Sunny, Upper 70’s Today
October 23, 2016
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 79. Northeast wind around 5 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon.
Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 49. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Monday: Sunny, with a high near 81. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 54. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Tuesday: Sunny, with a high near 84. North wind around 5 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon.
Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 57. East wind around 5 mph.
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 81. East wind around 5 mph.
Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 60. East wind around 5 mph.
Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 81.
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 59.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 82.
Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 57.
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 81.
Pope Appoints Tate Graduate As New Bishop Of Memphis
October 23, 2016
Bishop Martin Holley, a graduate of Tate High School, was appointed by Pope Francis and recently installed as the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Memphis.
“With faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the love of God in my heart, I do accept the pastoral care of the people of God in the Diocese of Memphis,” declared Bishop Holley after the papal mandate appointing him to Memphis was read. “I resolve to faithfully serve the Church in this diocese.”. He was installed during a ceremony at the Cook Convention Center.
After making his pronouncement, Bishop Holley was presented with a crosier, his shepherd’s staff, and escorted to his cathedral, his bishop’s chair – the symbols of his authority.
The crowd of nearly 3,000 who attended the Mass burst into cheers and gave a standing ovation as the new bishop of Memphis assumed his post. He was then welcomed by representatives of his new diocese, and by members of other faiths in the city of Memphis.
In his first homily to his new flock, Bishop Holley urged them to “love others as Jesus has loved us.” “In God’s love, we find the fullness of grace, life, peace and joy,” he said.
During his installation Mass, Bishop Holley noted that his episcopal motto is “His mercy endures forever.”
He urged the faithful of Memphis “to love and to bring the mercy of Jesus Christ into the lives of those who need to know His love and mercy.”
One of Bishop Holley’s first acts after officially becoming the Bishop of Memphis was to join Catholic Charities volunteers in assembling bags of food and other items for the homeless.
Holley was born in Pensacola. While his mother was pregnant with the future bishop, she, along with her husband and their seven older children, converted to the Catholic faith. When Holley was born on Dec. 31, 1954, he was named after the pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Cantonment, the family’s new parish priest. Bishop Holley is the 8th of 14 children of Sylvester and Mary Holley, both of whom are deceased.
Bishop Holley attended Catholic elementary schools and was captain of the basketball team at Tate High School, where he is a member of the school’s Hall of Fame, and then attended Faulkner State Junior College in Bay Minette, AL. He played basketball and earned a degree in management at Alabama State University in Montgomery, where he was named the university’s outstanding collegian.
Having felt the call to the priesthood from a young age, Bishop Holley attended Theological College in Washington and completed his seminary studies at St. Vincent de Paul Seminary in Boynton, Beach, Florida. He was ordained as a priest of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee in 1987.
In Florida, then-Father Holley served as a parochial vicar and later administrator of St. Mary Parish in Fort Walton Beach. He also served at St. Paul and Little Flower parishes in Pensacola. He served as spiritual director of the Serra Club of West Florida, which promotes vocations to the priesthood, and since 1983, he has been a member of the Joint Conference of the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus.
Bishop Holley was ordained as a bishop of Washington in 2004 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.
Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Hundreds Attend Williams Station Day; Dancers Dazzle Crowd (With Gallery)
October 23, 2016
Hundreds attended the annual Williams Station Day in Atmore Saturday, including a large crowd for the day’s entertainment — including Twirl Time and the Northview High School Dance Team.
Williams Station Day takes its name from Atmore’s early history when in 1866 the community was a supply stop along the Mobile and Great Northern railroad. Festival-goers were entertained by a wide variety of musical acts, and a wide variety of arts and crafts were also available
For a photo gallery, click here.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
It’s a Tradition: Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere (With Photo Gallery)
October 23, 2016
Looking for a pumpkin? The Allen Memorial United Methodist Church Men’s Pumpkin Patch is open once again this year at the corner of Highway 29 and Neal Road in Cantonment. Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes are available, with some priced as low as $1. The pumpkin patch is open daily from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Organizers said hundreds of pumpkins have been sold far this year.
