News Archive

For nearly 200 years, Bagdad Methodist Church has been a fixture of Santa Rosa County. The sanctuary has been standing since 1885. The congregation can trace its roots back to 1821, when carpenters and settlers gathered along the Blackwater River for Sunday service.

An Okaloosa County judge on May 11 denied a request from a former Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy charged in the 2024 shooting death of Senior Airman Roger Fortson to travel outside the bounds of his pretrial release, after Fortson’s mother delivered an emotional plea asking the court to keep him in the area.

Four years after narrowly losing to Kerry Smith for the District 2 Santa Rosa County Commission seat, Jeff Ates IV is back. This go round, he is facing seven other candidates, including Smith.
Ates is a lifelong East Milton resident and ran a dirt pit in the area for around 25 years. The pit has supplied dirt and other earthworks for projects across Santa Rosa County. He also managed hunting land in the 1980s and 1990s and currently consults for North American IPS, LLC.

Three people were injured on May 8 in a rear-end crash on Interstate 10 near mile marker 29, according to a news release from the Florida Highway Patrol.

Drivers who use the Pea Ridge Connector should be mindful of some partial lane closures that may impact your commute.

Pastors, public servants and community members gathered May 7 at Jernigan’s Landing in Milton to mark the National Day of Prayer, lifting up prayers for government, military families, schools, businesses and the media under the 2026 national theme “Glorify God Among the Nations.”

The Leapfrog Group, an independent patient safety watchdog group that has been grading healthcare facilities for over 20 years, recently announced its Spring 2026 grades for hospitals in our area.

On the last Saturday of every month, cars line up three deep in the parking lot of Olivet Baptist Church, where a small congregation hands out roughly 200 bags of groceries to families across Santa Rosa County.

Florida Power & Light (FPL) says they will carry out a broad action plan of infrastructure improvements in Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton Counties that will hopefully be more storm resistant, improving reliability for customers.

Every school morning, Margaret Bailey and her brother walked from East Milton to J.V. Turner School on Susan Street. Cold, raining, hot, it didn’t matter. The bus rolled past them on the road and kept going.