Five years ago, 2019

• After raiding a trap house in Orange Park, sheriff deputies placed a sheet of plywood over a window broken in the raid.  On the board was stenciled: “You Had Options” with a steaming cup of coffee, which has become the agency’s message in its war to rid the county of illegal drugs.

•  Pockets of blue-green algae, also called cyanobacteria, were spotted and tested in multiple areas of Clay County’s large section of the river. The most common areas were Doctors Lake, Black Creek and under the Shands Bridge.

•  A homeless man was arrested at Dental Plus on Blanding Boulevard after he climbed onto a six-foot-tall statue of Jesus and spray painted the face.

10 years ago, 2014

•  Orange Park High turned to crowdfunding website SkoolWerx.com to help raise the $85,000 needed to repair the Don Hall track.

• Clay County Sheriff deputies wrongly extradited a woman from Louisiana who happened to have the same name, Ashley Chiasson, as a suspect for grand theft and attempting to defraud a financial institution. Days after the confusion, the actual correct perpetrator was later arrested. 

•  U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho (R-3), a veterinarian, volunteered at Clay County Animal Control.

20 years ago, 2004

•   The Green Cove Springs Police Department investigated a robbery at an Orange Avenue liquor store where the victim suffered a gunshot wound to the upper right chest and shoulder.

•   Construction got underway on Seamark Ranch, a home for troubled children, just west of Penney Farms off State Road 16. The facility was built on 468 acres donated by landowners Hawley Smith and Chester Stokes

30 years ago, 1994

•  The Clay County School Board wrestled with whether to vote outright to raise the property millage rate by a quarter mill – allowable by state law at the time – or ask the Board of County Commissioners to place the measure on that fall’s ballot as a straw vote to gauge public support.

•    Clay County Sheriff’s Office deputies retrieved the body of John Scholtz, 17, of Johnson, Fla., from Lake Geneva following a weekend incident. Police said the teen was on medication for a seizure disorder and may have had a seizure while swimming.

•  The Clay County Drug Task Force arrested 57 people during an undercover sting operation. Drugs seized in the raid ranged from marijuana to LSD. The youngest person arrested was 19, while the oldest was 63.

40 years ago, 1984

•  Florida Agriculture Commissioner Doyle Conner visited sites in the Keystone Heights area to determine what type of disease killed hundreds of live oak trees.

•  Attorney Alan Winter was sworn in as an assistant state attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit in which he would serve Clay County.

•  Rep. Frank Williams (D-Starke) helped secure $175,000 in state funds that would be matched with county funds to build a new branch library to serve Middleburg.

50 years ago, 1974

•  Appointed by Gov. Reuben Askew on May 20, 1971, to fill a seat on the Board of County Commissioners left open by the death of her husband, Otto J. Murrhee Sr., Kathleen Murrhee said she would not run for re-election.

•  The Clay County Zoning Commission granted a special use zoning classification to the Clay County School Board to enable the board to construct what would become Orange Park Junior High on Gano Avenue.

•  Officers from the Orange Park Police Department investigated the death of Patricia Raye Boyles, 16, whose bruised and battered body was discovered on railroad tracks near I-295 and Wells Road.