Keeping The Strawberry Tradition Alive Sam Astin, a third-generation strawberry farmer in Plant City, volunteered time and material to help the students at Turkey Creek Middle School learn what it takes to be successful farmers. He says that when he was 13, he "prepared the ground; planted and harvested the crop; packed and sold it to a vegetable broker." ...more

November 18, 2007

Environmentalists were successful Thursday in persuading the Hillsborough County Commission to postpone passage of new wetlands regulations that they say would make it too easy for farmers to destroy small wetlands. ...more

November 16, 2007

SEBRING — Oct. 14, 1942, is a day Ted Biever Sr. remembers vividly. On that fateful day, Biever, a retired Air Force master sergeant, who served as a gunner on World War II aircraft, was shot down while conducting a mission over Germany. "To tell you the truth there was so much going on when we were shot down that I had no idea it was happening until we hit the ground," said Biever "I slept all night inside of a haystack," said Biever. "The following day I got up, and I was in the middle of Germany. I didn't speak the language, didn't have a compass and didn't have a map, so all I could do was hope to run into someone friendly on the ground." So, Biever, then 21, approached a group of farmers he thought looked friendly. "I was hoping they'd be friendly but they weren't," said Biever. "They took me into a village and threw me in this one-man jail until some German soldiers came and picked me up." Over the next 21 months, Biever was held captive by Nazi forces. ...more

November 11, 2007

There seem to be more tractors tearing up St. Lucie County's old citrus groves than tending them these days. ...more

October 19, 2007