Escambia County 4-H Presents Annual Awards
September 22, 2015
Escambia County 4-H recently awarded youth, volunteer and club efforts in the past year.
Youth Awards
Beasley Junior Achievement Award – Leah Rutherford, Gracie Meredith
Intermediately Leadership Award – Dillon Conti
Extension Director Leadership Award – Allison Woodfin
Dave and Sylvia Timberlake Helping Hand Award – Danielle Tinker
Langley Bell Award – Tori Kelson and Karrigan Scott
Margie Gindl Public Speaking and Public Awareness Award – Amanda Tanner
Cecil Guidy Animal Science Award – Kaley Lashley
4-H’er of the Year Award – Jessica Conti and Hannah Thorne
Youth Standards of Excellence
Cloverbud
Nathan Jacobs
Senior
Emerald – Rachel Grammer, Tori Kelson, Amanda Tanner, Danielle Tinker, Michelle Tinker
Silver – Karrigan Scott
Intermediate
Emerald – Dillon Conti, Jessica Conti, Lauren Walsh
Silver – Raven Hollis, Ami Rodgers, Raven Thompson
Bronze – Avery DeStafney
Junior
Bronze – Tanner DeStafney, Brayten Workman
Volunteer Awards
Margie Gindl Volunteer Leader Award – Christine Rodgers
Jean Guidy Volunteer Award – Sarah Jane Conti
Volunteer Standards of Excellence
Emerald – Sarah Jane Conti, Christine Rodgers, Sharon Tanner
Gold – Teresa Myrick
Club Awards
Historian’s Book Award – Cool Clovers 4-H Club, by Ami Rodgers
Treasurer’s Book Award – Cool Clovers 4-H Club, by Dawn VanIderstine
Secretary’s Book Award – Barrineau Park 4-H Club, by Jessica Conti
Scrapbook Award – Escambia County Shooting Sports
Club Standards of Excellence
Emerald – Barrineau Park 4-H Club
Gold – Escambia County Shooting Sports
Traffic Shifts At Scenic To I-10 On Ramp
September 22, 2015
Traffic on the Scenic Highway on ramp to Interstate 10 (I-10) westbound was shifted to the the south beginning Monday night, Monday. The new traffic pattern will be in place until summer 2016.
Tsubooka Hired As Escambia PIO
September 22, 2015
Escambia County has hired Joy Tsubooka as its community and media relations division manager. Her first day on the job will be November 2.
Tsubooka has 10 years of county-level, direct media and community relations experience. Over the last eight years, she has served as the Santa Rosa County public information officer. Previously, she worked as a communications coordinator in the Escambia County Public Information Office, now the community and media relations division. Tsubooka has a BA in Communication Arts from the University of West Florida.
In her position with Santa Rosa County, she was responsible for creating and implementing seasonal campaigns, managing crisis- or disaster-related event information, as well as executing day-to-day internal and external communication strategies. Her communication work was recognized locally when she was selected by a panel of media representatives as the 2009 Florida Public Relations Association Pensacola Chapter Crisis Communicator of the Year and the 2015 Non-profit Communicator of the Year. She also serves as a member of the Florida State Emergency Response Public Information Officer Deployment Team, whose members travel to disaster hit areas to assist local governments with crisis communication needs.
The screening committee for this position was comprised of Escambia County Administrator Jack Brown, Assistant County Administrator Chip Simmons, Escambia County’s Chief of Emergency Management John Dosh, Pensacola News Journal Executive Editor Lisa Nellesen-Lara and WEAR Managing Editor Randy Wood. NorthEscambia.com Publisher William Reynolds was invited to be a part of the committee but was unable to serve due to time constraints.
Tsubooka was selected from a pool of 18 qualified candidates.
Panel Proposes Doing Away With ‘Red Flags’ In Pain Pill Rule
September 22, 2015
Pharmacists would have to get extra training and be encouraged to fill valid prescriptions for controlled substances under a proposed rule revamp aimed at ending the “pharmacy crawl” forced on patients who can’t get their pain medications filled.
But some doctors say the proposed changes to the “Standards of Practice for the Dispensing of Controlled Substances for the Treatment of Pain” don’t go far enough.
