Halloween weekend is here, and there’s no excuse for a hungry goblin. Avon Park and Sebring announced official Trick Or Treat hours this year as Saturday night from 6 till 9, but that’s just one chance at free munchies. The Downtown Sebring Halloween on The Circle is tonight, Sun N Lake of Sebring has their Trick Or TROT 5k and Kid’s run, followed by a costume contest tonight starting at 5pm. Lake shore Mall is running their Mall-o-ween trick or treat event Sunday from 5-6pm inside the Malll, and Lake Placid’s Annual Community Halloween event is on Halloween Night itself, downtown at Interlake and Main from 6-9pm. They expect close to 5,000 kids at that event Wednesday.
We got some calls at the studios earlier this week about multiple patrol cars heading up Highway 17 with flashing lights early in the morning – that was a caravan of Highlands County Sherriff’s Department personnel heading up to the panhandle to help with the immediate recovery needs of Hurricane Michael victims. That original cadre a dozen or so members of the department are about due to come home in a few days, to be replaced at an encampment up there by another group of deputies and staffers helping our neighbors to the north. The next group leaves this coming Tuesday. They’ve got a command post trailer and food service along, courtesy of local cook and friend, Rufus Brown, who reportedly has been keeping our folks fed up there.
Want to get your two cents’ worth in on plans for a major repair-and-upgrade project on Highway 27? Plans are being prepared for a pretty big upgrade including repaving, changes in media strip openings, adding left turn lanes and more to the County’s main drag from Highways 66 and 98, just south of Sebring, to Cloverleaf Road, just north of Lake Placid. The Florida Department of Transportation will be holding a public information session Tuesday evening at the Bert J. Harris Agri Civic Center auditorium starting at 5pm. Comments will be welcome, and you can get information on how to add more formal input then as well.
Firefighters from the DeSoto City fire department had to knock down a brush fire off Kenilworth Boulevard Wednesday afternoon caused by a spark from a malfunctioning car. That wouldn’t normally cause much attention, or even much mention here, but it does draw the point that we’ve been in a dry patch of weather these last couple weeks and the grasses and twigs out there are awfully dry. Firefighters in the area want to remind you to take care, don’t leave a burn pile unattended, and keep your butts in the car.