News Update for 1/30/23

Highlands County School Board members will get together this afternoon for a workshop. They’ll be looking at the comprehensive health education program for middle and high school students – which may include the sex education portion of the cirriculum.
It was sex education that drew sharp criticism last year both for the what was being taught and the way the iMAD program was presenting the material to youngsters.
The workshop will commence at 4:30 this afternoon at the Garland Boggus meeting room at the Highlands County School Board offices.

Avon Park was crawling with law enforcement Saturday as Highlands County Sheriff’s deputies conducted a weekend raid. Four arrests were made by the Criminal Investigations Unit at the South Carolina Avenue address.
34-year-old Anthony Brice Smith was charged with: Trafficking in fentanyl, manufacture or delivery drug equipment, possession of a controlled substance and concealing evidence.
50-year-old Willie Henry Gammage Jr. was charged with: Possession of cocaine, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug equipment.
32-year-old Demetrius Lamar Jones was charged with: violation of probation and giving false identification to law enforcement.
And 39-year-old William Alston Clarke was charged with: a warrant for failure to appear.
All were taken to the Highlands county jail.

A Lake Alfred man was killed Saturday evening in a single-vehicle crash in the Frostproof area.
Deputies from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the scene where they found 38-year old Bryam Torres. Reports say the gray 2011 Isuzu Trooper was northbound on US 27 when it left the roadway and flipped multiple times.
Torres, who not wearing a seatbelt was ejected.
The two northbound lanes of US 27 were shut down for about an hour. The crash remains under investigation.

It’s only by the grace of God that a baby abandoned in Polk County is still alive. That’s what Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says about the newborn found Saturday in the woods in Mulberry.
A woman called 911 after hearing it crying, and deputies found the girl, in a blanket, with the umbilical cord and placenta still attached. Investigators estimate the girl was just about an hour old. She was taken to the hospital and is in stable condition.
Judd says the woman who called 911 is a hero. Investigators are trying to find the mother, and Judd says DNA samples have already been taken.