• When the Mudville Grill opens later this month on Adams Street, you’ll find it easy to get in and out. The set-up will be geared to the worker with a short lunch hour so they’ll have a hot bar and a salad bar with to-go boxes nearby. They’ll also have a scanner check-out where they can scan your bill to make it quicker on that end, too.
• The Jags have sold naming rights to two of their party places. The Pepsi Plaza will be the hospitality area outside the South end zone on what originally were the team’s practice fields, and the clubseat hospitality areas are now the Crown Royal Touchdown Clubs.
• A group of local Episcopalians who are upset with recent decisions by the national church, including the ordination of a homosexual as Bishop of New Hampshire, will meet June 8 at an Avondale church to discuss withdrawing from the national organization. At least a dozen churches in the Diocese of Florida, which basically is the northeast part of the state, are talking about pulling out.
• Local attorney Tom Donahoo is president of one of the state’s most prestigious organizations, Gator Boosters, and has scheduled the annual summer get-together of University of Florida biggies later this month at Amelia Island.
• If you don’t think Florida is a crucial state for the Presidential election, hear this: John Kerry, the presumed Democratic nominee, has been in the state 17 times since he announced his candidacy. And President Bush has been here 21 times since his election.
• We’ll have a new crop of firefighters tonight. The graduating class of 29 will be honored for their 12 weeks of training and each will get the big news: where they’ll be stationed.
• Senior Chaplain William Wright from the Lawtey Correctional Facility will be the guest speaker at the Christian Legal Society’s June 11 luncheon at Sterling’s Downtown in the Seminole Club. Lunch begins at 12:15. For reservations, call 387-5400, ext. 34.
• Tuesday’s brief, intense gullywasher washed innumerable tiny frogs out of the grass and a nearby pond onto the sidewalk in front of the Beaver Street Enterprise Center. So many frogs washed up that the white sidewalk looked as though it had been covered with a dark moving blanket.
• At a Council committee meeting Wednesday, member Daniel Davis was having trouble understanding the details of a bill and said it would be easier to understand what was being proposed if he had something to look at. Taking that cue, Council liaison Paul Crawford walked over and drew him a picture.
• Council aide Christine Sasser is back on the job. Sasser, who works for Kevin Hyde, recently had her first child, a girl, and was taking time off to be with her.