The church held its annual Fall Festival on Saturday with free activities for children, and plenty of food from the Methodist Men, including smoked turkey legs.
For a photo gallery, click here.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Northview Tribal Beat Earns Overall Superior At Dixieland Band Competition
October 23, 2016
The Northview High School Tribal Beat Band received an overall Superior rating Saturday during the Dixieland Band Competition at at T.R. Miller High School in Brewton.
The Tribal Beat earned a “1″ rating for drum major, percussion and music, and a “2″ rating for majorettes/color guard.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Gary Amerson, click to enlarge.
Forest Service Continues To Warn Against Outdoor Burning
October 23, 2016
The Florida Forest Service is continuing to warn residents of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties not to conduct any outdoor burning for the next few days.
The entire area is in the midst of of an extended dry spell, plus a passing cold front brought higher winds and lower humidity. There is no rain in the forecast for at least the next week.
Even well-intended backyard fires can be very dangerous, according to the Forest Service.
“Cleaning up is fine but we would recommend that folks not burn their yard debris until we see some relief,” said David Smith, operations administrator for the Florida Forest Service’s Blackwater District. The Forest Service has also suspended permits for large piles and acreage burns.
Pictured: A brush fire burned about an acre on Handy Road in Cantonment Saturday afternoon. NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
UWF Defense Grounds Hawks
October 23, 2016
A week after recording school records for total offense and scoring, the UWF defense put on a show by limiting Shorter to just 98 total yards in a 36-0 victory on Homecoming Saturday at Blue Wahoos Stadium.
With the offense struggling to get into a rhythm in the early going, the defense was as strong as it has been all season, forcing the visitors into four 3-and-out offensive series’, two turnovers on downs and an interception in the first 30 minutes. The second half saw more of the same with six punts and another interception.
UWF (5-3, 3-2 Gulf South) sacked two Shorter quarterbacks five times and pressured them into hurried throws on numerous occasions. Shorter (0-7, 0-5) was held to 98 yards of total offense – its third lowest total this season and it fewest since the third game of the year. The Hawks were shutout for the fourth time in 2016.
UWF held a 10-0 lead at the half before turning things up on offense after the intermission. The Argos used long scoring plays to stretch the lead to 23-0 near the end of the third quarter. Kaleb Nobles found Caleb Robinson on for a 42-yard touchdown before Kevin Grant outran the Shorter defense on a 56-yard strike.
The Argonauts had one of their strongest rushing attacks of the season, finishing with 143 yards on 36 attempts. The final two scores of the game came on the ground when Chris Schwarz reached paydirt from 20 yards out and Tim Bellinger closed out the scoring with a 15-yard run in the closing minutes. Schwarz finished with 32 yards and Bellinger had 38.
Daviante Sales led five Argo backs with 44 yards on 14 carries. No other tailback carried the ball more than five times in a balanced offense.
Nobles threw for 324 yards on 30-for-50 passing with three touchdowns and 19 yards rushing. On offense, UWF totaled 470 yards on 87 plays – one snap shy of a season high.
John Williamson led the UWF defense with six tackles, two sacks, another stop behind the line of scrimmage and a quarterback hurry.
UWF will be back in action next Saturday, Oct. 29 when it plays host to West Alabama (5-3, 5-1)
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: Beginning To Look Familiar
October 23, 2016
A major figure in the Clinton White House visited Florida this week as part of a bid for the presidency. The two political parties fought over election rules in court. And there was talk of a rigged election.
Welcome back to 2000.
There are some significant differences between the storylines of the current day and those of 16 years ago. It’s now former First Lady (and, since then, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton running for office, instead of then-Vice President Al Gore. The fights in court are about the rules before the votes are counted rather than after. And talk of a vast conspiracy to fix the results was mostly confined to the fringes back then; this year, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has taken up the mantle.