A Florida Board of Pharmacy subcommittee on Monday proposed scrapping the rule after hearing complaints from doctors, pharmacists and patients, like a four-year-old kidney cancer survivor whose prescription for pain medication following surgery was repeatedly rejected.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s insufficient,” said Jesse Lipnick, a Gainesville doctor whose specialties include pain management and who served as the Florida Medical Association’s representative on the subcommittee Monday.
The panel agreed to do away with the “red flags” included in the current rule and instead focus on trying to address pharmacists’ fears about filling valid prescriptions for powerful narcotics.
“The Board of Pharmacy recognizes that it is important for the patients of the State of Florida to be able to fill valid prescriptions for controlled substances,” the proposed new regulation begins. “Pharmacists should not fear disciplinary action from the Board or other state regulatory or enforcement agencies for dispensing controlled substances for a legitimate medical purpose in the usual course of professional practice.”
Patients like Robin Haas, who has undergone more than a dozen surgeries on her ankles and neck after two serious car accidents, sometimes travel to more than a dozen pharmacies in a frustrating quest for pain medications. The “pharmacy crawl” has also impacted patients who receive non-opiod drugs such as Adderall, prescribed for attention-deficit disorder.
Pharmacists complain that distributors are limiting their supply of narcotics, forcing the pharmacists to ration their limited stock to their regular patients.
Haas, who is prescribed Dilaudid for chronic pain, said pharmacists have demanded to see her medical records and “treated her horribly.” Going without the medications can cause patients like Haas, already suffering, to experience painful withdrawal symptoms.
“You want to die. You want to be dead,” Haas said.”Withdrawals and the pain, any two alone are horrible. Together, it is your biggest fear. You’re already dealing with this pain on a daily basis. Hand-in-hand with this pain goes depression. Nobody can have this kind of chronic pain day in and day out and not be depressed. Then you have the constant stress and the fear of worrying about, am I going to be able to get my meds to get out of bed at all this month?”
Flipping the rule from its current, negative focus to a more positive approach represents a shift in attitudes towards powerful narcotics, once a scourge in Florida, where travelers from northern states traveled down what became known as “the Oxycontin Express” to purchase pain medications from rogue “pill mills.”
“The changes will help ease some of the anxiety that the pharmacists have,” said Florida Pharmacy Association executive vice president and CEO Michael Jackson, who serves on the subcommittee and who helped craft the original 2002 regulation.
But the changes may do little to eliminate pharmacists’ fears concerning the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which has cracked down on drug stores in an attempt to shut down rogue clinics and stem the prescription drug addiction epidemic.
And the new rule won’t force corporations like Walgreens — which paid an historic $80 million fine related to dispensing of highly addictive narcotics — and CVS to change their policies and procedures, which may be contributing to the problem by making it harder for some patients to get their prescriptions filled.
“A regulatory board does not have that kind of authority to change what goes on in the (corporate headquarters),” Jackson said. “But what we’re doing here will help modify a little bit the behavior of pharmacists that are out there, to give them comfort knowing that this tribunal, this panel, this regulatory board of their peers are taking a different approach to overseeing what pharmacists are obligated to do under Florida laws and rules.”
The pharmacy board’s Controlled Substances Standards Committee could vote on the changes to the rule at its next meeting on Oct. 5. The committee has held two meetings on the issue since June.
While more education about Florida and federal law and an emphasis on filling valid prescriptions could help some patients, some subcommittee members balked at requiring pharmacists to document when they refuse to fill a prescription.
“If pharmacist x doesn’t like you because you have blue hair, that prescription will never be filled in that pharmacy chain ever. That is a problem,” said Harold Dalton, president of the Florida Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, who serves on the subcommittee that met Monday. “That is one of the things we’re dealing with. If one pharmacist is having a bad day, and they deny a prescription for that patient, and we don’t know why because we’re never told, then that patient will never get that prescription.”
But Board of Pharmacy member Jeffery Mesaros, who chaired Monday’s meeting, said that requiring documentation could slow down the process and exacerbate the problem. Pharmacists might be more likely to refuse to fill a prescription if they see that a few of their colleagues have already rejected it, Mesaros said.
