for victims of rape, incest, domestic violence and human trafficking. To qualify, however, those victims must produce police reports, restraining orders, medical records or other documentation — and Paradis said most victims do not seek those.
The Republican-led Legislature rejected Democrats’ attempts to allow women to consult with doctors online or to have nurses explain the procedure on the first visit.
“This is all just about informed consent,” Winship said. “The Legislature took great care in building in a number of exemptions.”
But Paradis said the second-trip requirement threatens a woman’s privacy by increasing the risk that other people — from loved ones to employers and co-workers — will learn that she is having an abortion.
The two sides also sparred over the strength of Florida’s constitutional right to privacy. Winship pointed to a 2006 Florida Supreme ruling that upheld the informed-consent provision in a 1997 law, the “Women’s Right to Know” Act, which required doctors to explain the medical risks of abortion and to obtain consent from women seeking them.
Paradis, however, noted that the language in a landmark 1989 case had provided Floridians with stronger privacy protections than most states.
“The state may think it knows better, but that doesn’t matter,” Paradis said. “It matters what the woman decides.”
Francis said he would not rule Wednesday, but soon thereafter.
by Margie Menzel, The News Service of Florida
Edgar “Bill” Peabody
June 25, 2015
Edgar “Bill” Peabody passed away on June 21, 2015, with his loving wife Roslyn Ivanoff at his side. He was born in Vienna, VA, to Edgar and Elizabeth Peabody on August 5, 1930, and lived the last 20 years of his life in Pensacola. After graduation from Fairfax High School with the Class of 1948, Ed briefly attended college until the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 at which time he joined the U.S. Army as a member of the Military Police, receiving multiple awards for his service. From 1963-1995, Ed worked for the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) as a Commissary Management Specialist. Ed received several commendations for his work for the Federal Government. He retired from government service at Fort Lee, VA, in 1995.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Edgar and Elizabeth “Bessie” Meyers Peabody and his brothers, John Stanley Peabody and Richard Meyers Peabody.
Ed is survived by his wife of almost 34 years, Roslyn Maloney Ivanoff; his three stepchildren André Ivanoff of New York, NY, Ashleigh Lynn Ivanoff of Albany, NY and Nicholas Ivanoff of Mill Valley, CA, his two grandsons, Alexander and Andrew Ivanoff Kahn of New York; his sisters, Mary Gaddis of Spring Island, SC and Esther “Ginger” Williams of Belleair, FL ; his nephew, Robert J. M. Gaddis of Miami FL, nieces, Alyssa Pascucci of Spring Island, SC, and Christiana Masucci of Far Hills, NJ, and Dale Fenstermaker, his close friend and a true neighbor of Pensacola.
Visitation will be held at 11:30am Thursday, June 25, 2015 with Funeral Services beginning at 12:30pm at Faith Chapel North in Cantonment with Rev. Bill Flannigan officiating. Interment follows at Barrancas National Cemetery.
Seminoles Up The Ante In Gambling Negotiations
June 25, 2015
The Seminole Tribe has given the state 30 days to strike a new accord about exclusive rights to operate banked card games and has put the state on notice that tribal casinos don’t have to shut down the games even in the absence of a revamped deal.
Wednesday’s letter from tribal chief James Billie is the Seminoles’ latest effort to force state leaders into negotiations about the lucrative card games and comes a month before a deal giving the tribe “exclusivity” over the games is set to expire.
Billie sent state leaders a “notice of commencement of compact dispute resolution procedures,” setting in motion a 30-day period for both sides to meet over the banked card games, which include blackjack. The dispute resolution mechanism requested by the tribe is included in a 20-year agreement, inked in 2010, that set out the parameters for the Seminoles’ gambling operations in Florida.
The compact also included a five-year deal, slated to sunset at the end of July, that gave the tribe exclusive rights to operate banked card games at five of its seven casinos. In exchange, the Seminoles agreed to pay the state a minimum of $1 billion over five years. The payments would stop if anyone else in the state offers the “banked” games.
“It’s my opinion that the tribe is utilizing these arguments and the dispute resolution provision to get into a room with state leaders in order to continue a discussion on the balance of the term of the compact and the operation of banked cards,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano, a Bradenton lawyer who helped craft the original compact. “From a legal strategy standpoint, it’s a good strategy. I disagree with the arguments that they’re making, but it at least gives them a procedural methodology to negotiate with the state.”
