Today is the last day for healthcare providers to volunteer for the FREE Remote Area Medical Clinic coming up Dec. 2-3.

George Starkie took a roundabout road to the classroom, but Avalon Middle School’s Teacher of the Year is finally right where he belongs.

Matt Dobson, the interim pastor at Cora Baptist Church in Jay, was a Royal Ambassador as a boy in the 1970s.

Half a century later, he feels called by God to revive the program he said helped shape his life.

“I love my giant Pokemon card,” Matthew Franklin, 8, told a customer on Nov. 9 at Alyssa’s Kids’ Market in Pace. “I left it at home.”

On Saturday, Nov. 18, the Santa Rosa Band of the Lower Muscogee Tribe will open its new cultural center on the first day of its 2023 Creek Festival. It has distributed about 7,600 festival tickets free to students in Santa Rosa County schools, hoping to encourage the students and their families to visit the center, which incorporates state-of-the-art displays to tell the story of an ancient people.

At a time when the news media is reporting record numbers of teachers leaving education, Lauren Hinote chose to trade her career as an insurance agent for the classroom.

It’s worked out so far; earlier this year, her peers chose her as Chumuckla Elementary School’s Teacher of the Year. The first-grade teacher blames her sister, Ashley Drinkard, a third-grade teacher at S.S. Dixon Intermediate School.

The Santa Rosa County Commission unanimously approved the appointment of Sam Parker and James Calkins as chairman and vice chairman at its meeting Monday, Nov. 6.

Commissioner Colten Wright, the outgoing chairman, resumed the tradition of passing the gavel to the vice chairman; a year ago, Parker prevented Calkins – then the vice chairman – from his turn as chairman by nominating Wright for the job.

After further review, the Milton City Council agreed that the person appointed to fill former Councilman Jason Vance’s seat will serve only until Dec. 10, 2024; the city originally announced the appointee would serve the rest of Vance’s term, which ends Dec. 14, 2026.

Amber Murray loves what she does.

“I can’t imagine having another career,” she told the Press Gazette last week. “I live for the moments when a student has struggled with a concept for days or weeks, then it clicks, and it makes sense to them. It is so empowering knowing that you helped them learn a new concept or skill, and I get to see their self-confidence blossom.”