The seed library, which has about 70 varieties of seeds and debuted this afternoon, was created by the Crestview Garden Club in partnership with the Okaloosa Extension Office, Crestview Public Library and Okaloosa County Master Gardeners.

“They’re mostly vegetables,” Garden Club Co-Chair Sheri Murphy said today about the seeds. “We also have seeds for fruits, flowers, herbs and other plants. They will be seasonal, according to when they should be planted.”

The seed library was made possible by volunteers who collected seeds and sorted them for distribution, according to Garden Club member Allison Finch. The seeds are stored in a filing cabinet that will be stationed behind the front desk at the Crestview Public Library.

Each seed packet contains three to five seeds, Murphy said. There is a checkout limit of five seed packets per month and per household. The seed library’s seed catalog will provide helpful growing tips and information.

This afternoon, Crestview Mayor J.B. Whitten sliced the ribbon at the seed library’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on the grounds of the public library. The celebration included informational booths, a plant clinic, a soil sampling education table, 4-H-led kids’ activities, and seed packet giveaways. Afterward, residents were able to choose seeds to take home and grow.

“It’s a really cool idea, and I hope that it really ‘gets off the ground,’ and lots of people benefit from it,” Larry Williams, residential horticulture agent with the Extension Office, said about the seed library during the ceremony. “We’ve seen a renewed interest, even with kids, in getting back into (vegetable) gardening. And I’ve loved watching that: getting out in the real world and growing something.”

“You know why, Larry? The price of groceries,” Whitten said.

“That could be part of it,” said Williams, who then noted that many people have moved to Crestview in recent years.

“A lot of young couples have their first home, and they remember their granddaddy’s traditional in-ground garden,” he said. “They know they can’t pull that off, but they’ve got their first home, and it’s scaled down to, you know, the smaller typical home, but they want to try their hand at it. So, they’re going with raised-bed gardening.”

The celebration will take place at the Crestview Community Center, 1446 Commerce Drive. Admission is free, though donations will be accepted.

“We’re expecting a large turnout,” Augusta Whittle, the library’s adult services librarian, said today.

She said NERDCon will include three panels, a costume contest, appearances by several authors and a local production company, and various vendor booths and food trucks.

Here is the panel lineup:

• 11 a.m.: “How to turn your fandom into profit or a business”
• 1 p.m.: “Screen acting or voice acting”
• 3 p.m.: “What is cosplay: From design to participation.”

Vendors will include GameMasters Guild and two comic books shops, “basically any kind of nerd fandom,” Whittle said. “We’ve tried to run the gamut on that.”

Items available for purchase will include pens, trading cards, plushies, and Pokémon and Dungeons & Dragons items. Food and beverages will be sold by about half a dozen food trucks parked outside of the community center.

Guests should have multiple forms of payment to make purchases from the vendor booths and food trucks.

Whittle said NERDCon attendees “are encouraged to cosplay,” or dress up as their favorite characters, “but it’s not a requirement by any means.”

Their Gulf Coast Media bookstore, which contains thousands of free used books in various genres, as well as many rock-bottom-priced used DVDs and CDs, opened shortly before last Christmas at American Self Storage, 1501 E. James Lee Blvd. (U.S. Highway 90). The bookstore is open from noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays.

On a typical Sunday, about 25 to 40 bookworms visit the store.

“All of the books are free,” Roy said today. “It’s $1 for a DVD, and two CDs for $1: it’s just to make a little bit of revenue and help pay the (storage units’ rental) bill. Even one day when we have an actual brick-and-mortar bookstore, and that’s obviously the eventual goal, children’s books will always be free, no matter what.”

The couple’s current bookstore has a “soft limit” of 10 free books per household on each Sunday.

The overall bookstore operation is housed in five 300-square-foot storage units: one contains children’s books, another contains fiction books, one houses nonfiction books, and a mix of media that awaits a turn on the store’s bookshelves is stored in two other units.

“The middle unit is our fiction section,” Darlene said. “I like to call it ‘the mom room’ because it’s adult fiction. Everything on the bookshelf going all the way around is alphabetized by the last name of the author. If you have a favorite author, you can come find it easily.”

She said the bookstore has continued to grow in popularity since it first opened.

“On Sundays from 12 to 4, this entire row is just full of cars,” Roy said of the paved lane next to the first group of storage units. “I mean, it’s elbow room inside (the bookstore), and the heat doesn’t seem to be bothering anybody other than us, because we’re usually here for like four hours before it opens and an hour or two afterward cleaning it up.”

Saved from the landfill

In their day jobs, Roy and Darlene serve as the owners of Crestview-based Shot In Focus Schools & Sports Photography and SIF Real Estate Photography.

Roy, who recently served 1 1/2 years as chairman of the Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, said he and his wife obtain the books and other types of media for their bookstore in various ways.

“One thing is, people bring in donations,” Roy said. “A lot of people bring in the books that they’re done reading or movies they’re done watching.”

The bookstore also includes leftover items from regional estate sales.

In addition, “I offer book pickups, basically from Panama City to Pensacola,” Roy said. “Because of our day jobs, we’re able to get around a lot. So, it’s nothing for me, when I’m in Pensacola for a day or two, I’ll go around and pick up donations there. I do purchase some items as well. We offer bulk purchasing: so, if somebody is about to move out and they have a whole house full of books, we do pay by the pound. We don’t pay by the book, we just pay by the pound.”

He added that about the top 10% of all items acquired for the bookstore are re-sold online.

“But while a book might have a lot of value to you and me, by the time you pay for listing fees and shipping fees and stuff, there’s not enough margin left in it to really sell it online, but there’s still a lot of value left in this book,” Roy said. “So that’s where all (the bookstore in the storage units) is: these are all books that would end up in a landfill or who knows where if we didn’t put them on a shelf out here.”

He and Darlene said most of the visitors to the bookstore are Crestview residents. They also see residents of Laurel Hill, DeFuniak Springs, Florala, Alabama, and other towns. The mix of visitors includes many teachers and homeschooled students.

“One lady from Laurel Hill told me, ‘Don’t ever close! You’re the closest place for me to find books,’” Darlene said.

A full-time bookstore

Roy and Darlene have been looking around Crestview for a place to open a full-time bookstore that would include used books, the online sales of newer and higher value used books, and a coffee shop/cafe.

“Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of inventory in Crestview that suits our needs, because we need more than the retail space of a bookstore,” Roy said. “Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of revenue in used books. People are not going to want to pay full price for a used book, so you can’t really run a bookstore just off of used books. So, we would be doing media sales as well: DVDs, CDs, vinyl, you name it. But we also want to bring the coffee, some place to have a meeting or entertainment.”

He said he and his wife are looking for at least 2,000 square feet of commercial space, which would contain the bookstore’s retail operation and its warehouse. The lease rates at several places the couple have looked at in Crestview, however, are way too high, Roy said.

There are locations in cities such as Niceville and Freeport that would meet the couple’s needs, he said.

“But if we can’t do this in Crestview, we’re not going to do it,” Roy said.

To learn more about the Gulf Coast Media bookstore, visit https://www.facebook.com/estesmediallc.