5 Years Ago, 2011

The Clay County Agricultural Fair announced it was adding 1,200 new parking spaces for the 2007 county fair with the addition of a 28-acre plot of land adjacent to the fairgrounds.

Jacksonville Jaguars player Kassim Osgood helped students at Middleburg Elementary School go out and play as part of the NFL initiative NFL Play 60.

Clay County Fire and Rescue reported that it was the screams of a 5-year-old Keystone Heights boy that saved him and his father from a trailer fire.

10 Years Ago, 2006

Residents joined the Green Cove City Council and its police department, as well as Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler in a 1.1-mile march on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to ‘take back the streets’ as a show of zero tolerance to drug-related crime.

Jenna Montalbano, a student at Annunciation Catholic School, was selected to serve as an ambassador in the People to People program originally founded by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Daniel Riehm was named executive director of Clay County Habitat for Humanity.

20 Years Ago, 1996

Former Clay High Principal David Owens was sworn in as the new superintendent of the Clay County School District after defeating incumbent superintendent Phyllis May in the Oct. 1 primary.

The Green Cove Springs City Council considered a proposal to deed over property to Clay County Habitat for Humanity so the nonprofit could build homes for families in need.

Three Clay County students prepped to perform at KidsFest ’96 at the Nathan Wilson Center for the Arts as part of the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra.

30 Years Ago, 1986

The Orange Park Police Department charged John Frederick Klein, 45, of Orange Park, with lewd and lascivious assault on a minor.

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Highway Patrol joined in the search for a man suspected for shooting and abducting an Orange Park Police Department officer. Peter Roger Royer of Orlando was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping of officer Joey Jett.

The Clay County School District reported that it received $585,344 in federal funds for having 4.507 students in the district whose parents are employed on federal property via the military or civil service.

40 Years Ago, 1976

The Clay County Chamber of Commerce hired former Navy aviator Larry Cooney as its first-ever director of research. His task was to accurately count the residents of Orange Park to ensure the county would get its fair share of federal funds when the next U.S. Census took place.

Florida Department of Transportation officials said the four-lane Blanding Boulevard paving project from I-295 to Kingsley Avenue would be completed in June 1977.

After two months of debate and public outcry, the Florida Department of Offender Rehabilitation said the 90-bed Doctors Inlet Road Prison would expand only to 135 inmates, not the planned 400. It would add a 60-person dormitory and a box factory that would employ 21 inmates.