“I think that’s going to create the red flags and create the crawl,” Mesaros, a lawyer and pharmacist, said. “It may create a cascade.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Scott To Begin Two-Day Recruiting Trip To Kentucky
September 22, 2015
Gov. Rick Scott will fly to Kentucky early Tuesday for two days of private meetings in Lexington and Louisville with unidentified business owners about moving or expanding to Florida.
There won’t be any warm welcome from the top executive of the Bluegrass State for Scott, who has already has lined up at least one Kentucky company to say it’s bringing jobs to Florida.
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, will be busy the next two days, said his spokesman Terry Sebastian.
“Gov. Beshear is meeting with a delegation of Taiwanese officials on a substantial deal for Kentucky farmers, as well as announcing an oral health initiative for thousands of Kentucky children,” Sebastian said.
Beshear, who has traded barbs with the Republican Scott over the economies of both states, has previously said the trip for Scott will “waste his time.”
But Scott, who is scheduled to be with staff from his office and Enterprise Florida in Lexington on Tuesday and Louisville on Wednesday, already is poised to announce at least some new jobs while in Kentucky.
Scott’s office declined to discuss the details of the announcement, which will be made Tuesday morning in downtown Lexington.
For Scott, this is his fourth “domestic economic development” mission this year.
Scott earlier went to Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Hartford, Conn. Each location, as with this week’s venture, was in a state with a Democratic governor.
It remains to be seen how successful these recruitment trips will be.
The Philadelphia excursion focused on the continued expansion of Wawa convenience stores in Florida, while attracting more maritime cargo highlighted the stop in Los Angeles.
Bill Johnson, president and CEO of Enterprise Florida, the state’s public-private business recruiting agency, acknowledged last week before a Senate committee that Florida failed to land a “significant” Connecticut-based company, one of “America’s oldest and largest.” He said the unidentified corporation didn’t want to go south of the Georgia-Florida line.
Scott and Enterprise Florida, in hunting for private businesses to expand or relocate to Florida, have been playing up that Florida doesn’t have a personal income tax and is “proud” to be a right-to-work state while targeting Kentucky’s “pro-union, big government policies.”
Two years ago, he wrote a public letter to Kentucky businesses about moving to Florida and two weeks ago Enterprise Florida started running an ad touting Scott’s upcoming visit.
The Louisville Courier-Journal, expressing some of the bitterness that lingers over Scott’s decision to move the headquarters of nation’s largest hospital chain out of Kentucky two decades ago, has used the words “poach” and “plunder” in reporting on the upcoming executive visit.
As CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., Scott relocated the company’s headquarters from Louisville to Nashville in the mid-1990s after publicly criticizing Kentucky’s tax structure.
by Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
Northview High Water Tests Safe; School Returns To Normal Water Use
September 21, 2015
The Escambia County Health Department said Monday morning that the water supply at Northview High School is safe, and the school has retured to regular water use.
Last Wednesday, Principal Gayle Weaver said a device known as a “backflow preventer” failed, allowed a chemical being used to test the system to flow backwards into the fresh water supply in a very diluted state.
From the time of the incident Wednesday through the close of school Friday, students were not allowed to drink the water or wash their hands. The school district provided hand sanitizer and bottled water for students to use, and the water was not used in food preparation.
Multiple samples of the water were tested Thursday and Friday. Those tests took days to complete in the laboratory, with the results first available Monday morning.
According to Escambia County School District Public Relations Coordinator Kim Stefansson, all water tests came back as safe.
UWF Police Search For Campus Assault Suspect
September 21, 2015
University of West Florida Police are searching for an aggravated assault suspect that was armed with a knife.
The attack on a female student happened near Pace Hall on the main campus early Monday morning. Police described the suspect as a black male, about 5-foot 8-inches tall, a slim build with a small Afro hairstyle. He was wearing a black and red jacket or hoodie, blue jeans, tennis shoes and had a white bandanna around his neck.
Anyone with additional information is asked to call UWF Police at (850) 474-2415.
He Sent You: Local Principal’s Facebook Post About Homeless Man Goes Viral
September 21, 2015
An Atmore elementary school principal, John Brantley, watched as the man, down on his knees, checked fast food bags in the garbage can outsid the Mobile Best Buy store. The man found a few fries here, a few bites of a an old leftover burger there. The man never solicited those passing by him for money and cleaned up the area when he was done.