Still, it was hard to look at it all and not consider the idea often attributed to Mark Twain that while history doesn’t repeat itself, it does rhyme.
Floridians hope that rhyming is all there is. The last thing anyone wants is for 2000 to repeat itself for real.
SIX YEARS — BARRING DIVINE INTERVENTION
The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Marco Rubio and Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy has remained largely in the shadows this year as Clinton and Trump have fought over Florida’s 29 electoral votes. But the race began to emerge this week with the first of what now looks to be two debates between Rubio and Murphy.
The headline of the debate was Rubio coming as close as he has to committing to serve the entirety of a second term in the Senate — unless a higher authority weighs in.
“I’m going to serve in the Senate for the next six years, God willing,” Rubio said.
It was pushback against one of Murphy’s most persistent charges against Rubio — that the Republican all but abandoned his seat to run for president in 2016 and might do so again in 2020 if Trump fails to capture the White House, as looks increasingly likely.
Rubio’s comment appeared to catch Murphy off guard. A few moments later, the Democrat rattled off that Rubio still hadn’t vowed to “commit to serving a full term,” as he responded to a question about his own business career.
“That’s a line he practiced before I said what I actually said today,” remarked Rubio.
There was a note of irony to the call-out, given that Rubio’s presidential campaign stumbled badly after he repeated a line almost verbatim four times at a debate, something that N.J. Gov. Chris Christie was quick to point out.
But 2016 politics is still 2016 politics, and Trump loomed over the debate. Murphy slammed Rubio for refusing to unendorse the Republican candidate despite offensive comments about women, immigrants and others.
“If you can’t stand up to Donald Trump as a candidate, how in the world are you going to stand up to him as the president of the United States?” Murphy asked. “This is about what he’s done. Think of how unqualified he is. Just a couple of weeks (ago) it came out that he’s violated the (Cuba) embargo, something that I know you care a lot about. And you still stand by his side.”
Rubio, repeated a line he rolled out prior to the debate, that neither presidential candidate is inspirational. And that while he disagrees with a lot of what Trump says and does, Rubio said he disagrees with everything from Clinton.
“I don’t trust either one of them, and the job of a U.S. senator is not to blindly follow the president because they happen to be from your own party,” Rubio said.
For the record, Rubio rejected Trump’s assertions that the presidential election could be rigged. Whether his attempts to distance himself from the nominee are working is questionable after a new poll this week showed the Senate race is essentially a dead heat.
Rubio led by two points, 49 percent to 47 percent, in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted before the debate. That’s well within the poll’s margin of error.
DO YOU KNOW ‘JIU-JITSU’?
Groups that support solar power and oppose Amendment 1 on this year’s ballot have long argued that the utility-backed initiative is not exactly on the up-and-up. Now, an official with a Tallahassee-based think tank might have given them some evidence.
The Miami Herald first reported on an audio tape in which James Madison Institute Vice President of Policy Sal Nuzzo described how to use a “little bit of political jiu-jitsu” by promoting solar to win support for desired changes in policy. His comments came while speaking Oct. 2 at the “Energy/Environment Leadership Summit” in Nashville, Tenn.
“The point I would make, maybe the takeaway, is as you guys look at policy in your state or constitutional ballot initiatives in your state, remember this: Solar polls very well,” Nuzzo said on the tape, which has been posted online.
Amendment 1 foes jumped on a tape as evidence of utility-industry efforts to deceive voters.
“Amendment 1 is a con job and scam perpetuated on Florida voters,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, on a conference call following the tape’s release. “And we just have to get that word out.”
But the group Consumers for Smart Solar, which has led efforts to pass the proposed constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot, said the James Madison Institute wasn’t involved in planning or drafting the proposal.
Meanwhile, the James Madison Institute said Nuzzo misspoke about the conservative think tank having any role with Consumers for Smart Solar. The institute supports the initiative, which it says would provide consumer protection.
