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Aging jail, drugs, funding new sheriff’s biggest challenges
By DON FLETCHER News Staff Writer Note: The following article is the second in a two-part series on Escambia County’s first new sheriff since 2003. The first appeared in the January 23 edition. Two weeks into his first term as Sheriff of Escambia County, Heath Jackson faces several challenges. And he has to face those challenges with budgetary resources that reflect the county’s financial struggles over recent years. “That’s another…
Judge Bert Rice
After 40 years on bench, venerable jurist ‘retiring’ By DON FLETCHER News Staff Writer After more than 40 years of hearing cases in Atmore Municipal Court, Escambia County Circuit Court and the occasional out-of-town courtroom, Judge Bert Rice is retiring. Well, sort of. Rice, who joined the circuit court bench in 2007 after Judge Joseph B. Brogden retired, presided over his first case as Atmore’s municipal judge on November 21,…
Davisville man killed
Shot by Fla. deputy By DON FLETCHER News Staff Writer A Davisville, Fla. man who reportedly threatened to shoot his wife was himself shot and killed, inside his home, by an Escambia County (Fla.) sheriff’s deputy who had been sent to the home to conduct a welfare check. According to a press release issued by Escambia County Sheriff’s Office officials on the agency’s Facebook page, a deputy was sent around…
Obituaries for the week of January 27,2019
Mary Geneta Woods Mrs. Mary Geneta Woods, age 80, passed away Monday, January 21, 2019 at North Baldwin Infirmary in Bay Minette, Ala. She was a native of Pike County, Ala., a resident of Uriah, Ala. for the past seventy-three years. She was a member of the Semirah Springs Freewill Baptist Church. She was preceded in death by her parents, Lucious and Ancie Bell Register Thomas; a grandson, Jason Sturdivant;…