If you haven’t registered to vote in the November election, it’s too late.

The registration closed Tuesday, Oct. 11. Locally this election will decide your District 2 commissioner and District 4 commissioner for Santa Rosa County. You will also vote on whether or not you want Holley Navarre Fire District to be able to levy ad valorem taxes instead of the non-ad valorem fee you are currently paying.

Our reporter and team member, Ken Garner contributed the following one of our other newspapers, and I’m sharing it this week in my column.

This week (Oct. 2-8) is National Newspaper Week and, while it’s relatively anonymous as far as “holidays” go, it is a great time to consider just how important local newspapers are to communities across our nation and the world.

Cooler temperatures are here and that means the bears are on the move. According to Florida Fish and Wildlife, (FWC) our black bears are joining their northern cousins in fattening up for the winter.

Black bears eat up to 20,000 calories a day in the fall. That means, they will be on the move and searching for good food “grub” even more than usual.

We will be experiencing a little louder “Sound of Freedom” this coming Monday – through Thursday, Sept. 12 – 15, when the 58th Fighter Squadron of Eglin conducts night flying operations in the area when F-35 fighter aircraft will conduct missions between 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Night flying is required for 58th FS training operations and we are glad they are receiving the training they need.

We are excited for the fun of the Beaches to Woodlands tour to begin as they celebrate their 19th anniversary of connecting north and south Santa Rosa County with events.

We hope you will take part in the fun and venture up to the north end of the county for some adventure there as well. There is an outline of events with dates in this issue.

This week we have included our Fall Sports Guide which will give you a lot of information on all the sports that will be played this fall along with pictures of the teams, rosters and the calendar of games that are currently scheduled to be played.

We hope you use it throughout the fall to follow your favorite teams or team member. We will be updating each week in the paper – of course.

I had a fleeting thought this morning when I saw at least five cars lined up at the corner of my house with parents and children waiting for the bus to arrive.

I wondered if my parents were throwing caution to the wind by letting me walk the .8 miles to school and .8 miles home from school every day in Orlando when I was 7 years old until I was 12 and moved on to middle school. The answer is no.

This election season seems very low key compared to years past.

We had a difficult time even getting some of the candidates to answer basic questions.

The truth is our currency: We must know the truth to make good decisions. The same is true for our community – they must know the truth.

This is our first core value for our organization and foundational to the remainder of our core values, one of which is personal responsibility.