CRESTVIEW — April Hight says that microchipping Maggie, her Lhasa Apso, meant the difference between never seeing her again and reuniting with the wayward dog after nine and a half years. 

Maggie was found Wednesday near Bone Creek Road in Holt, when a Panhandle Animal Welfare Society animal control officer responded to a call about another dog.

"She was just in horrible shape," PAWS animal control supervisor Mary Rudder said. "She was matted to the skin."

Fortunately, Lhasa Apsos are renowned for their hardiness, according to the Dog Breed Info Center.

Plus, Maggie had another factor in her favor: She'd been microchipped.

"We bought her from a pet store in Fort Walton," April said. "She was already chipped and neutered. I never gave it a second thought … It ended up being one of the best things that could've been done. Now I see the importance of it. We're very thankful."

When Maggie vanished from April and Nathan Hight's Crestview home in February 2005, the couple's daughter, Abigayle, now 13, was just a toddler.

Maggie's return reinforces the life struggles of the Hights' foster children, April said.

"How Maggie got back here is kind of a reminder of what we're doing as foster parents," she said. "We don't know what she'd been through the last nine years … and it's the same with some of the children. We know some, but we don't know everything."

Joyful reunion

The Hights' two biological and three foster children are excited to have Maggie home, she said.

"My daughter was 4 when Maggie went missing, but she remembers her," April said. "She was just in tears realizing that Maggie was back home, and it's just hitting home that she's been through a lot."

Maggie is already recovering rapidly, given loving surroundings, April said.

"She's a completely different dog than she was Wednesday," April said. "She remembers her name. We call her and she looks at us. She recognized my husband right away. When he came home Wednesday and said her name, she started wagging her tail … She's skin and bones but she's acting like a typical little puppy."

Full circle

For Abigayle, Maggie's return brought her pet's odyssey full circle, April Hight said.

"One of (Abigayle's) fond memories we talk about a lot is when she was little, my husband would sit on the couch and play this tune we called 'The Maggie Song,'" April said. "It's something from her childhood coming around to her teenage years. She can put the gist of it all together.

"… For Maggie to come home after what she experienced is bittersweet for us. That she's safe and she's home, that's what I've been reflecting on. Our goal is to see children go home, too."

PAWS microchipping service

The Panhandle Animal Welfare Society animal clinic offers pet microchipping similar to that which brought Maggie home to the Hight family.

When: 9 a.m. to 12:30 sign-in, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday

Where: 752 Lovejoy Road, Fort Walton Beach

Cost: $15

Notes: Walk-ins only, no appointment. Information: 244-0196

Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Saved by a chip: Crestview family's dog returns after nine years missing

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission passed changes that divide the state’s Hunting Zone D (from Pensacola to Tallahassee) into two deer management units Thursday while meeting at the Florida Public Safety Institute near Tallahassee. Each DMU has a unique set of antler-point requirements and antlerless deer harvest days.

These changes take effect during the 2014-15 hunting season and are part of a larger, statewide project aimed at managing deer on a more local level and providing stakeholders with a greater say in deer management.

The FWC conducted a public outreach and input process in northwest Florida beginning in early 2013. Since then, the commission has received substantial input and comments from hunters, farmers and the general public regarding how they would like to see deer managed in the newly proposed DMUs.

As a result of this outreach process, the FWC passed rules for both public and private lands in both of the DMUs in Zone D, with Interstate 10 being the dividing line between the two DMUs. South of the interstate will be called DMU-D1, and north of the interstate is DMU-D2.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Deer hunting changes passed in northwest Florida

CRESTVIEW — When I was in grade school some of my little friends told me some Helen Keller jokes. I couldn’t wait to get home to share them with my family.

“Hey Mom,” I said, bursting into the kitchen. “Did you ever see Helen Keller’s husband?”

The correct answer is, “Neither did she.”

Instead, Mother thought a moment and replied, “When I was a student nurse, we had Miss Keller as a patient. A gentleman would visit her sometimes. Perhaps that was her husband.”

Mom’s response may have deflated a young comedian, but it suddenly made me aware that Helen Keller had been a real, living, breathing, cognizant and, if indeed the visitor at Philadelphia General was her husband, loving person.

It also made me suitably ashamed for telling jokes at the expense of someone less blessed than I.

View From the Stage’s production of “The Miracle Worker,” running this afternoon and tomorrow at 2:30 and this evening at 7 p.m., does the same.

Skittering on the edge of being institutionalized, as was the common practice for the deaf, mute and blind in the 19th century, Keller’s family chose to send for a teacher, the titular character in William Gibson’s powerful drama.

The pairing of Brooklyn Onuffer as Helen and Sarah Hawkins, the nearly blind tutor Annie Sullivan, was one of the most magnificent pieces of casting I’ve ever seen in a theatre-going career that dates to when I was three years old.

Their cavalcade of raw emotions runs the gamut from often heart-wrenching, sometimes heart-stopping, sometimes warm, sometimes adversarial and even sometimes comical and ultimately loving.

The dining room battle scene, which Brooklyn said was the toughest to perform, was so masterfully executed that even the audience woman who texted through most of opening night’s first act put down her smartphone and took notice.

At last Annie emerged triumphant.

“The room’s a wreck but her napkin is folded,” Annie informs Mrs. Kate Keller, warming, lovingly and, when need be, forcefully portrayed by Julie Bywater.

The engaging cast also includes an impressive young talent in Douglas Black as Helen’s older half-brother James, whose observations propel the story and likewise contribute some blessed light humor to break the tension.

“Nothing I say is right,” James laments.

“Then why say anything?” Kate Keller replies.

As Helen’s father, Capt. Keller, Jeremy Edwards was the weakest of the leads, but only because the others were so strong, including Douglas as his son, who after years of browbeating finally stands up to his father in a pivotal scene.

From VFTS’s holiday production of “A Christmas Carol,” we know Edwards is an accomplished actor. However, in “The Miracle Worker” his emotions seemed to be limited to blustery and blustier.

Such bluster, however, served to set the stage for a sudden rush of welcome tenderness unexpected from the otherwise curmudgeonly Confederate Army veteran, who through most of show is Annie Sullivan’s biggest skeptic.

A strong supporting cast includes a bevy of buoyant and loving blind children who bid Annie goodbye as she leaves the Boston school for the blind where she was a pupil, and her teacher and mentor, Dr. Anagnos, sensitively played by Joseph Kenkel.

Bettye Keefer also provides comic relief as the accommodating Aunt Ev, who shares her brother, Capt. Keller’s, skepticism that Annie Sullivan can’t help Helen and has only turned the Keller household topsy-turvy.

View From the Stage has indeed proved the local culture scene’s own Miracle Workers by bringing to Crestview a sophisticated, powerful and engagingly performed drama of this caliber.

Producer Berit Faust and director Nancy Black deserve kudos for broadening our theatrical horizons. I look forward to future VFTS productions of this caliber and in all genres. Meanwhile, don’t miss “The Miracle Worker” over at Warriors Hall. Tickets are available at the door.

Email News Bulletin Arts and Entertainment Editor Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: REVIEW: 'The Miracle Worker' works miracles at Warriors Hall