A day to celebrate service to country
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A day to celebrate service to country

In three separate ceremonies over two days, the county paid tribute to its veterans. The first Veterans Day program was at the First Baptist Christian School on Friday morning, in the church sanctuary where the students there presented a traditional program of songs and readings, blending historical passages like the Gettysburg Address, the preamble to…

Commissioner Lockley dies at 72
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Commissioner Lockley dies at 72

Noah Lockley, Jr., who served for nearly two decades as county commissioner, passed away Tuesday afternoon at about 2 p.m. at his home in Apalachicola, surrounded by family, at the age of 72 A steady stream of friends, from the Hill neighborhood where he grew up, and from throughout the country, made visits over the…

Seafood Festival has visitors ‘feelin’ alright’
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Seafood Festival has visitors ‘feelin’ alright’

The 60th annual Florida Seafood Festival last weekend is in the record books, and while it didn’t break any attendance records, the turnout was pretty respectable. “Attendance was up from last year,” said John Solomon, president of the all-volunteer board of directors. “Many vendors I spoke to said they had a very awesome year.” At…

Get ready for the Florida Seafood Festival!
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Get ready for the Florida Seafood Festival!

Get ready for the biggest weekend of the year, as thousands of visitors will flock to Franklin County for the 60th annual Florida Seafood Festival. The weather is expected to be in the mid to high 70s, with no rain in sight, just plates full of oysters and shrimp and fair food. The festival, organized…

Finding a Way atop the world
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Finding a Way atop the world

Ever the adventurer, Ethan Way has “walked up a couple hills in North Carolina” and “was on a snowmobile in Colorado a couple times.” So naturally it made sense to climb the highest mountain in Africa and the highest single free-standing mountain above sea level in the world. Last month, the 51-year-old criminal defense attorney…

Porch Fest fills the streets
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Porch Fest fills the streets

It opened with the feel-good sound of the local ukulele band The Ukulillies, and it ended with the auctioning off of Dave Daley’s poster for the fourth annual Porch Fest, signed by each of the two dozen musical groups that played the three main stages and the 13 porches scattered throughout the neighborhoods of Apalachicola….

Abandoned water bottle helped lead to inmate capture
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Abandoned water bottle helped lead to inmate capture

When a Florida Department of Corrections officer spotted a man on a bicycle in Eastpoint Thursday morning, law enforcement officials thought he might be Robert Rutherford, the Franklin Correctional Institution inmate who escaped from a work camp detail in Apalachicola Monday morning. When they looked over the contents of a backpack the man left behind…

Trinity ordains its new priest
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Trinity ordains its new priest

From the very last pew of the overflowing sanctuary, Dot Hill raised her hand softly when the question was asked if any congregants had been present the last time Apalachicola’s Trinity Episcopal Church ordained a priest.  That ordination, in the 1838 sanctuary of what is now the second oldest continuously serving church in Florida, had…

Seafood festival to offer array of bounce houses
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Seafood festival to offer array of bounce houses

The upcoming Florida Seafood Festival, Nov. 3 through 5 at Apalachicola’s Battery Park, will have an array of bounce houses to keep kids from bouncing off the walls at home. In a news release Thursday afternoon from the Florida Seafood Festival volunteer board, the festival reported that a year-long effort to secure kids’ entertainment for…

UPDATE: Escaped inmate captured in Eastpoint
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UPDATE: Escaped inmate captured in Eastpoint

The search for a Franklin Correctional Institution inmate who escaped Monday from a work crew site in Apalachicola has ended. At about 6:30 p.m., Franklin County Sheriff A.J. Smith posted a video on Facebook of a handcuffed Robert Rutherford, 37, of Pasco County, in Eastpoint. Authorities have captured Franklin County escaped inmate 37-year-old Robert Rutherford….