The 15th Annual US Sport Aviation Expo opens officially today at the Sebring Regional Airport. Vendors are in place, there is a wide array of aircraft on the flightline, including the return of the Batcopter that was featured in the Batman television show.
But not everybody is here yet. Organizers say they expect an Airbus H-125 helicopter and a DC-3 to land today as part of the festivities.
There already has been some excitement, as there was a fire in one of the food trucks. There was a kitchen fire at the Thyme2Dine trailer. No injuries were reported.
Gates opened this morning. The Expo will run through Saturday.
Highlands County Sheriff’s officials say Samuel Joseph Tucker’s days in the Emerald Isle are numbered. The Irish High Court has ordered the 23-year-old to be extradited back to the United States to face a manslaughter charge here.
Tucker is believed to have been at the wheel of a Maserati Ghibli that crashed in Lorida in June of 2017. Reports say the car was going better than 120 miles per hour when it left the road, hit a power pole then overturned. The accident claimed the life of 22-year-old Alyssa Kay Vice.
He faces counts of DUI/Manslaughter. Tucker was located and arrested in County Cork, Ireland in August of last year.
New Highlands County commissioner Arlene Tuck took issue with construction on the Sebring Parkway yesterday.
Tuck called it “sad” that commissioners had spent so much money on the Sebring Parkway when there are many other road projects in the county that need attention.
Commissioners were asked to approve and rank some 22 projects that were to be submitted to the Heartland Regional Transportation Planning Organization as part of a grant application.
The Florida attorney who pushed the state initiative legalizing medical marijuana has a new target – increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. John Morgan told an Orlando news conference that he is submitting 120,000 signatures to get an initiative on the state’s 2020 ballot, well over the 76,000 verified signatures required to get a judicial review.
A Tampa-area college says it mistakenly sent out more than 400 acceptance letters for applications still under review. The University of South Florida St. Petersburg reportedly mailed hundreds of acceptance letters that were quickly revoked. Chancellor Martin Tadlock said “human error” caused 680 acceptance emails to be sent out when only 250 applicants were actually admitted.