HIGHLANDS NEWS-SUN Monday, February 22, 2021
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HIGHLANDS NEWS-SUN Monday, February 22, 2021 VOL. 102 | NO. 53 | $1.00 YOUR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER SINCE 1919 An Edition Of The Sun AP Council to consider 2 airport management proposals By MARC VALERO provided a proposal at a On the Councils agenda, Executive Airport. We will STAFF WRITER recent special meeting for Wise noted that he has form a company known as a $1 a year, 30-year lease, been in the aviation “KAVO Flight Center, LLC” AVON PARK — The has prepared data that business for 42 years and to run the daily operations Avon Park City Council shows the benefits to the owns and operates Ag of the airport. will consider two man- City of such an agreement. Flying Service, Inc. The proposal states agement proposals for Avon Park resident/ His proposal states, that the terminal building the Avon Park Executive business owner Jerry “We would like to make would be manned from MARC VALERO/STAFF Airport at its regular Wise seeks a shorter-term a proposal to the City of 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and The Avon Park City Council, at its Monday meeting, will consider council meeting tonight agreement to operate the Avon Park for a five-year two management proposals for the Avon Park Executive Airport. Florida Airport airport. lease of the Avon Park COUNCIL | 2A Management, LLC, which County’s Lunch is served Man delivers COVID lunches to numbers #Healthcare better Heroes By PHIL ATTINGER STAFF REPORT STAFF WRITER COVID-19 numbers were down SEBRING — Early on in the pan- across the board, with the release of demic, Patrick Rhodes of Tampa Sunday’s virus report by the Florida wanted to do something for the Department of Health. healthcare workers working long Highlands County saw just 14 new hours in emergency rooms to treat cases out of 284 processed tests, which others. resulted in a positivity rate of 4.93%, He’d see people in scrubs at the gro- the second lowest figure seen in two cery store, weary and barely standing. weeks and the lowest since the 4.84% “You can tell when they’ve worked a on Feb. 11. long day,” Rhodes said. “I felt I had to None of the new cases were in the help out.” 14 and younger age group, where The first thing he thought about Highlands County has had 7% of its was lunch: People have to stop and total cases come from. eat. It started with just a couple of The county has seen 182 cases the times per week last year, buying lunch past seven days for an average of 26 for a medical office and dropping it COURTESY PHOTO/LUNCHES FOR #HEALTHCAREHEROES new daily cases. off. There was one new death, which Patrick Rhodes, an auto insurance underwriter, prepares to personally deliver food to It kept going. He reached out healthcare workers during his lunch hour. Although he lives and works in Tampa, and most brings the death toll to 298. to AdventHealth, a large hospital Hospitalizations remained at 558 of the people he helps are also there, he has managed to reach out into the Heartland and in his area, and started delivering order food to be delivered to healthcare workers in Sebring. according to the FDOH, although food to each of their facilities in the the Florida Agency for Healthcare city where he lives and works as an food for an office at AdventHealth he ordered pizza and had it delivered. Administration showed 37 people insurance underwriter. Sebring, but being two hours away, he People in Tampa and in Sebring hospitalized Sunday afternoon with a Then he had the opportunity to get couldn’t buy it and deliver it. Instead, said they were grateful someone was primary diagnosis of COVID-19, which thinking of them since they didn’t see is three more than were hospitalized any let-up in the patients coming in Saturday. sick with coronavirus. After seeing double-digit increases He now has a social media page for the previous six days, DeSoto and a name and hashtag — “Lunch County had better numbers with just for #HealthcareHeroes” — where he six new cases and a positivity rate of takes donations to keep it all going. 6.98%, the lowest seen since Feb. 10. It’s drawn the attention of Boss Water One of the new cases was in the 5 to 14 and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson age group and 10% of the county’s total around the Christmas holidays. 