We received a variety of responses to Ann Spann’s article on the first execution in Okaloosa County, an article that appeared in the July 19 edition of the Crestview News Bulletin.

A few things that need cleared up:

• The person on the gallows is Caucasian

• The building in the photo is not the Alatex building.

For those who questioned publication of the story, I think we all had the same initial reaction. The difference is this: I read the story and thought, ‘Wow, I can’t believe things used to be this way. People need to learn about our history.’ Others have told me they thought, ‘Wow, I can’t believe things used to be this way. This doesn’t need to go in the paper.’

Same reaction. Just a different conclusion.

For the record, I oppose the death penalty. Not on moral grounds, but because I don’t have faith in our juries to render the correct verdict 100 percent of the time.

I think the article is appropriately informative, regardless of your take on the death penalty or public executions. To look forward, you have to know where you’ve been.

What are your thoughts? Should we do away with the death penalty altogether? Do we need to bring back public executions? Did the story belong in the paper? Post your thoughts below and vote in our online poll.

A new stoplight at the intersection of U.S. 90 and Old Bethel Road went operational on Tuesday.

I pass through that intersection every day on the way to work. The light might add a minute to my “commute” but I’m told it is a very good thing for those who must turn east or west onto U.S. 90 from the north and south roads.

Here are a few other spots where I wish something would be done to make travel safer.

* State Road 85 and P.J. Adams Parkway: The intersection itself is fine. The entrance to a gas station a few feet onto P.J. Adams is a huge problem. I slow to a crawl as I approach or turn off of 85, fully expecting someone to try to dart through traffic to get in or out of the service station. Someone must have recognized the problem, because there is a median preventing such dangerous turns at the new service station on the other end of P.J. Adams/Antioch.

* State Road 85/Airport Road/Industrial Drive: Another case of drivers coming off of the highway and immediately being forced to watch out for people coming off of a road that is simply too close. (Or vice-versa, depending on which road you use more frequently).

* State Road 85 and Stillwell Blvd.: Some kind of sign is needed to let people going across 85 from Stillwell know they have the right-of-way when their light goes green. Many times I’ve sat behind a non-local driver trying to turn left onto 85 who sits through an entire green light, not realizing they are able to make the turn at that time. Just add a green arrow to the existing light!

Where else could the area’s roads use some help? Post your thoughts here.

Our Florida Freedom Newspapers sister paper, the Destin Log, recently released a special section on “the seven wonders of Destin.”

The paper examined the seven “natural” wonders in the city and the seven “modern” wonders.

I love nothing better than to steal a good idea, so here’s a question for News Bulletin readers: What are the seven wonders of Crestview and North Okaloosa County?

Some random suggestions:

* The Blackwater River and State Forest

* The Crestview Christmas parade

* The Alatex building (sorry; couldn’t resist)

In all seriousness, post your ideas here. If we get enough suggestions, we might do a story on Crestview’s wonders in the future.

My wife, her parents, my three-month-old son and I tried to watch the Crestview fireworks display a few miles away from Old Spanish Trail Park.

We weren’t trying to beat the traffic. We were trying to preserve little Kyson’s hearing. (OK, and we were trying to beat the traffic).

We started at the News Bulletin office. No luck. A well-placed tree behind the gas station acorss the street blocked the view.

We headed to my wife’s place of employment in the Azteca plaza. More trees in the way.

We bounced in and out of every public lot along Ferdon Boulevard, only to be foiled by Mother Nature at every turn.

We finally wound up a block away from the park — and still with a tree in the way!

We’ll be watching the show in the park next year!

The price for a gallon of gas finally went over the $4 mark all over Crestview on Thursday. (A remarkable coincidence that the law of supply and demand caused practically every station in the city to hike its prices over the $4 mark on the exact same day, don’t you think?)For what it’s worth, I had a conversation with a gentleman who owns some local stations who was frustrated at the high price of gas he had to pay  on a drive north, so I’ll assume all of the profits on these prices go somewhere higher up the corporate ladder.

Have you had it with the high prices yet? I’m sure you’re ticked, but have you actually done something about it?

I wish I could say I’ve done something brilliant to save on fuel costs, but I haven’t. I’m lucky everywhere I need to go on a daily basis is no more than 10 miles from home.

Tell us some of your creative fuel-saving tips by posting a message. And don’t forget to vote on the topic in our crestviewbulletin.com poll.

I composed to following letter to send out with my bills this month:

Citing double-digit increases in the cost of living, I am asking you to accept a decrease in my bill payments to cover a shortfall in 2008 revenues.

If the request is approved, you will see a decrease of 11.3 percent, lowering the cost of my bills from an average of $100 to $89.70.

I make no profit on the lower cost of my bills. I am asking only to make up the difference in the cost of living.

The increase in the cost of living that we are experiencing is unprecedented. I don’t like decreasing my payments, especially at this difficult time. But just like the rising cost of gasoline, the cost of living continues to climb.

If the request is approved, I will continue to have one of the highest percentages of on-time bill payments in the state.

— Kyle Wright

No, I’m not really sending that letter out. In fact, it’s not even my letter. It’s a slightly rephrased version of the press release a local power company recently released announcing it will ask the state to allow a rate increase.

I don’t mean to pick on this company.

