Update: Local Girl Recovering After Portion Of Her Brain Is Removed
February 9, 2010
Olivia Bush, 6, had part of her brain removed Monday at Miami Children’s Hospital and is now recovering well, according to family members.
The North Escambia girl underwent the surgery to alleviate seizures that have plagued her since she was born as the second youngest premature baby to survive at Pensacola’s Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital. During the surgery, doctors removed a 7 centimeter portion of her brain — basically taking out the bad, non-functioning portion and leaving behind the good, healthy tissue.
She was out of the six hour surgery by 2:40 Eastern time, and by 6:45 p.m., she was awake, talking and moving her arms and legs. By this morning, she will be moved out of pediatric intensive care and into a regular room, according to father Tad Bush.
To read a Sunday story about Olivia, click here.
Pictured top: Olivia Bush resting Monday evening at Miami Children’s Hospital after brain surgery to alleviate seizures. Pictured left inset: Olivia prior to surgery. Submitted photos by Tad Bush for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Filling A Void: Produce Store Open In Molino
February 8, 2010
When Molino’s only grocery store closed a few years ago, it left a void in the community. There are a couple of convenience stores remaining, but a trip to the grocery store meant a 40-plus mile round trip toward Atmore or Century, or almost a 20 mile round trip to Cantonment.
Fran Hampton, owner of Fran’s Country Grill, decided to take part in an experiment of sorts to find out if the Molino area would support a local store again. The experiment is called Molino Produce.
As the name implies, it’s not a full-service grocery store, but an indoor produce market that offers a selection of staples like milk, eggs, sugar and bread in addition to produce. And it’s located in a former meeting room of Fran’s restaurant.
“Ms. Fran and I talked about this for a long time, and we saw a real need,” said Harlen Johnson who runs Molino Produce. “We wanted to see what happens and see if the need would justify a full store.”
The produce market has a full selection of items, especially for February, a traditional low-inventory month for produce. The store also stock items like sour cream, Amish cheese and butter, stone ground grits and a variety of Amish jams, jellies and preserves.
“The freeze in Florida has caused a little hardship for produce, especially tomatoes and even cabbage,” Johnson said. “But I’m working to get the prices back down as low as I can.”
As the weather warms and more local fresh items are available, the community can expect to see them in Molino Produce, he said. “People want to eat as healthily as possible, and fresh produce is one way to do that.”
“I think this store will mean a lot to the community,” Johnson said. “It will save that 8-9 mile drive when people can shop right here in the community. We are hoping to see a lot of support.”
Molino Produce is located next to Fran’s Country Grill on Highway 29. It is open Monday-Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Pictured top: Harlen Johnson and Molino Produce, next to Fran’s in Molino. Pictured inset: The store has a variety of Amish jams, jellies and preserves. Pictured bottom: Molino Produce has opened in the North Escambia community. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Byrneville Elementary Releases Honor Roll
February 8, 2010
Byrneville Elementary School has released its honor roll for the second nine weeks.
Students on the Byrneville Elementary School Second Nine Weeks Honor Roll are:
Kindergarten: Mrs. Barberree
All Satisfactory:
- Cody Adams
- Hunter Borelli
- Nevaeh Brown
- Bama Coburn
- Shelby Cotita
- Cole Dunsford
- Cameron Grimes
- Dalton Hanks
- Taylor Levins
- Paige Ross
- Dillon Spears
Kindergarten: Mrs. Dawson
All Satisfactory:
- Joshua Dunsford
- Kaitlin Gafford
- Eli Jackson
- Lillie McCall
- Torka Mills
First Grade: Mrs. Thornton
All A’s:
- Maille Kilcrease
- Heather Knowles
- Ty Rolin
A’s and B’s:
- Danielle Barrow
- Logan Bryan
- Sophia Cotita
- Maggie Mae Cufr
- Tyler Merchant
- Trevor Scott
- Tylor Qualls
Second Grade: Mrs. Lambeth
All A’s:
- Alex Glidewell
- Cloe Smith
A’s and B’s:
- Skyler Busbee
- Jacob Coleman
- Steven Cotita
- Jake Lambeth
- Kelli Merchant
- Kayla Turner
- Olivia Watson
Second Grade: Mrs. Rogers
All A’s:
- Ian Gifford
- Lea Nall
- LaurelSims
- Ashley Taylor
- Nicholas Trump
A’s and B’s:
- River Calloway
- Valorie Croley
- Hannah Merchant
- Tyler Newton
- Ciara Smith
- Hannah Wilcoxon
Third Grade: Mrs. Dunsford
All A’s:
- Seth Killam
A’s and B’s:
- Kris Baxter
- Matthew Caine
- Rebeca Diamond
- Grace Johnson
- Paige Killam
- Destiny Payne
Third Grade: Mrs. Weaver
All A’s:
- Colby Graham
- Tanner Levins
- Courtney Payne
- Olivia Porter
A’s and B’s:
- Austin Adams
- Jacob Borelli
- Sarah Nelson
