Local News Now

Headline Surfer  photo / Nearly five dozen handguns have been taken off the streets of Volusia County in the 2013 Kicks 4 Guns program and that's exciting news to Sheriff Ben Johnson.

DELAND -- One of the handguns had been reported stolen to a local police department in 2011, turned up in an annual turn-in-your-gun program with no questions asked.

A total of 58 guns were voluntarily turned in to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office in Thursday's annual Kicks 4 Guns crime-fighting program,  which encourages citizens to turn in unwanted guns to law enforcement for safe and proper disposal with no questions asked.

Photos for Headline Surfer / The 7,000 square-foot Piggotte Community Center, 504 Big Tree Road in South Daytona, is named for former Mayor Joe Piggotte, shown here.

SOUTH DAYTONA -- Former South Daytona Mayor Joe Piggotte died June 3, 2008, at the Hospice Care Center in Port Orange. He was 81.

Piggotte's passing comes in at No. 487 in Headline Surfer's countdown of the Top 500 stories as part of the 24/ internet newspaper's 5th anniversary.

Photos for Headline Surfer / Stephon Doby, 29,  and Rachel Rose, 27, were arrested Thursday in connection with a prescription pill robbery of an acquaintance and her friend near DeLand.

DELAND -- When Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies responded on Aug. 12 to a disturbance call at the intersection of Cassadaga Road and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Beltway near DeLand, they discovered that several people had been arguing on the side of the road over prescription drugs.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- As has been the norm for five years, Headline Surfer's headlines dominate the online news directories and search engines.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Palmer Wilson has the distinction of being the only person ever appointed by two different Volusia county chairs to serve as a chairman of an advertising authority.

He's led the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority through a highly successful beach weeks tourism campaign and oversaw the hirings of two consecutive directors of the SVAA and New Smyrna Beach Visitors Center. 

Councilman Joseph Perrone's is Volusia County poster boy for why every vote counts after his 1-vote margin of victory in the 2012 primary elections.

PONCE INLET -- Two races from the August primary went unchanged after recounts.

Ponce Inlet Town Councilman Joseph Perrone won re-election over Joe Villanella by one vote, a manual recount confirmed three days  after the Aug. 14 primary. The 1-vote margin in his favor remained the same, 609 to 608 over upstart Villanella.

The narrowest of vote totals for Perrone's primary victory comes in at No. 489 in Headline Surfer's countown of the Top 500 stories as part of the 24/7 internet newspaper's 5th anniversary.

In another race requiring a recount, Shannon McLeish of Ormond Beach held onto her 27-voter margin over third-place finisher Jay Young for the right to go against Volusia County Council Council dist 4 primary primary winner Doug Daniels in the Nov. 6 runoff. Daniels, however, would win that final race.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Meet Greg Greg Geiselman, a local avid surfer and surfboard builder. We caught up with him in 2011, when he claimed his trophy as the "overall chsmpion" of the NSB Backwater Tournament, part of the Billfish Invitational.

Photo for Headline Surfer / This collage from the Burns Sci-Tech Facebook fan page illustrates community volunteerism, at the heart of educationg Oak Hill's children.

OAK HILL -- As publisher of Headline Surfer, it is my honor and privilege to write pro-actively on the merits of the Burns Sci-Tech Charter School and its dedicated staff of educators led by Dr. Jan McGee, its principal.

I did so after coning across this link: http://www.greatschools.org/florida/oak-hill/13511-Burns-Science--Technology-Charter-School/?tab=reviews.

Oak Hill has its limitations -- mostly septic systems as opposed to water and sewer and very little industry. But the two centers in Volusia County's smallest and southeastern-most city of 2,200 straddling the Brevard County line to the south, Edgewater to the north, Osteen to the west and the Canaveral National Seashore to the east, is its city hall and its charter school.