Why is it that when I'm sick I revert to being a child again? When I don't feel well, all I want is for my mama to come and bring me chicken soup and lay her cool hand on my forehead and tell me it's going to be all right. It doesn't matter that I'm a mother myself now and my mother is 80 years old. When I'm sick, in body or in spirit, no one can make it better like she can. I wonder. Do my children feel that way about me? They're adults now. They have lives of their own and "significant others" to comfort and cheer them. Maybe they really don't need me now. ...more

May 24, 2008

Euphoria turned to season-ending heartbreak in the matter of a minute for the River Ridge Lady Knights Thursday night in their home regional quarterfinal match with Newsome High. ...more

January 25, 2008

PALMETTO — Very few times in a sporting career do you get a chance at redemption, but on a very cold Monday night, the Avon Park girls soccer team had an opportunity to erase a whole year's worth of "what-ifs" in an instant. Those questions that arose from the ashes of No. 4 seed Avon Park's shootout loss to Braden River in last year's Class 4A-District 10 tournament were answered when senior Alex Brock's shot went high over Brittany Perez's head and sealed the 4-2 win over the No. 5 seed Bulldogs at Harllee Stadium. ...more

January 16, 2008

Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army. ...more

January 13, 2008

Oliver Bernsdorff threatened to kill his ex-wife, their children and himself if he couldn't have their family back the way it used to be, Largo police Lt. Mike Loux said in a statement Saturday. ...more

December 15, 2007

Betty Knowles is tired of lost possibilities and faded promise. As a social worker, Knowles often hears about children who start out bright but lose their way. Her son Tedric, or "Teddy," was like that, she said, gifted in math and foreign languages before ending up in a state prison. He died a few months after his release, in a drive-by shooting in Port Tampa that remains unsolved. ...more

December 13, 2007

Whatever one thinks of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's jurisprudence, one can only admire the way she has handled her beloved husband's surrender to Alzheimer's Disease. ...more

November 16, 2007

The lifetime of an animal is short compared to that of a person. So why is our grief so heavy when pets die? ...more

October 14, 2007

AVON PARK — Homecoming is a time for celebration for students, players and alumni, but for the Avon Park Red Devils, it was filled with heartbreak. ...more

October 7, 2007