3,675 cases have been seen in those 14 Johnson personally recognized him and younger. in a social media video and pledged Hardee County saw just one new 100 cases of BossWater and an all- case and has now seen a total of 2,757. you-can-eat meal from PostMates Hardee County has the highest per- food delivery service for his next centage of children 14 and younger in lunch delivery. the Heartland, with 12% of the county’s “My favorite quote is, ‘It’s nice to cases being in those 14 and younger. be important, but it’s important to be Okeechobee County had an increase nice,’ and that is you,” Johnson said of nine cases and broke 3,500 total in his video, adding, “A little drop of cases, as they’ve now had 3,508. The kindness goes a very long way.” county has seen the 14 and younger Rhodes said he took Johnson up age group make-up 11% of its cases. on the offer and was able to feed The state saw an increase of 5,065 COURTESY PHOTO/LUNCHES FOR #HEALTHCAREHEROES 200 people at the next event. He cases, which consisted of 4,935 resi- has also gotten help from the Arby’s dents and 130 non-residents. Florida Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, pizza arrives at AdventHealth Sebring courtesy of Lunches Foundation to do bigger meals. has now seen 1,868,772 cases total, for #HealthcareHeroes, Patrick Rhodes, the man behind the lunch, started buying a few In 2020, he fed 500 people and has with 1,834,708 residents and 34,064 lunches at a time for healthcare workers and has since started a nearly full-time effort to non-resident cases. provide sustenance to people working to help others during the pandemic. LUNCH | 2A Of the state’s new cases, 599 were in the 14 and younger age group. With a total of 147,298 cases, the 14 and younger age group has made up 8% of the state’s virus cases and has had five of the state’s deaths. Sebring CRA master plan open house Florida saw 95 more deaths and has now had a total of 30,434. There have By MARC VALERO session starting at 6 p.m. been 29,906 resident deaths and 528 STAFF WRITER The website includes non-resident deaths. a quick survey with 14 ques- Testing was also down for the day, so SEBRING — The Sebring tions including how often despite the low number of new cases, Community Redevelopment you go the CRA area and the state did see a small uptick in its Agency is sponsoring an for what reasons and what positivity rate, which climbed to 6.32%. Open House for the public would prompt you to visit FDOH reports the state gave a total to share ideas to help shape the CRA area more often. of 18,323 vaccines for the day and the community. There is an interactive has now given 4,082,872 vaccines to As its Master Plan is map to help identify 2,693,953 people. being updated, the CRA improvements and projects Testing across the United States took seeks input for developing MARC VALERO/STAFF that you would like to see a big step backwards, according to its goals for improvements implemented within each the COVID Tracking Project’s Saturday within the CRA district. The Sebring CRA is sponsoring an Open House 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., of the City’s Community evening report. There were 1,274,526 The Open House will be Thursday at the Jack Stroup Civic Center, for public input as the CRA Redevelopment Areas. tests processed, which is a decrease of 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., Feb. 25, Master Plan is being updated. There is a downloadable COVID | 2A both in person, at the Jack virtually by logging into the Both options will be pre- version of the Sebring Stroup Civic Center, 355 W. website: smeinc.mysocial- sented in 30-minute-long Center Ave., Sebring, and pinpoint.com/sebring-cra. sessions, with the last OPEN | 2A Classifieds ......................B4-6 Sports ............................ B1 Viewpoints ....................... A6 Good morning To Comics ....................... B7-10 TV Listings ....................... A7 Weather .......................... A8 Decaris Jones Lottery ........................... A2 facebook.com/ twitter.com/ Thanks for reading! newssun.com newssun TheNewsSun A2 | HIGHLANDS NEWS-SUN | February 22, 2021 www.highlandsnewssun.com 5 THINGS That Will Make You Jensen arrested for attempted sexual battery SMARTER By ROBERT MILLER okay with victim immediately called included his genitalia. He 1. The singer Engelbert change to Humperdinck. STAFF WRITER you.” Jensen the Polk County Sheriff’s said that he wanted to Humperdinck was born It is the name of the was using Offi ce to report the commit commit sex acts Thomas Arnold George Austrian composer of FROSTPROOF — Arne a female conversation and photos, with her. Deputies con- Dorsey on May 2, 1936. Hansel and Gretel. Jensen, Jr., 42, of Avon Facebook reports said. fi scated Jensen’s phone to Born in Madras, India, his 4. He hosted a variety Park, was arrested by profi le name A PCSO detective perform a forensic search father was a captain in show in 1970, based on Polk County Sheriff’s to message continued the conversa- and determine if there Detectives at the Lake the victim.