- Lane Sims
- Faith Watters
Fourth Grade: Mrs. Gilmore
All A’s:
- Anna Belle Barberree
- Kayla Glavan
- Bailee Hinote
A’s and B’s
- Jenna Black
- Patience Newsome
- Alaina Rolin
- Meagan Reid
4th grade: Mrs. McDaniel
All A’s:
- Shellie Harrelson
- Beau Henderson
A’s and B’s
- Abby Hammond
- Jayda Warner
- Destiny Watson
5th grade: Mrs. Johnston
- All A’s:
- Raychell Baker
- Alyssa Bell
- Dustin Bethea
- Alyssa Borelli
- Dillon Clary
- Hunter Cofield
- Jessica Stacey
- Jacob Weaver
A’s and B’s
- Cameron Biggs
- Tommie Campbell
- Kaley Jo Cofield
- Kristen Johnson
- Hunter Lassiter
- McKayla Macks
- Blake Reid
- Reno Reynolds
- Mallarie Rigby
- Brianna Smith
- Caleb Therrell
Help EWMS Help Relay For Life: Submit Your Recipes
February 8, 2010
The Ernest Ward Middle School Relay for Life team needs your help in the kitchen — the school is organizing a cookbook and needs your recipes. To submit recipes, visit www.gandrpublishing.com with username “ernestward” and password “eagles”. You can submit up to six recipes by the deadline of Friday, February 12. The cookbooks will be on sale in May, with all proceeds to benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Molino Homemakers: Use A Potato Bag
February 7, 2010
A microwaved baking potato is much better when cooked in a “Potato Bag” — that was the lesson of the day at the February meeting of the Molino Homemakers Club.
The following was submitted by Terri Brown on behalf of the Molino Homemakers Club.
Being a creative homemaker doesn’t require a lot of money but it does require a lot of time and attention. This month the Molino Homemaker’s program was given by Nancy Holland on making “Potato Bags”.
These bags are microwaveable bags made out of 100% cotton material used to cook baking potatoes in the microwave. This material will not burn as the heat of the microwave cooks the potato. The inside of the potatoes will be well done and moist while the outside skin remains tender. The potatoes only need to be washed, dried, wrapped in a paper towel, inserted into the potato bag and microwaved. No pricking! Cooking time will vary depending on the power of your microwave and the number of potatoes you are cooking.
Each bag will hold 1-4 baking potatoes. When done let the potato bag air dry until you’re ready to use it again or machine wash and dry. They are also kid safe.
Of course it would be easy to order a potato bag off the internet but wouldn’t be near as interesting as learning how to make one from a club member. Potato bags sell on the internet between $5 and $12 each.
If you are interested in learning how to make a potato bag, please contact Nancy Holland at (850) 587-5464.
The Molino Homemakers Club meets on the first Wednesday of each month except July at Molino First Assembly of God Church.
Pictured: Molino Homemakers Club member Millie Brantley with a finished potato bag. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Grammy Award Winning Marty Raybon To Headline Northview Music Festival
February 5, 2010
A man that achieved legendary status in country music — 13 number one singles, 22 songs on the charts, a Grammy Award, and a CMA Vocal Group of the Year trophy — will headline an April concert in Bratt.
The Northview FFA Alumni Scholarship Fund and NorthEscambia.com will present the Northview FFA Bluegrass Festival featuring Marty Raybon on Saturday, April 3. Marty Raybon and a host of other area groups will perform two shows in the Northview High School Theater.
Marty Raybon is perhaps best known as the former lead singer of the country mega-group Shenandoah from 1985-1996. . He led Shenandoah to 22 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including thirteen number one singles, such as: “The Church on Cumberland Road” (1989), “Sunday in the South” (1989), “Two Dozen Roses” (1989), “Next to You, Next to Me” (1990) and “Butterfly Kisses” (1997). At the top of the charts, Raybon became known for his bluegrass and gospel-influenced semi-traditional country sound.
Raybon offers a full spectrum of vocal entertainment. His talents are unmatched, whether he’s singing country, gospel or his personal favorite, bluegrass. He has become one of country music’s busiest artists, performing over 100 shows per year between the United States and Canada.
He grew up in bluegrass and later earned acclaim in country music, so it should come as no surprise that the latest release from Marty Raybon and his band, Full Circle, bears the mark of both.
“I love bluegrass,” Raybon says with a passion, “and I love to see young people love it. I was younger than a lot of them are when I started playing, and I’d sit in school and try to draw Bill Monroe’s mandolin peghead. That’s how into it I was then–and I still am. When we go out there and see young people at our show, it makes us feel really good, and all we want to do, whether it’s at a show or on this album, is entertain them and let them feel good.”
