Five years ago, 2018

• School district students enjoy an option for lunch after the school board approves a $162,000 plan called “The Filling Station” to bring food trucks to schools.
• The Orange Park Town Council considers turning the home where former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate John McCain lived at Fatio Lane after he returned from Vietnam.

• Green Cove Springs City Council hires Steve Kennedy as its new City Manager. Kennedy previously was the city manager at Kennesaw and Americus, Georgia.
10 years ago, 2013

• The Green Cove Springs Soul Food Festival announces it will add a beauty pageant to its annual festival.

• The Florida Department of Transportation announces it will repave Knight Boxx Road north to Kingsley Avenue at a cost of $5.4 million.

• St. Vincent’s Medical Center announces workers should report to work when the hospital opens on Oct. 1.

20 years ago, 2003

• After considering a 10% utility tax, the Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to impose a 4% tax on electricity use and metered or bottled gas.

• Sunseeker Entertainment, which specializes in concert promotion, opens in Orange Park and announces legendary Percy Sledge, who sang, “When a Man Loves a Woman,” at the Florida Theater.

• Clay County Sheriff’s Office deputies uses its K-9 unit to find a man wanted for attempted murder hiding in the woods near Black Creek.

30 years ago, 1993

• Florida Education Commissioner Betty Castor met with St. Johns River Community College officials to celebrate a $675,000 grant to create a tri-county Tech Prep Consortium to usher in a new era of vocational training in public schools.

• Clay County teachers went back into negotiations after they demanded a 9.9% pay raise while the county offered 2.7%.

• The Orange Park Police Department arrested a Jacksonville man, Daniel Scott Flesch, after he was caught with five pounds of marijuana during a traffic stop on Plainfield Ave.

40 years ago, 1983

• Two Orange Park bar owners – Carl Post of Sea Diver Lounge and James M. Vincent of the Village Saloon, were arrested after they refused to follow a town ordinance to stop selling alcohol after midnight.

• Two Jacksonville men were arrested for breaking into three Orange Park churches – Assembly of God, Orange Park Presbyterian and First Baptist.

• An Eckerd Drugs sale ad offered a box of crayons for 69 cents and an eight-ounce jar of peanuts for 88 cents.