North Okaloosa residents have dealt with some difficult times lately.

Crestview police have enlisted the FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help find Karl R. Menz and Virginia M. Lynch, who allegedly kidnapped 3-year-old Emmanuel Menz on Thursday at the South Ferdon Boulevard Burger King.

The incident followed a visit with a Department of Children and Families supervisor, who used the restroom as suspects reportedly orchestrated the kidnapping, police said.

Police first searched for a 2009 Dodge Caravan, but soon said the couple vacated that vehicle at a nearby Cracker Barrel and fled in a U-Haul van they rented from Fort Walton Beach a day before the incident.  

Authorities are still investigating the incident, and local media have received no updates other than to look out for a U-Haul van with an Arizona tag and B-E- 5700 R- marked on the sides.

In other news, our Facebook fans had plenty to say when Thomas Biddle, a 29-year-old Crestview man, was charged with throwing a missile into a vehicle in a road rage related incident that Okaloosa County Sheriff's deputies said could have caused great bodily harm or death.

The missile — in this case, a water bottle — hit the chest of a motorcycle traveling approximately 70 miles an hour.

And today, we mourn the loss of Samuel Cornish, a 35-year-old found lying on the shoulder of South Ferdon Boulevard on Saturday with a stab wound to his chest, police said.

Cornish was walking along the roadway just north of Duggan Avenue before collapsing from his injuries, witnesses said. He died shortly after being taken to North Okaloosa Medical Center.

Whether it's the kidnapping, the missile incident or Cornish's death, it's distressing.

In smaller cities, we expect less crime. Fortunately, that seems to be the case in Crestview compared to larger metropolitan areas. But we as residents become particularly concerned when murder occurs.

Some Facebook fans immediately expressed that they were stunned by the kidnapping and fatal stabbing, and called others to respect each other more.

One woman said, "This is the real world, not Mayberry" and it's important to determine the best way to protect loved ones from harm.

Both sentiments have merit, but I would challenge the statement that this is not Mayberry.

Why not?

Granted, no town can match a 1960s sitcom's seemingly idyllic, aw-shucks, nothing-to-worry-about-but-what-to-serve-for-supper setting, but why should the expectation be that Crestview has a significant potential for crime or division?

Why shouldn't serious crimes and dysfunction be the exception?

This doesn't mean everyone should wear rose-colored glasses; it does mean that everyone, if they're not doing so already, could find the Mayberry within themselves, think of others and be more charitable.

We shouldn't speculate on what happened Saturday and why, but we should respect others' basic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We should remember that everyone here is someone's brother or sister, son or daughter, nephew or niece, grandson or granddaughter, best friend, spouse or role model.

You've probably heard of paying it forward; how every good deed begets another good deed, and creates a chain reaction.

Well, it works the opposite way, too. Every ill word, violent action or — in the worst case scenario — senseless death affects an extended family of loved ones, friends and acquaintances who struggle with loss.

It's important to remember this before a cross word passes our lips or a hand rises to strike.

What's your view? Write a letter to the editor or tweet News Bulletin Editor Thomas Boni @cnbeditor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: EDITOR'S DESK: Let's find the Mayberry within Crestview

As pulmonary physicians, we see patients every day who struggle to breathe. Those experiences lead us to not only treat, but to advocate for our patients with lung disease.  We also speak up for the millions of infants, children, teenagers and seniors who face threats from the air they breathe.

That’s why we are so concerned about the health problems caused by air pollution – and why the organizations we represent, the American Lung Association and the American Thoracic Society, believe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must move forward as quickly as possible with new standards to clean up smog-causing gasoline and motor vehicles.

Ground level ozone, or smog, that blankets much of the United States during the summer is a powerful respiratory irritant. When inhaled, ozone damages the lung tissue much like the summer sun burns unprotected skin. Ozone air pollution poses health risks for all who are exposed, including infants, children teenagers, adults and seniors, and it is particularly harmful to the nearly 26 million living with asthma, nearly 13 million with COPD and the millions with other lung diseases. Just as importantly, even healthy adults who work or play outdoors are at risk.

For those living near highways or other heavily used roads, the problem may be worse. Growing research reports much higher levels of pollution there.  Many people who live near roadways have lower incomes, and often are at higher risk of having lung diseases.

Tragically, polluted air can shorten life. For hundreds of thousands of people, polluted air means coughing, wheezing, missed school and missed work, asthma attacks and heart attacks. Far too many end up in the emergency room or the hospital.  These are the patients that physicians like us see daily in the hospital and in our practices.