All proceeds from the Northview FFA Bluegrass Festival will benefit the Northview FFA Alumni Scholarship Fund..
It All Adds Up: Northview Math Team Wins Big
February 5, 2010
The Northview High School Math Team placed second overall during the Annual JDCC Invitational Math Tournament Thursday at Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton.
Four of the top 10 winners were from Northview: AJ Lambert, Josie Doucette, Laneicia Gomez and Jamichael Carson.
Northview’s participants were: Emily Vickery, Holly Dickson, Justin Halteman, Josie Doucette, Laneicia Gomez, Jamichael Carson, Ty Randolph, Clint Davis, Dustin Lewis, Colton Sims, AJ Lambert and Seth Leonard.
Pictured top: (L-R) Northview High School’s winning math team Emily Vickery, Holly Dickson, Justin Halteman, Josie Doucette, Laneicia Gomez, Jamichael Carson, Ty Randolph, Clint Davis, Dustin Lewis, Colton Sims, AJ Lambert and Seth Leonard. Pictured below: (L-R) Northview’s top ten individual math tournament winners AJ Lambert, Josie Doucette, Laneicia Gomez and Jamichael Carson. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Desperate Hope: Bratt Native Holds Concert, Book Signing
February 4, 2010
Bratt native Candi Pearson-Shelton was among friends, family and fans Wednesday night with a concert and book tour stop in Atmore.
Candi was promoting her first book, Desperate Hope: When Faith in God Overcame My Despair, a book that chronicles the journey through the death of her brother Rick Pearson and the glory of God in the midst of the tragedy.
She and her husband Jonathon had been in California for about four months when she received the news about her younger brother who was living in Atlanta.
“We get a phone call saying Ricky was sick, a serious kind of sick,” she said. Forty days later, he was dead from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
Candy and Rick Pearson’s family found strength in a verse from Isaiah 40 — “A voice cries in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God…. Then every eye will see the glory of the Lord revealed.”
Drawing inspiration from that verse, she penned what would become the title track on the Dove Award winning album Glory Revealed, and she was soon on the album’s tour with artists Mac Powell, Shane & Shane, Brian Littrell and others.
After performing Glory Revealed during her Wednesday night concert at Grace Fellowship in Atmore, Candi sat down and talked about her book.
“I don’t really think of it as a grief book,” the Northview High School graduate said. “It’s a book about hope, a well placed hope.”
Earlier in the afternoon, she held a book signing at the First National Bank & Trust in Atmore.
For more concert photos, click here.
For more on Candi Pearson-Shelton’s book, click here.
Pictured top: Bratt native Candi-Pearson Shelton performs the title track from the Dove award winning album Glory Revealed Wednesday Night at Grace Fellowship in Atmore. Pictured inset: Candi reads from her new book Desperate Hope: When Faith in God Overcame My Despair. Pictured bottom. Candi held a book signing Wednesday afternoon in Atmore. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Northview Grad Promotes Book
February 3, 2010
A new chapter in the life of 1998 Northview High School graduate Candi Pearson-Shelton was opened Saturday night at the premiere party for her.book Desperate Hope: When Faith in God Overcame My Despair.
It’s the first book for the former Bratt resident, a book that chronicles the journey through the death of her brother Rick Pearson and the glory of God in the midst of the tragedy.
As Rick, her younger brother, battled for his life in the ICU, Candi Pearson-Shelton sat waiting and praying with her family for a miracle. The Scriptures were more precious to them in those hours than ever. As Candi. poured over the words from Isaiah chapter 40, a song was born.
A voice cries in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God…. Then every eye will see the glory of the Lord revealed.
The days and months and years that would follow Rick’s death in September 2005 would be painful, but Candi and her family found in the words of this biblical song a sort of mission—a call to find the glory of the Lord shining through the sorrow and to reflect that glory to all those around them.
The song became the title track on the Dove Award winning album Glory Revealed, and she was soon on the album’s tour with artists Mac Powell, Shane & Shane, Brian Littrell and others.
“The song was finished in approximately five minutes! It was a sweet gift, almost a confirmation that this was our promise from the Lord — that all eyes would see His glory revealed,” Candi wrote in her book. “Everyone involved in the record felt that this was no accident. God is about His glory, and His is about His Word.”
Candi had always been a musician, singing her first solo in church when she was just two-years old. At Northview High School, she was in the band, the chorus and performed in musical theater productions. She knew she was about music, especially music that praised the Lord.
“I’m a musician, and I didn’t know at first that the book was something God. wanted,” Candi told NorthEscambia.com after her Saturday night book release party at Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, GA.
