COLUMBUS, Ohio - Just outside his sealed bedroom window, beyond the chain-link fence that surrounds his next-door neighbor's yard, sit the reasons David Adams says he can't sleep: two bushy-tailed dogs that bark and howl all night. ...more

June 27, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - A 1-year-old boy was rescued Tuesday afternoon from a swimming pool at a home in the Willow Bend subdivision. Pasco County sheriff's deputies were investigating the incident. ...more

June 11, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - Paramedics are attempting to revive a 1-year-old boy who was pulled from a pool at a home in the Willow Bend subdivision. ...more

June 10, 2008

Hillsborough County maintenance crews spruced up medians on U.S. 41 one last time Thursday before turning the job over to state or private entities. ...more

February 20, 2008

Landscaping costs in the three Highlands County incorporated areas: (budgeted costs vary wildly, and shouldn't be directly compared, since most employees perform several tasks not connected with landscaping, while grant funding varies and pays for many improvements.) • Highlands County-$2.5 million yearly budget for landscaping of 40 county owned properties which includes the cost of a four-person, full-time department. • Avon Park-$52,000 of Avon Park city funding goes to contractor Cutting Edge, which maintains the U.S. 27 corridor, the Main Street mall and other city properties. Inmates perform much of the landscaping at no cost to the city, as is the custom in many areas of the county. Five recreation department employees oversee upkeep of the city ball fields with a $16,000 yearly budget. ...more

February 10, 2008

SEBRING — Green isn't the only color cultivated and prized by Highlands County groundskeepers. Eileen Beck, groundskeeper supervisor, oversees a crew of three county employees who trim, plant, irrigate, mow and maintain the 40 county-owned building sites, from nearly end-to-end. "We like to have color," Beck said, "and something is always in bloom." All three municipal libraries, the health department, the courthouse and the Agri-Civic Center are just a few of the rotating stops the crew hits at least once a week, or sometimes twice weekly during the rainy summer months. The landscaping around the sign at the Highlands County Government Center recently got a sprucing up from the crew. Marigolds, croton plants, Indian hawthorns and crepe myrtles, separated by mulch, surround the county marker. ...more

February 10, 2008

One of the Crystal Beach Community Association's biggest events of the season, its fundraising silent auction, will spark excitement tonight in this coastal village. The "Night of Wine and Roses" festivities will take place from 7 - 10 p.m., Feb. 9, at Town Hall, on Crystal Beach Drive. ...more

February 9, 2008

Imagine this most improbable of situations: Just under half of the people you know of, in this country, don't really care for you, or they dislike you in varying degrees and intensities, including hatred. About 10 percent of the rest of the people you know of think the sun rises and falls because of you, but most of them want something from you, which you probably can't give them, at which time they will fall into the remaining group that think you are "Okay," but they too want something from you. You have just graduated from an unheard of college with only a 2.5 GPA. You are a single woman pregnant with sextuplets, and you already know they all will be born prematurely and with special needs for life, and all their needs are different. ...more

January 11, 2008

We are a 55-plus condominium community of two-story buildings. Respective owners have enclosed most of the outside porches or sunrooms. The policy for years has been that the association was responsible for repairs to those units, screens, etc. ...more

November 10, 2007

Three local businesses have stepped up to save the flowering crape myrtle trees that line the median on a 2.5-mile stretch of U.S. 301 between Bloomingdale Avenue and Gibsonton Drive. ...more

October 27, 2007