April

Clay County Regional Sports Complex Opens

MIDDLEBURG – There were so many times the Clay County Regional Sports Complex could have easily been derailed by changing politics, challenging budgets and a worldwide pandemic. But dozens of local and state leaders remained steadfast in turning 250 acres of scrubland into a premier destination for large-scale sports tournaments.

“More than a dozen tumblers had to fall into place for this to happen,” said former county commissioner Gayward Hendry. The ambitious project on State Road 21 near SR 16 came to life on Friday, April 5, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included the original and current county commission that championed the $7 million project, as well as current Florida Rep. Sam Garrison, who said former Florida Sen. Rob Bradley and Fla. Rep. Travis Cummings, along with current Gov. Ron DeSantis made sure Phase 1 got past the finish line.

“My role in the legislature for the last couple of years was to get a little bit of extra money to make this from a good facility to a great facility,” Garrison said. “I want to thank first the governor. This doesn’t happen if he disagrees with the $2 million we were talking about in the 2020 budget. You might recall that we had a little thing called COVID when that budget was passed, so the state budget was slashed to the bone. But the governor, because he loved the Clay County Fair so much, which is true, and because he trusted Travis and Rob, kept that money in the budget. We owe a big thank you to Ron DeSantis. That’s not just window dressing.”

Clay County Agricultural Fair welcomes record crowds

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – When they cut the ribbon to open this year’s Clay County Agricultural Fair, Executive Director Tasha Hyder was already thinking ahead to 2025.

Everything had been planned for months and was in place to make this year’s 11-day event “fair-tastic,” so Hyder focused more on exceeding expectations once again.

“This was the best fair I’ve personally been in during my nine years here,” she said. “Everything went very smooth. The setup was smooth. The 11 days were smooth. We had bad weather one day, Thursday, but it was early and moved out of the area quickly.”

Last year’s Fair attracted a record crowd of 157,000. More than 170,000 passed through the turnstiles this year, including single-day records for a Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. On April 13, the final Saturday, the Fair drew a single-day record 25,999 people, Hyder said.

Next year’s Fair will be April 3-13. Hyder said some new ideas would include celebrity showmanship contests featuring elected officials who showed livestock inside the Cattlemen’s Arena.

“That was a hoot,” Hyder said. “It turned out to be a big deal, especially since so many ‘celebrities’ participated in it.”

Another successful program was Our Fair Cares. With the help of Green Cove Springs Winn-Dixie Store Manager Mike Finnick and his employees and the Fair’s media partners, particularly Clay Today, nearly four tons of canned and non-perishable goods were collected for the Clothes Closet and Food Pantry in

Nonprofits had their turns to man the Human Fruit Machine to raise $2,100 for their causes.

Next year’s Fair will feature more animal shows, especially on Sundays.

Mission of the Dirt Road wins Reinhold’s Community Service Award

ORANGE PARK – One of Paul Reinhold’s favorite stories nearly 100 years ago is about three men cutting stones. The first told a passer-by he was cutting one. The second told the passer-by he was making $5 a day. The third stonecutter told the passer-by he was building a cathedral.

His personal and business philosophy embodied the foundation of this year’s $15,000 Paul E. Reinhold Community Service Award winner, Mission of the Dirt Road, at the annual Celebrate Clay Community Service Awards Banquet.

“They will be the first to tell you they don’t do it alone, forever mindful of all the help they’ve been given,” said Celebrate Clay judge and Reinhold Foundation Trustee Rev. Neely P. Towe. “Their journey began with one woman, one woman’s love for her hometown, especially her love for a low-income neighborhood in her community that had so much need. Having a cathedral with stones as a foundation is one thing. Of course, we applaud that. But imagine building a cathedral beginning with dirt.

“I get so caught up in this stuff with over 1,000 acres and 20 miles of dirt roads. That’s how she began. This is the size of the impoverished rural neighborhood at risk of becoming an area of total blight, and this mission has been intentionally chosen to center on making disciples through community development,” Towe said. “This mission operates as a community center and the church at the neighborhood’s main entrance. The neighborhood is rural and antiquated, lacking the resources and development to support the 500-plus homes (at High Ridge Estates) and families that live this mission and dream of transforming the neighborhood into a vibrant community. But that’s such a big dream.”