It’s the same church where her brother Rick, then 23, served as worship leader. Leading worship was Rick’s passion, his calling. He was leading worship at a camp in Panama City during the summer of 2005 when he began to feel unreasonably fatigued. The first diagnoses were varied and none as ominous as the final diagnosis — Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
He was admitted to the cancer ward of a Georgia hospital on August 4, and battled a very public and faith centered battle against the disease until his death on September 9, 2005. Daily — sometimes hourly — family members would post the latest on his condition on his blog for the world to see. And the hundreds, if not thousands, would join the family in prayer for Rick and the family. Many, many of those were in the North Escambia area, where mom, Elaine and stepfather, Billy Holk still live.
“I did not start out to write a book, but God had a bigger story to tell,” Candi said Saturday night. It was not to be told through just her music, but through the book that was over four years in the making.
“I write these thoughts out of necessity,” Candi said. “There is value in recording the gentle whispers and hard-learned faith lessons that make up the aftermath, springing up like tender shoots of vivid green grass through the contrasting blackened dry soot. These are my blades of grass, the lessons in the aftermath, told with the heart of an adventurer fresh from the adventure, brimming with tales of terror and scars, of beauty and redemption.”
Candi, her husband Jonathon and son Elias now live in southern California. Candi and Jonathon have recently released a new worship album Sycamore Yet I Will Rejoice. She hopes to continue work and expand the project into a full CD. But for now, it’s the book.
Her book tour is planned — all three stops of it, so far.
“I miss it there sometimes,” Candi said of North Escambia. “It’s so much different than California. You can see the stars at mom’s house in Bratt.”
Every purchase of Candi’s book Desperate Hope: When Faith in God Overcame My Despair includes a free download of the song “One Breath, Then Another.”
“In the salty tears, we discovered the way through is to take one breath…then another,” the chorus of the song says. And that is Candi’s intention — to follow God’s leadership, one breath at a time.
All of the profits from the sale of Desperate Hope will go to the Rick Pearson Memorial Fund, a non-profit that exists to extend the hope of Christ to others by championing the interests and organizations that Rick passionately supported. Monies that are donated to the Rick Pearson Memorial Fund are used to help support organizations like Compassion International, Bigstuf Camps, The 410 Bridge, Passion Conferences and most recently, a scholarship fund for students who want to pursue a ministry of music with an emphasis on missions.
Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Cantonment Church Helping Haiti One Bucket At A Time
February 2, 2010
A Cantonment church is spearheading a countywide project that will provide hope to the families of Haiti, one white 5-gallon bucket of food at a time.
It’s called “Buckets of Hope”, a program of the Florida Baptist Convention’s Florida Disaster Relief program. The concept is simple — fill a clean 5-gallon bucket with beans, rice, sugar, flour, cooking oil and other essentials. It’s enough to feed a family of four for about a week, plus they have the bucket to reuse to haul water, store food items or even move rubble in the earthquake stricken land.
For less than $30, the bucket and food items can be purchased, according to Drayton Smith, associate pastor at the First Baptist Church of Cantonment.
“This is something anyone can do and know they are helping a family in Haiti,” Smith said. He hopes that other churches, schools, business and community groups will become involved in the bucket program.
You don’t have to be a Christian to be involved in this,” said Ronnie Gilmore, a First Baptist Church member. “You just have to have a caring heart.”
Florida Baptists are committed to helping Haiti in both the short and long term, Smith said, with help provided in over 800 locations across the country.
As Region 1 chaplain coordinator for Florida Disaster Relief, Smith learned of the program at a training session recently in Orlando. When he learned of the Buckets of Hope program, he knew he was ready to become involved.
“The Bible tells us to do that and help others,” he said. “We have a passion for the world, and we love people. We just want to share the love.”
The filled Buckets of Hope must be returned to the First Baptist Church of Cantonment by March 15. They are also being collected at Gilmore Services at 31 East Fairfield Drive in Pensacola.
Smith said financial donations, or donations of any of the bucket items, can also be given in lieu of a full bucket. He said 100 percent of material and financial donations go straight to Haiti; none of the money is use for administration or other fees. Florida Disaster Relief does ask that persons donating buckets also donate $10, if possible, to offset the cost of shipping the bucket to Haiti.
Every bucket must be exactly alike with a specific list of items inside. Detailed instructions must be followed exactly to ensure that every bucket quickly passes through customs and into the hands of the Haitian people.
For a complete list of food items and instructions on how to pack the bucket, click here (pdf).
Pictured top: First Baptist Church of Cantonment Associate Pastor Drayton Smith explains the Buckets of Hope program Tuesday morning. Pictured inset: Church members Barbara Reynolds explains how to pack a Bucket of Hope. Pictured below: The bucket and food items can be purchased for less than $30. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
