Dear Editor: We are Plant City. We’ve chosen — not an accident but chosen — to raise our families here. Why? Because there are few rural small towns left, and it is a beautiful land. Real Floridians have seen the rape and loss of our natural landscape by this exact thing all over the state. […]
Continue ReadingLETTER: Search should be national for city manager
Dear Editor: I trust a good search committee and a recruiter will be put on this to locate a solid replacement (for City Manager Greg Horwedel). With the interconnectivity of the Internet, a suitable replacement need not come from Florida but could be found virtually anywhere in the United States. Best wishes to the search […]
Continue ReadingLETTER: Lack of transparency concerns Plant City mom
Dear Editor: As a mother, I am concerned with the lack of transparency that is going on with Common Core being implemented in Hillsborough County and the state. While doing my Kindergarten Round Up, I was told by an assistant principal that the school (Shiloh Charter) is field-testing Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College […]
Continue ReadingFAITH MATTERS: Lent: ‘Spring Cleaning’ for Christians
“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” — Isaiah 43: 18-19 On March 5, the Christian church began her Lenten […]
Continue ReadingA note from the Festival General Manager Paul Davis
The Florida Strawberry Festival is a special occasion during which Plant City shines. The entire town pauses for 11 days to celebrate our bountiful agricultural harvest. On behalf of our more than 2,000 volunteers, our staff members and our board of directors, I welcome you to the 2014 Florida Strawberry Festival. Here is a sneak […]
Continue ReadingLETTER: Remembering Gerald Hooker
Dear Editor: When I read in the Plant City Times & Observer that former Plant City Mayor Gerald Hooker died, I started remembering him as someone who meant a lot to people here. He was a friend of my late father’s and mine, and he ran Hooker’s Department Store, in downtown Plant City. The store […]
Continue ReadingFAITH MATTERS: A ticket to grace
A month ago, I was feeling sorry for myself, because I was wrongly accused of parking illegally in a town I had never visited. It’s never fun to have to pay a fine when you’re innocent. The $40 fine was not that big a deal, but I had an impassioned desire to stand on the […]
Continue ReadingFAITH MATTERS: Exercise your ‘spiritual heart’
Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. — 1 Samuel 16:7 This month, our nation marks “heart month” with a special emphasis on Americans being “heart healthy.” There is no denying that is good for us to remember that, while our physical hearts need to be healthy, we must […]
Continue ReadingPAST & PRESENCE: Albert Schneider: Festival’s first president
For the onset of Florida Strawberry Festival season, we decided to take a look back at the beginning of the festival. As noted historian D. E. Bailey Jr. wrote, “Harvest festivals have long been traditional with every country in the land.” Plant City was going to have one. The role of strawberry production and sales […]
Continue ReadingLETTER: Car wash’s honesty a breath of fresh air
Dear Editor: After all the dishonesty, meanness and sad things that are happening in this time and day, I would like to point something nice out to you. Recently, I went to the Walden Lake Car Wash in Plant City to get my usual for my car. As always, I get greeted with the biggest smile […]
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