The mission in Keystone Heights is to offer free tools, showers and mentoring. It has rallied community and county support for food pantries, clothing, free coffee, Wi-Fi and medical services, and it prompted the Board of County Commissioners to designate the area as one of its three primary initiatives.

The Reinhold Foundation donated a combined $100,000 to 43 different Clay County nonprofits at the Thrasher-Horne Center.

May

School District hires 80 from hundreds at Job Fair

FLEMING ISLAND—Every elementary school set up a table with goodies and decorations inside the Fleming Island High cafeteria Monday night to attract a talented group of new teachers for the 2024-25 school year.

Some offered candy and trinkets. Others had squeaky toys and magnets. Every school official was energetic and outgoing. Everyone did an excellent job with the right candidate.

It was a dynamic market, with some applicants getting more than one offer. The Clay County District Schools prepared 250 job fair packets for the two-hour event, and they were gone with 45 minutes remaining. With so much interest and so many openings, another 20 were admitted for interviews.

School officials rang a red cowbell when someone accepted a conditional offer. At times, bells rang once a minute.

Kacee Wolfe used to live in Clay County, but she moved to Orlando. She came home to help her parents. She wasn’t sure what to expect at the job fair, but 30 minutes after arriving, she walked away with a position as a second-grade teacher at Argyle Elementary.

“I looked at the school ahead of time, but not really knowing the elementary schools around here, it was more of a blind choice,” Wolfe said. “Argyle was the only school I talked to.”

As she approached the cafeteria, two members of the Argyle staff approached Wolfe on the sidewalk and directed her to their table. Schools were very competitive in finding suitable candidates.

As Wolfe took the job, assistant principal Shannon Neese escorted her to the Human Resources table to complete more paperwork. Then, they posed for a photograph celebrating the hiring.

“I really liked her excitement for the profession and some of the instructional things that I look for in a good teacher,” Neese said. “She spoke immediately about standard-based instruction and building positive relationships with students. Those are some things we pride ourselves on at Argyle.”

Mara Rose Bruce leaves Fleming Island High on a high note

FLEMING ISLAND – Mara Rose Bruce always said her fondest opus was never found on a page of sheet music. It could be seen in the eyes and on the faces of her music students, measured by their imagination, spirit and passion, not their ability to play the scales or keep a beat.

Beyond music, her greatest delight was seeing hundreds of her students evolve into confident, successful people. She created encouraging and empathic relationships, using music as the conduit.

After leading the Eagle Band One for the past 15 years, the woman everyone knew as Ms. Rose took her final bow as the school’s Director of Bands.

After touching thousands of students, parents and onlookers with performances that took her bands around the world, a standing-room-only audience was treated to performances by the Symphonic, Wind Ensemble and Marching Bands in a night called “One Last Time: A Celebration of Mara Rose Bruce.”

There were tears and surprises, along with testimonies and outstanding performances.

Best of all, the community had the opportunity to tell Ms. Rose, “Thank you” for all she’s done.

“Ms. Rose was adamant that tonight was not to be about her and should only be about the students,” said Assistant Band Director of Bands Alex Buck, who will take over next year. “However, the students and I agreed that she deserved to have a night celebrating her. So I gave her no choice. Besides, here in about two hours, I’m the boss!

“Altering a famous quote by the composure Edgar Elgar, I say, ‘Mara, while your place at Fleming Island will be occupied, it will never be filled.’”

Under her direction, the Eagle One Band played twice in London’s New Year’s Day parade. They also traveled to Atlanta and Italy. The Symphonic and Wind Ensemble bands played at a sold-out Carnegie Hall last month.

BCC Grants Department reels in more than $106 million in 3 years

CLAY COUNTY – The Board of County Commissioners Grants Department was created during the COVID-19 pandemic to capture its share of federal economic stimulus packages. Throughout the pandemic, which was the deadliest in U.S. history, Clay County suffered from over 67,933 confirmed cases and 352 deaths, according to USAFacts.

Industries struggled to transition to remote work. In response to the pandemic’s disastrous downtown on the economy, the federal government passed the largest economic stimulus relief in U.S. history.

The commissioners recognized the importance of taking advantage of these relief packages and other grants, so the grants management department was founded in 2021. Megan Covey was hired as the Grants Program Coordinator. 

The CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act was signed into law by Pres. Donald Trump, a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package. ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) was signed into law by Pres. Joe Biden, an additional $1.9 trillion economic stimulus.