If we could simply write a prescription to clean up that pollution and help our patients, we’d give the White House and EPA one each that says: “Adopt Tier 3 STAT.” Tier 3 is the shortened name of new EPA standards to reduce the sulfur in gasoline and reduce emissions from new cars and SUVs. The White House is in the final stages of reviewing these standards.

Lower-sulfur gasoline would immediately make every car on the road run cleaner because sulfur poisons the performance of a car’s pollution control system. Less sulfur means less pollution, and by 2030, we’d have up to 15,000 fewer asthma attacks, more than 3 million fewer missed school and work days, and 2,500 fewer early deaths each year, as the American Lung Association estimated in a report last year.

Unlike the cost of taking a child to the ER, the cost to protect her health is pretty low. EPA says that the cleaner gasoline would cost less than one penny more per gallon.

As with many treatments, timing is critical. EPA needs to adopt these standards by the end of February to make sure we get all the benefits as soon as possible. If not, our patients and millions more remain exposed to yet another year of dangerous pollution. Remember, that can mean the loss of 2,500 lives.

For the sake of our patients and all those who live where the air threatens their health, we urge President Obama to direct EPA to adopt final standards by the end of this month so that we have cleaner, healthier air to breathe.

Patricia W. Finn, MD President, American Thoracic Society

Albert A. Rizzo, MD, FCCP, FACP Immediate Past Chair of the National Board of Directors, American Lung Association

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Commentary: Cleaner gasoline and vehicles stat

I didn’t watch the 86th Annual Academy Awards. For me, the thrill is mostly gone.

Maybe the Oscars seem self-congratulatory for artists, many of whom already earn more per day than most people make in a year. In life, it's easy to root for the underdog, but with the Oscars, it's hard to care about millionaires winning a gold-plated statuette.

Maybe it's because the industry can fall back on the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA Awards and countless other opportunities, including special interest group nominations, for peer recognition.

Maybe it’s the pretension. This year’s nominees, cumulatively, made 1,400 films, and "have gone to a total of six years of college,” host Ellen DeGeneres said, joking during Sunday’s telecast. (OK, I watched ABC's highlights coverage.) Still, celebrities in sunglasses spread “awareness” about a cause du jour they may know little about, perhaps without fully formed critical thinking skills.

Maybe it’s because many nominees, as DeGeneres said, are Oscar fixtures, which undermines the element of surprise. Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese also were up for honors seven years ago, when DeGeneres last hosted.

Maybe it’s the morning-after news cycle, which is filled with things that really don’t matter. Ellen used an iPhone, not a smart phone from event sponsor Samsung, for backstage tweets. “Busted!” “Shocker!” CNN reported. Meanwhile, you can bet more people know about the Oscar host’s record breaking Twitter selfie with A-list stars than they do about Russian troops infiltrating Ukraine. 

Or maybe it’s a combination of all these factors.

Films can entertain, inform and inspire us. However, they can do so without a flashy awards show — one of many — that solely benefits their handsomely paid producers.

On Friday, Florida’s newspapers got, pretty much, their lone time to shine as nominations for the Florida Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest went out. I have earned six Alabama Press Association awards and would love for the News Bulletin to receive recognition for quality work that follows our team’s long hours, sleepless nights and painstaking efforts. But even if we don’t, I have countless thank you notes and memories of conversations with north Okaloosa readers who expressed gratitude for bringing some issue or view to light.

Who won what award — whether it's an Oscar or BNC — really doesn’t matter. It’s important to know about things like the Ukraine crisis and where your tax dollars are going.

Last weekend, readers debated the Crestview City Council’s decision to deny funding for the Crestview Heat youth basketball team’s tournament. I understood the council’s position; after all, they were considering layoffs before passing the last fiscal budget, so it seems responsible — to me, anyway — to have benchmarks for how to spend public funds. Contributing to one youth basketball team’s efforts would be nice, but it also could open the floodgates for funding anything and everything. Meanwhile, the money just isn’t there.

Gulf Power settlement money for overbilling will help ensure city employees won't be furloughed 32 hours, streets will be maintained, and the general reserve account, which City Clerk Betsy Roy has described as “dangerously low," gets a boost.

Sounds like that money can't be used for just anything. And remember, youth teams always have the option of fundraising.

But wherever you stand on that issue, at least you're debating something that actually matters.

What's your view? Write a letter to the editor or tweet News Bulletin Editor Thomas Boni @cnbeditor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: EDITOR’S DESK: Forget the Oscars; let's discuss things that actually affect us

I have a musical state of mind this week. Of course, there’s no shortage of lyrical must-see entertainment.

Crestview resident Mike Smith’s “Generations: A Collection of Black American Music” appears Friday at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center in Niceville and Ted Virgil’s “Rocky Mountain High,” a John Denver tribute concert, runs Saturday at the Fort Walton Beach High School Auditorium.