Lawmakers failed to approve a new agreement during the regular session that ended in May, and discussions between the tribe and Republican legislative leaders have gone nowhere this year. Gov. Rick Scott handed over the issue to House and Senate leaders after a deal between the governor and the Seminoles blew up in the waning days of the 2014 legislative session.
In Wednesday’s six-page letter hand-delivered to Scott, Senate President Andy Gardiner and House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, the Seminoles contend that they can continue to offer the card games with or without a new deal because of state-authorized gambling activities taking place elsewhere.
The alleged violations of the compact would allow the tribe to stop making direct payments to the state and instead deposit the money into an escrow account, Billie wrote.
“While the tribe could have exercised its right to do so immediately, it has thus far elected to continue making its payments to the state and, as a gesture of good faith, intends to continue making its payments to the state pending the resolution of this dispute,” he wrote.
Billie’s arguments included a claim the tribe has made for years regarding slot machines that look like blackjack and roulette, authorized by state gambling regulators at non-tribal pari-mutuels. The slots operate essentially the same as the banked games, Billie wrote, the only difference being that the cards are electronic instead of paper, “a distinction we assert is without a difference.”
The Seminoles also raised a new issue on Wednesday, however, about whether player-banked card games in which the “bank” is another player instead of “the house” — first authorized by state gambling regulators in 2011and now at play in at least three pari-mutuel facilities — also violate the tribe’s rights to exclusivity. “Banked” card games, such as blackjack, are typically considered those in which players bet against the house instead of each other.
But Billie’s letter asserts that the National Indian Gaming Commission considers player-banked card games to be a form of banked card games.
“That is a very arcane area but, as I read their letter, it’s not something that I find to be ridiculous,” said Steve Geller, a former state senator and attorney who specializes in gaming law. “This may be a way of forcing the state into negotiation. I tend to disagree with most of it, but I don’t find them to be open and shut issues, particularly if the NIGC (National Indian Gaming Commission) has interpreted this player-banked card game to be a banked card game.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Tate, Jay Players Named To All State Softball Teams; Wyatt Coach Of Year
June 25, 2015
The Miracle Sports All-State softball teams were named Wednesday.
Tate High School’s Tori Perkins was named the 7A pitcher of the year, and Tate coach Melinda Wyatt was named the 7A coach of the year.
Perkins and Casey McCrackin were named 7A first team. Rachel Wright, Hayden Lindsay and Lauren Brennan were named to the state second team.
In 1A, Jay’s Destiny Herring, Michaela Stewart and Harley Tagert were named to the first team, while the Royals’ Dana Blackmon, Samantha Steadham, Avery Jackson and Emily Dobson were named to the second team.
Pictured: Tori Perkins (L) shortly after Tate won the Class 7A softball championship, and Coach Melinda Wyatt (right) tosses a ceremonial first pitch for the Blue Wahoos. Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Jacqueline “Annise” Hastings
June 25, 2015
Mrs. Jacqueline “Annise” Hastings, age 83, passed away Wednesday, June 24, 2015, at her Brewton residence.
Mrs. Hastings was a native and lifelong resident of Brewton. She was a graduate of W.S. Neal high school and was a homemaker. She was a member of Catawba Springs Baptist Church. Mrs. Hastings was preceded in death by her husband, Louis Hastings; and two brothers, Thomas Dean and Mike Dean.
She is survived by four sons, Donny (Sandra) Hastings of Brewton, Terry (Vivian) Hastings of Flomaton, Jeff (Fonda) Hastings of Flomaton, and Greg Hastings of Brewton; one brother, Jack Dean of Myrtle Beach, SC; sister, Jane Crawford of Brewton; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
Funeral services are incomplete at this time and will be announced by Craver’s Funeral Home.
Aaron Louis Wolfe
June 25, 2015
Aaron Louis Wolfe, 21 of Cantonment, passed away Tuesday, June 23, 2015. Aaron loved spending time with his family, going to the gym with his brother, Chris, and spending time with his friends and his girlfriend, Mercedes. He was a fan of the LSU Tigers, Nascar and Kyle Bush.
He is preceded in death by his father, Ted Wolfe; maternal grandparents, Scotty and Joanne Scott; his granny, Marion Walker; uncle, Timmy Scott; and aunt Karen Hayes.