The BCC made $38.2 million from CARES and spent it all in six months to fund public health projects. Next, the BCC got $42.5 million from ARPA.

Some of that money – $3 million in legislative matching funds and $2.5 million in legislative appropriations – was spent on the Clay County Regional Sports Complex, a one-of-a-kind complex in Northeast Florida that is already booked for a host of national soccer, flag football, field hockey, spike football and ultimate disk golf events.

“There was not a grants department (before COVID),” she said. “That responsibility fell across all the departments.”

With a dedicated grants program, other departments can take advantage of sponsorships and donations, which are additional functions of the grants department. 

The grants department says it is managing about $106 million in awards, with $37 million coming this fiscal year.

That is a significant figure. The grants department set a lofty goal of $100 million in funding in five years.

June

CCSO gets new Rapid DNA machine to identify suspects within minutes

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The Clay County Sheriff’s Office’s newest weapon to stop crime only needs a little spit, not a gun or badge, to complete its job. The agency’s newest gadget, a RapidHIT ID System machine, will use DNA to prevent wanted criminals from being released before other forms of testing can identify them. Sheriff Michelle Cook said the new machine will expedite the identification of criminals linked to unsolved crimes and dead people during an informal presentation for Florida Sen. Jennifer Bradley last Monday. “This is so exciting. I can’t wait because I know the next evolution is going to be a crime scene instant DNA,” she said. “If somebody breaks into a house, there’s now an ability to swab it right there. We wanted to be one of the first in the state to get this because I want that to be the next step.”

Counties used to have to wait between 45 and 90 days for DNA results from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. By then, Cook said anyone wanted for another crime would likely have bonded out. The RapidHIT DNA machine can return a result in about 85-90 minutes before the arrestee makes a bond appearance.

“So that allows you to have that information before they get released (on bond). I mean, that’s a big deal,” Bradley said.

“Before they’ve got a first appearance because in that 90 minutes, we’ll actually get their DNA through (National Crime Information Center), and we’ll be able to match it,” said CCSO deputy Charles Harwood.

County Commissioners approve $6.8 million for CCSO to patrol classrooms

GREEN COVE SPRINGS — The Clay County School Board will move forward with their decision to reutilize the Clay County Sheriff's Office within its school system.

The Clay County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to implement its Interlocal Agreement with the Clay County School Board at Tuesday’s meeting. 

The agreement will allow for a budget of approximately $6.8 million, for the 2024 to 2025 fiscal year, to be allocated to the sheriff’s office to effectively transition and carry out their jobs within the school district. 

The total budget will go towards various purposes including salaries, retirement, benefits, training and education, uniforms and operating expenses. 

The approval comes following last year’s vote by the school board to utilize the Clay County Sheriff’s Office in lieu of the Clay County District Schools Police Department. 

The usage of the resource officers on school campuses dates back to the passing of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act in 2018. 

Following the Parkland school shooting, the act aimed to create a safer environment in Florida schools and made many safety reforms, including requiring the presence of patrol officers on school campuses. The new agreement and budget will officially take effect on July 1 and remain effective until June 30, 2027. 

According to the agreement, beginning on July 5, the school board must pay the county one-sixth of the agreed budget. For every month after, a payment of one-twelfth of the budget is required.

Green Cove Springs’ Caeleb Dressel qualifies for U.S. Olympic team

FLEMING ISLAND - With a packed church full of his Clay High brethren, Clay High's most famous swimmer, Olympic and World champion Caeleb Dressel, executed (his words) a game plan of magnitude by finishing off his precarious return to international swimming prowess by thrashing the 100-meter butterfly final at the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials Saturday night in Indianapolis.

"There has been three or four guys internationally that have finished the 100 butterfly in the 50 point low seconds time," said Dressel, who won with a 50.19 split over 17 year old Thomas Heilman (50.80) who also qualified to go to P17-year-old event. "I understand I have the target on my back for being the defending champion."
Also at the Trials, another Clay High state champion swimmer, Sara Stotler, now at the University of Tennessee and in her first Trials, finished 16th in the 200 butterfly (semifinalist), 34th in the 200 Individual Medley and 44th in the 100 butterfly.
Dressel now heads to the Paris Olympics with two individual Trials titles; the 50 free and the 100 butterfly, to defend two of his five gold medals from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Dressel won individual golds in Tokyo in the 50 and 100 free and the 100 butterfly plus two relay golds.