Not to mention “Red Leg the Dreaded,” a pirate-themed interactive murder mystery and dinner theatre coming to Foxwood Country Club on Feb. 28, with proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life Crestview team Duke It Out. It’s not musical — that I know of — but doesn’t it make you think of the song “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life For Me”)?

However, those events just compound the feeling, which actually began Monday morning. I knew it would be a long, productive day and wanted to start it right. Especially with my birthday coming up on Thursday. As you age — at least, this is true for me — you want to do things differently; mix things up so that, in my case, 31 years old is different from 30. Usually, on the ride over, I listen to country, pop or Southern Gospel. That’s too predictable for a birthday week, though!

So I lifted one of my dubious, but appreciated, early-birthday gifts, a CD soundtrack of the live NBC production “The Sound of Music,” off my bedroom dresser, popped it open and listened on the ride to work. I’m no musical expert like Brian Hughes, our Arts and Entertainment editor, but the CD has timeless standards that many people know right off the bat.

So I drove to work, sang along with the man’s part of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” — one thing I constantly hear from family members is how I “waste my talents”; tenor here, and don’t often get to exercise those vocal cords — and walked in the office at 8:05 with a spring in my step.

But before arriving at the office — after playing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” six or seven times to get the lyrics right and play with vibrato — the “My Favorite Things” track creeped in, and that was the inspiration for this column.

Actually, it became clear as I steered into the new turn lane from West James Lee Boulevard to get on South Ferdon Boulevard. One of “My Favorite Things” is the Florida Department of Transportation’s $103,000 project that made this possible! Anything that provides traffic relief in the north county is greatly appreciated.

Another of “My Favorite Things” happened on Friday after I wrapped the Saturday edition’s deadline a half-hour early and decided to do the unthinkable: actually eat outside the office for lunch. (And, of course, first selected one of our sponsors, so Golden Buffet, it was.)

While dining on much more food than I should have eaten — receiving texts from a woman who confirmed that suspicion — and reading the latest copy of “850” Magazine, I heard a man, probably in his 60s, advise a booth full of younger men about what he would do with a million dollars. (I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but it was impossible to ignore.) He stressed to them that having a lot of money would be great, but that it comes secondary to taking care of their families and providing them the love, security and assurance they need to thrive.

That stuck with me because the icebreaker during Thursday’s Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce-Professional Inspired Leaders of Tomorrow meeting was, “What would you do with a million dollars?” I said it would go toward investments and beefing up the News Bulletin’s web broadcasting operation; basically, it wouldn’t change me. It was wonderful to hear essentially the same thing the next day at that Golden Buffet booth. Passing wisdom to younger generations, then, was another of “My Favorite Things.” Pop culture produces enough subversive messages; they need all the practical advice and family values they can get! 

And a favorites list without the 2014 America Saves Challenge would be incomplete. The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Okaloosa Extension office helps promote the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station program. The challenge provides daily tips that can help everyone get a better grasp on their financial situation. You can register for a free account, tips and tracking tools here. I’ve signed up, and I hope you will, too.

However, perhaps my favorite thing this week was typing the Facebook post Monday night that announced the Okaloosa County School Board officially named Crestview High School and Baker School’s new principals.

Community newspaper journalists live for those historical moments that mark a passing of the baton, particularly when the public largely welcomes the paradigm shift.

Katie Tammen, the Northwest Florida Daily News’ education reporter, was tweeting from the school board’s very well attended meeting when perhaps the night’s most anticipated decisions were made. Dexter Day, one of CHS’s assistant principals, is, in fact, the Bulldogs’ next leader following Bob Jones’ retirement. Michael Martello, who previously served as a Baker assistant principal, is the Gators’ next leader, following Tom Shipp’s retirement in April.

It’s hard to explain moments like that to non-journalists, but when country music singer Brad Paisley sings, “Yeah, I live for little moments like that,” he may be singing about his wife, but I’m thinking about the second before I hit “Post” on Facebook.

I can spot a divide-and-conquer game from a mile away, whether it’s in politics, business or religion and, unfortunately, those stories comprise so much of the national media landscape. We hear enough of that stuff, so the News Bulletin’s team welcomes the opportunity to post breaking news, as it had Monday, that brings the community closer together.

We congratulate Day and Martello for their promotions, we wish them the very best, and we look forward to seeing what these leaders will add to their schools. 

What's your view? Write a letter to the editor or tweet News Bulletin Editor Thomas Boni @cnbeditor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: EDITOR’S DESK: A few of my favorite things — Crestview edition