Aaron is survived by his mother, Lisa Medlock; step-father, Dennis Medlock; brothers, Waylon (Sara) Wolfe and Chris (Alyssa) Medlock; sister, Jolene Wolfe; nephew, Tallon Wolfe; grandpa, Carlton Medlock; many aunts, uncles and cousins; and his DKI family.
Memorial service to be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 28, 2015, at Faith Chapel Funeral Home North.
Faith Chapel Funeral Home North is in charge of arrangements.
James Nathan Cain
June 25, 2015
James Nathan Cain, 87, passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, June 20, 2015.
Nathan was born on February 27, 1928, in Escambia County, Florida, to the late James David Cain and Johnnie Lou Bogan Cain. Nathan is also preceded in death by his brothers, John Paul Cain, Jack Cain, and sister Marjorie Cain.
Nathan loved his family dearly. After the death of his beloved wife, Lana Barlow Cain, he raised his young daughters on his own. Nathan’s memory will forever be treasured by his children, Alicia Ann Cain of Pensacola, FL and Frances Janell Richards (David) of Warner Robins, GA and their children Lana, Amanda, Nathan, and Daniel. Also, a daughter from a previous marriage, Sally Lou Thomley (Glenn) of Piedmont, SC and their children Meredith, Diane, Christopher and Amanda; and five great-grandchildren. In addition, he is survived by his sister, Sybil L. Cain Majors, and brother, Jesse Cain, as well as several nieces and nephews.
A life-long resident of Pensacola, FL, Nathan lived a full life with many happy times. He became a private pilot at the age of 16 and continued to cherish his time in the air with family and friends until the time of his death. He was a former member of the Civil Air Patrol and the United States Marines and loved racing cars and boxing as a young man. Early on, Nathan worked as a stonecutter, making marble monuments for many area families. He later retired from Champion International Paper Company where he was employed for 37 years. Nathan lived on Blackwater Bay for many years and spent countless enjoyable hours walking the beach with his coffee cup in hand. He loved country music, especially Patsy Cline.
After losing his home to Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Nathan moved to Centerville, GA, near his daughter. He became an active member of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 38 and a regular volunteer at the Museum of Aviation at Robins AFB, making many new friends in the flying community.
The family will receive friends at Faith Chapel North Funeral Home located at 1000 South Highway 29 in Cantonment, FL on Saturday, June 27, 2015 from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. Funeral services will begin at 2:00 p.m. with Ministers Ward Serig and Diane Ward, officiating.
Nathan will be laid to rest at Sardis Baptist Church Cemetery located at 3888 Sardis Church Rd in Atmore, AL immediately following the service.
Former Lawmaker, ‘Country Doctor’ Peaden Dies
June 24, 2015
Former Sen. Durell Peaden, a soft-spoken Panhandle doctor who helped shepherd state health policy and funding, has died after suffering a heart attack early this month.
Senate Secretary Debbie Brown sent a memo to senators Wednesday morning informing them of the death of Peaden, 69, who served in the Senate from 2000 to 2010 and in the House from 1994 to 2000.
“Last night I lost a friend, cousin and mentor,” Sen. Greg Evers, a Baker Republican and cousin of Peaden, said in an email to lawmakers Wednesday. “It is with a heavy heart that I bring you the news of the passing of Senator Durell Peaden. Please keep his family in your prayers.”
Peaden’s family dates back generations in Northwest Florida, with biographical information in the House clerk’s manual indicating that a Peaden relative, John Wilkinson, served in the Legislature in the 1840s. Other members of the family also served later in the 1800s, in the early 1900s and in the 1970s.
With his soft, slow drawl, Peaden liked to describe himself as a “country doctor.” He was a well-liked figure in the Legislature and would, at times, aggressively advocate for health-care money. He said the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, which he chaired during part of his time in the Senate, dealt with “life and death” issues.
While in the House, Peaden — who was widely known as “Doc” in the Capitol — also took a lead role in helping establish a medical school at Florida State University. His pitch, at least in part, was that the school could help train primary-care physicians to work in rural and underserved areas.
Hailing from Crestview in the conservative northwest corner of the state, Peaden also was a leading supporter of gun rights. Perhaps most notably, Peaden in 2005 sponsored the “stand your ground” self-defense law.
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, announced to the Senate on June 5 that Peaden had suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized in Pennsylvania. Evers last week told senators that Peaden was recovering.
by Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida
Pictured: Durell Peaden.