Hurlburt Field – Airmen and senior leaders gathered at a dorm community kitchen for a 90-minute cooking class focused on personal and professional development at Hurlburt Field, Florida, Feb. 11, 2025.

The interactive event featured a hands-on cooking lesson and provided an opportunity for Airmen to engage with experienced leadership in an informal setting, while learning how to prepare a nutritious, cost-effective meal.

Beginning Thursday, March 27, Hall Road in the Berrydale area will be closed at the bridge over Juniper Creek to allow for bridge repairs. Work will be done during daytime hours. Weather permitting, this project is expected to be completed by April 10.

The FarmHouse Fair event on Saturday, March 22, featured speakers on homesteading, local sellers, food trucks, and music.

Ladies Skill Sharing founder Rachel Wallace hosted the event. She believes the traditional style of providing families with food raised, grown, or foraged from the backyard is a skill that everyone can and should learn.

Santa Rosa County Board of County Commissioners and the Santa Rosa County Library System will hold a ribbon cutting at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 9, to open the new meeting room at the Pace Library, 4750 Pace Patriot Blvd., in Pace.

A structure fire in rural north Santa Rosa County is now under investigation. At 8:40 p.m. Sunday, March 23, Munson Volunteer Fire and Rescue District were dispatched to a house off New Homestead Road in the McClellan community. When first responders arrived, the found the residence “fully engulfed.”

Join the Florida Division of Emergency Management for a virtual informative session on Tuesday, March 25 from 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. (Central Time) or 4 – 5 p.m. (Central Time) on the Elevate Florida program, a first-of-its-kind, groundbreaking statewide residential mitigation program. Led by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), this program is designed to protect homes and communities by reducing damage caused by natural disasters like hurricanes and floods.

Rachel Wallace founded Ladies Skill Share in January 2023. Now she has hosted several classes, and a large-scale event dedicated to teaching the community homesteading skills.

Ladies Skill Sharing is a women-based group that teaches homesteading skills. The group began because Wallace could see the need to learn and teach the skills that generations before us utilized in their daily lives and sometimes to survive hard times. Wallace believes there is power in knowledge and in wanting to share that with the community she founded Ladies Skill Sharing.

On March 21, Milton Police Chief Anthony “Tony” Tindell celebrated his retirement after 36 years of service.

On March 19, a 200-acre wildfire broke north of Chumuckla in Santa Rosa County. The cause of the fire remains unknown.

Santa Rosa County Commissioner Rhett Rowell has proposed modifying the Rural Protection Zone. If passed, it will help protect farmland and agriculture.

The Zoning Board will meet on March 27 to consider Rowell’s proposal. They will review amending the Land Development Code to repeal and replace the Rural Protection Plan Map, which outlines the Rural Protection Zone and the Rural Protection Transition Area.