Sixteen store fronts went up in June. Only one has been occupied. ...more

December 19, 2008

Highlands County Habitat for Humanity looks to expand from its typical single-family home construction with a downtown Sebring workforce housing townhouse project. ...more

August 31, 2008

LAKE PLACID — Minnie Jones saw Highway Park evolve over the 57 years of her life. "It was small ... not rough, just a small community where everybody raised your kids," Jones said of the Highway Park of her childhood. It was segregated and not prosperous, but otherwise calm and close-knit. She even remembered neighbors spanking her kids if they acted up, and she did the same to theirs. She then remembered the next generation. "The parents say, 'don't holler at my kids.'" The generation after that? "You're scared of the kids now." That fear isn't shared by everyone living there, but the crime some of them brought to the small neighborhood south of Lake Placid provoked community leaders and the Highlands County Sheriff's Office to turn the neighborhood around. By many accounts, the violence has ebbed over the past year since sheriff deputies picked up their patrols in the neighborhood. Residents remain divided, however, over the extent of the progress and what else needs to be done to both shed the neighborhood's notoriety and bring its youth up. ...more

January 13, 2008

Twenty years ago PDDGER Hal Steffes visited a Masonic Lodge in Michigan and saw what a beautiful program they had for mentally and physically challenged children, young adults, siblings under 10 years of age and their parents. He was so impressed, he brought the idea back to his Elks Lodge, where it has continued for the past two decades. ...more

November 28, 2007