News Update for 1/25/23

State Route 70 was closed at County Road 721 for a time this morning. Highlands County Sheriff’s officials say that was due to a traffic accident there.

A couple of Highlands County municipalities have some downtown property for sale. Avon Park city council members are issuing a request for proposals for a Main Street lot that at one time was the Wylde Building. That structure was demolished last year when it became unsound.
The Sebring Community Redevelopment Agency is taking another run at selling off property on Ridgewood Drive where the Nancessowee Hotel once sat.
Previously, developers had proposed a housing unit there – but that project did not materialize.

Some residents south of Sebring are asking for help in finding the person or persons that are shooting deer on their property.
Over the past five months, they say three red stag bucks and three axis bucks have been shot with arrows and left for dead on the property off Payne Road.
In one instance, someone in a truck pulled up to the gate entrance shot an animal, cut a hole in the fence and took the deer.
Others – including a doe – were shot, wounded and simply left. Anyone with information on the incidents is asked to call the Highlands County Sheriff’s office.

Wauchula police are on the lookout for Mathew Scott Flores. He reportedly is being regarded as a person of interest in connection with a homicide that occured yesterday in Hardee county.
Flores is an Hispanic male, approximately 5’8" tall, average build with brown eyes and hair.
Details on the incident have not yet been released, other than to say a man was shot and killed inside the city limits of Wauchula. Authorities say Flores should be considered "armed and dangerous."