HeadlinesDon Fletcher

AFD tackles simultaneous house fires
By DON FLETCHER News Staff Writer Sirens were a constant sound across the city around daylight last Wednesday, January 30, as firefighters from Atmore, Walnut Hill and Poarch battled two structure fires that erupted just minutes apart. Flames danced inside a mobile home as Atmore Fire Department units arrived at the intersection of South Road and Cross Road, about two miles south of downtown, around 5:50 a.m. Just as AFD…
Paying their debt
By DON FLETCHER News Staff Writer Back in the days of prison “chain gangs,” inmates who swung sling blades or axes along county and municipal roadsides were said to be paying their debt to society. The days of shackled-together inmate work crews have gone, but many inmates are still paying their societal debt by working outside the razor wire of a state prison compound. Atmore, with a three-facility state prison…
Truck sails onto tracks
Driver missed stop sign By DON FLETCHER News Staff Writer A Century, Fla. woman was seriously injured Monday, February 4, when she apparently missed a stop sign and drove her pickup across fog-shrouded U.S. 31, about four miles east of downtown Atmore, then went airborne, jumped a ravine and landed on a set of train tracks. The driver, Kimberly Kaye Clarke (reportedly “in her 50s”) was taken by ambulance to…
ECHS on failing school list
News Staff Report Escambia County High School has been listed by state education officials as a failing school and has been given an “F” in the second year of using a letter grade to assess the success or failure of individual schools. The grade is particularly tough to take this year since the school has shown overall improvement in other testing. In addition, ECHS has a 93 percent graduation rate…
BOE approves personnel recommendations
News Staff Report The Escambia County Board of Education approved the following personnel recommendations by Superintendent John Knott at the board meeting Thursday, January 24. Resignation 1. Dorothy Annette Morton, LPN instructional aide, Pollard McCall Junior High School, effective May 23, 2019 2. Eva Cheyanne Wilson, special education teacher, Rachel Patterson Elementary School, effective January 18, 2019 Employment 1. Kasuan Bullard, health / driver’s education teacher, Escambia County High School,…