Lakeland resident Alice Hunt, who co-founded Hunt Construction with her husband Chuck, was elected chair of the Florida Polytechnic University Foundation Board of Directors. Jack Harrell III, senior vice president at Harrell’s LLC in Lakeland, replaces her as vice chair.
The city of Lakeland plans to hire four more school resource officers to ensure someone is providing security against the possibility of a gunman while the officer usually assigned to the school is investigating a crime on campus or is out sick or on vacation.
The city is negotiating with the Polk School Board to pay 75 percent of the officers’ salaries next year, but one city commissioner said he’s afraid the city will end up paying the full amount of what should be a school district obligation. Another commissioner complained this is just another obligation pushed by the state Legislature without providing any funding. More
Florida Southern College is one of two Florida schools with a collegiate videogame program, Fort Myers’ WINK News reports. The TV station profiles Call of Duty player Joshua Morgan, whose scholarship helps pay his tuition.
Christian Lomenzo, 22, beat out thousands of players around the world. His secret power? Lots of practice: “If I am into the game and just grinding it, I am just playing until I am wiped out, tired.”
In a speech heavy on positivity and spunk, former astronaut Mae Jemison told Florida Southern College students that as a youngster, she knew she was going to go into space even though no woman or person of color had become an astronaut yet. More
The Lakeland High School Band Wind Symphony leaves Wednesday to perform at the Bands of America National Concert Festival in Indianapolis.
A new partnership will allow Florida Polytechnic University to accept Fulbright scholars from Australia. It already has Fulbright agreements with Canada, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Charges of causing a disturbance and resisting arrest have been dropped against the 11-year-old former Lawton Chiles Middle Academy student involved in a Pledge of Allegiance controversy, his attorney said, but a civil rights complaint he filed against the school remains active.
The mother of a Lawton Chiles Middle Academy student whose refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance escalated into a stubborn confrontation and his arrest has filed a civil rights complaint. Its version of events differs from those of the arresting officer | Read the complaint
State Attorney Brian Haas told The New York Times that his office has no plans to prosecute the Lawton Chiles Middle Academy sixth-grader who was charged with disrupting school activities after an argument escalated over his refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. But the article also notes that an attorney for the 11-year-old’s family said his mother is unwilling to agree to prosecutors’ offer to place him in a diversion program.
Separately, CNN reports that the child has transferred to a private school and that his family claims he never used the term racist. Police “interjected the word racist to mischaracterize the event,” the family’s attorney said.