The Consumers for Smart Solar amendment would enshrine in the Florida Constitution existing rules regarding the use of solar energy by private property owners.
The proposal also includes a more contentious provision, which states that those who haven’t installed solar on their property “are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do.”
Proponents say the second provision provides consumer protections for people who don’t install solar panels. Opponents say it could result in “discriminatory charges” against rooftop solar users and limit the desire of people to go solar.
VOTING WRITES
While candidates and advocates were fighting for votes, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker was refereeing fights over how Floridians can cast ballots. The judge has been saddled with the task of wrangling order out of a pair of cases that could help decide the outcome of the Nov. 8 elections.
He opened the week by blasting a state law regarding vote-by-mail ballots as “indefensible” and arguing it threatened to disenfranchise voters.
The 30-page ruling focused on situations in which voters’ signatures submitted with mail-in ballots do not appear to match signatures on file with county supervisors of elections. Under a 2004 law, such mail-in ballots are rejected.
But siding with the Florida Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee in a lawsuit filed against Secretary of State Ken Detzner, Walker issued a preliminary injunction ordering a process that would allow voters to resolve questions about such “mismatched signature ballots” — and have the ballots counted.
A key part of Walker’s ruling was that state law has allowed voters a process to fix — or, in legal parlance, “cure” — vote-by-mail ballots that do not include signatures. But it has not allowed a similar process for when signatures do not appear to match.
“It is illogical, irrational, and patently bizarre for the state of Florida to withhold the opportunity to cure from mismatched-signature voters while providing that same opportunity to no-signature voters,” Walker wrote. “And in doing so, the state of Florida has categorically disenfranchised thousands of voters arguably for no reason other than they have poor handwriting or their handwriting has changed over time.”
Walker, meanwhile, rejected Democrats’ efforts to draw him back into a case on voter registration after the judge ordered a one-week extension in the deadline for Floridians to sign up to cast ballots.
Siding with Detzner, Walker turned aside a request that he order elections officials to do more in processing tens of thousands of forms that poured in after the judge gave voters more time to register following Hurricane Matthew.
Democrats wanted Walker to call for more forceful action to make sure that all new, legal voter registration forms were verified by Sunday, the day before early voting starts in 50 of Florida’s 67 counties. They also wanted Detzner to be required to issue updated lists of registered voters as the process continues and for the judge “to clarify” that voters whose forms were still being verified could cast regular ballots, instead of provisional ones.
But Detzner and local elections officials argued that it would be difficult to process the registrations any faster and dismissed as implausible other ideas like having poll workers call to check on the status of pending registration forms.
“We can’t work people any harder, and we don’t have any more people,” said Bob Pass, an attorney for Detzner.
STORY OF THE WEEK: The U.S. Senate race between Sen. Marco Rubio and Congressman Patrick Murphy started shaping up as the two traded fire at a debate, and polls in the contest appeared to tighten.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We have 67 counties in this state, each of which conduct their own elections. I promise you there is not a 67-county conspiracy to rig this election.”—U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, trying to tamp down talk of fixed elections, during a Senate debate Monday.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Driver Escapes Injury In Morning Crash
October 22, 2016
The driver of Ford Explorer escaped injury in a single vehicle rollover accident Saturday morning on Highway 95A north of Barrineau Park Road.
The female driver, lost control, ran off the roadway and over turned. She refused medical treatment at the scene.
The accident is under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
Great Fall Weather: Low 70’s Today, About 40 Tonight
October 22, 2016
Here is your official North Escambia area forecast:
Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 73. Light northwest wind becoming north 5 to 10 mph in the morning.
Saturday Night: Clear, with a low around 40. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 81. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph.
Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 48. South wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 82. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 50. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm.
Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph in the afternoon.
Tuesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. East wind around 5 mph.
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 83.
Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 54.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 82.
Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 53.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 84.