Brantley shared his experience on Facebook, in a post that has now been shared over 1.2 million times in less than a week.
“My heart literally hurt for him. I am not someone who just hands out money or even helps homeless people because so many are not truly homeless. I don’t guess I’ve ever seen someone actually go through a garbage can to try to find food to eat,” Brantley wrote in his now viral Facebook post.
Brantley approached the homeless man and told him to follow him on his bike to a nearby restaurant. He bought the homeless man the biggest meal on the menu and fulfilled his one other request…a big glass of sweet tea to go with the meal.
“When I brought him his food, he was so thankful. He told me his name was Steve and he’d been homeless ever since his sister died last September. He was trying to get off the streets, but it was so hard. I told him God loved him and I would pray for him. He told me again how much he appreciated the meal,” Brantley said.
Brantley drove off, but he felt compelled to return. He went back and talked to the man, and bought him a McDonald’s gift card for future meals.
“He broke down crying. He told me that he prayed for me today! I wasn’t sure what he meant (I was assuming he was praying for me for what I did for him) so I thanked him. He said, “No, you don’t understand. I prayed that God would send someone to buy me a hot meal today,” Steve told Brantley.
Then Steve would say three powerful words.
“He sent you.”
“I didn’t know what to say…I was speechless! Praying for a hot meal wasn’t a prayer I had prayed today! Come to think of it, that’s not a prayer I’ve ever prayed! I always pray over my food, but I’ve never prayed for a meal…it’s expected! I’ve never doubted that I wouldn’t be able to eat…Tears began to fill my eyes! Oh my…how blessed am I… Maybe God used me to answer this man’s prayer…to let him know that He cares for Him and knows what goes going through! But, maybe God used this man to show me just how blessed I am and what I take for granted,” Brantley wrote.
Then Steve pulled up his shirt, showing Brantley a huge mass sticking out of his stomach. He explained that he was dying from cancer, and he knew it would not be much longer.
“I asked him if knew Jesus. He told me that he did. I asked if I could pray for him and he said that I could. We prayed right there on the sidewalk of McDonalds. Tears just poured from his eyes,” Brantley said. “I stayed and encouraged him for a few minutes trying to fight back my tears. My prayer is that I showed him the love of Jesus today…that something I said gave him a hope.”
Since that Facebook post, offers to help Steve have came in….including an offer from a doctor in North Carolina that has volunteered to treat Steve’s cancer for free. And there are plans for an online fundraiser, perhaps through his home church, Cross Point Church in Atmore.
So far, no one has been able to find Steve again. The Best Buy store and many others are on the lookout.
To read and share Brantley’s original Facebook post, click here.
More Policies Targeted For Shift Out Of Citizens Insurance
September 21, 2015
The state continues to squeeze policies out of Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced Thursday that up to 184,500 Citizens policies will be made available in November to six private insurance carriers through what is known as the “takeout” process.
A total of 181,909 personal-residential policies and 2,591 commercial-residential policies will be offered to Anchor Property & Casualty, Heritage Property & Casualty, Safepoint Insurance, United Property & Casualty Insurance, Weston Insurance and Southern Oak Insurance.
Not counting “takeouts” set for late October and November, the state had made 713,336 Citizens policies available through the process this year. Policies that are not moved into the private market in any “takeout” period are often offered again.
So far, 141,647 policies have been removed. Of those, at least 34,000 policies are in areas considered coastal, said Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier. A reason for the overall low turnover is that private insurers typically select the least-risky policies to remove from the state-backed Citizens.
Also, policyholders are allowed to reject takeout offers.
Citizens had 598,456 policies as of July 31. The overall Citizens policy count is a considerable drop from a high of 1.5 million policies in 2012, when Gov. Rick Scott pushed to scale back the agency by putting more homeowners into private coverage.
September Proclaimed Library Card Month In Escambia County
September 21, 2015
September was proclaimed “Library Card Sign-Up Month” in Escambia County, urging all residents to obtain a library card and use the services of the West Florida Public Libaries. Clifford the Big Red Dog stopped by the Escambia County Commission Meeting as the proclamation was approved and presented. Courtesy photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.