In fact, give them credit for being forthcoming about their intentions. Who knows how many companies recently have raised prices to gain extra profits without any public notice.

I also heard a recent speech by an informed person who has no connection to the power companies who said power companies could start going out of business soon if current regulations do not change. Given the choice between paying a higher bill or having no power at all, I’ll gladly choose the latter.

The real point: Businesses can raise prices and justify the action by saying they need to maintain revenues.

Why can’t consumers do the reverse? What can we do to protect ourselves? Tell me your thoughts by positing a comment here.

One of the stories on the front page of the June 25 Crestview News Bulletin includes comments from outgoing District 5 State Rep. Don Brown’s appearance at the Crestview Area Chamber of Commerce’s governmental issues meeting Tuesday morning.

I quoted Brown as saying, “It reconfirms my opinion our governor is a classic demagogue,” with ‘it’ being Crist’s recent reversal of his stand against drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

The exact quote was this: “It reconfirms my opinion our governor is a classic demagogue.” Brown then said, “I see you typing and the cameras recording, so let me say it again: It reconfirms my opinion our governor is a classic demagogue.”

So, Rep. Brown, what do you really think?

I wish we had room to print the full article (we cut out Brown’s informative comments on topics like gas prices and the recent legislative session) and I wish we had room to print all of my notes (I typed up three full pages during the meeting). It was one of the most informative yet entertaining hours of my time at the News Bulletin.

Brown summed up his status as a lame-duck legislator thusly: He’s like the elderly fisherman who declines to give a bullfrog a kiss that will transform it into a beautiful princess. Reason? He says he’s at the point in his legislative life where he’d rather have a talking bullfrog.

I don’t think we’ll hear anything like that from John McCain or Barack Obama anytime soon.

What is your opinion of our soon-to-be-former state representative? Seems to me that if he has a flaw, it was that he was too honest to be a politician.

Post a comment and let me know what you think.

You’ll find a story on when it is and isn’t appropriate to call 911 in the June 21 edition of the Crestview News Bulletin.

The story idea was sparked by the interest in a recent letter to the editor submitted by a woman who called 911 when she was cornered by a snake in her backyard and initially was told to call back on a non-emergency line.

Crestview Fire Department Capt. Eric Garcia, the supervisor for Crestview’s 911 dispatch system, said the call has been a frequent topic of conversation in his department.

Garcia said he reviewed the call. He said if he had taken the call, his first reaction also would have been to tell the caller to call back on the non-emergency line. He said the caller sounded calm, and that it was not clear the situation was an emergency. He said 911 dispatchers are trained to ask callers to call back if, for example, they are in their kitchen and they see a snake in the yard.

Garcia said the situation changed when the caller added that she was “cornered” by the snake.

The key word was “cornered”; not necessarily “snake”

“At that point, it became an emergency situation,” Garcia told me. At that point, the call became a 911 situation.

The moral of the story: If you are in the safety of your home and see a large snake in the yard, call the non-emergency number.

If you are cornered, then by all means call 911.

A couple of months back I wrote — out of frustration — a story highlighting stats that confirmed that most of the rainfall in 2008 to that point had occurred on Saturdays.

The experts I talked to chalked the numbers up to happenstance.

It turns out, those numbers probably went against science.

Our talented intern, Chayne Sparagowski, brought in an article that said in fact most rainfall occurs during the middle of the week. Reason: Factories and the like are open during the week, and the particulates they spit out make conditions more conducive to the formation of precipitation. These places not open on the weekend; therefore, less chance for rain to form.

Do you think it seems like all of the rains falls on a certain day of the week? Post your thoughts here.

The folks at Nike sure know how to run an advertising campaign.

Did you catch the Tiger Woods ad that ran late Sunday during the final round of the U.S. Open?

It featured the voice of Tiger’s late father, Earl Woods, talking about the challenges he gave to his son to help develop his mental toughness. The video clips were of a young Tiger along with his dad.

A typical challenge: Earl Woods would wait until Tiger was ready to swing, and then drop a golf bag or make some noise. Tiger would learn to stop his swing, regather his thoughts, and then hit his shot.

The commercial ended with Earl’s words: “I told him he would never meet another player as mentally tough as he was. And so far he never has. And he never will.”

We come back from commercial to see Tiger drain a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole of the U.S. Open, with a bad knee, trailing by one shot, to force an 18-hole playoff (which of course he won).

Unreal.

Mental toughness? Yes, I would say that qualifies.

Two thoughts here:

* Is that not the most effectively timed commercial ever? If there’s ever been a commercial that ran with better timing, I would like to know what it was.

* Could you “train” your son or daughter the same way Earl Woods trained Tiger? By all accounts, there was nothing “wrong” with Earl Woods’ training methods. He made things tough for Tiger, but he also explained exactly why he was doing it and how Tiger would benefit down the road. This in a day and age when I hear of parents buying their kids bigger trophies after summer baseball season because the league-provided trophy wasn’t big enough — never mind the kid hadn’t actually accomplished anything. I look at my two-month-old son, and he won’t be coddled — he’ll be asked to earn everything he ever gets — but I’m not so sure I can take the next step and intentionally throw obstacles in the way so I can one day say, “I told him he would never meet another player as mentally tough as he was. And so far he never has. And he never will.”

Could you? Have you? Should you? Tell me your thoughts.