This week in history 6/15/17

5 years ago, 2012
Mercy Support Services, a nonprofit supported by efforts of more than 50 churches held an open house to showcase its new “central clearing and referral hub” at 1540 Business Center Dr. on Fleming Island.

Rev. William Randall, pastor of St. Simon Baptist Church in Orange Park, was selected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Eleven Clay County teens were charged with felony armed burglary after allegedly breaking into a friend’s home over Memorial Day weekend to hold an unauthorized party and steal more than $5,000 in household items.

10 years ago, 2007
VyStar Credit Union announced it will take over the old 85,000 square foot AmeriCredit Corp. call center building on Fleming Island where it would add 300 new jobs.

The St. Johns River Water Management District presented Wilkinson Junior High teacher Karen Smith with its 2007 Bob Owen Award for her work managing the school’s Legacy Water Resource Education Program for more than nine years.

Vestryman Lenny Morey and Father David Freels blessed a spade full of dirt as part of the groundbreaking ceremony for Grace Anglican Church’s new sanctuary on Fleming Island. The church broke away from the Episcopal Church in America in 2006 over a dispute over homosexuality.

20 years ago, 1997
Students at Wilkinson Junior High joined the worldwide internet-based program called Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment. Students would use GPS to make regular hands-on observations that would be shared around the world.

The Board of County Commissioners rejected a request from I-95, a film production company, to close U.S. Highway 17 at Hibernia Plantation at 5:30 a.m. daily for two days for a total of 14 hours to allow filming a television commercial.

The University of Florida confirmed Clay County made it into the Guinness Book of World Records after researchers discovered that two lightning strikes at Camp Blanding set a world record. Researchers collected one fulgurite that measured almost 17 feet and a second that measured almost 16 feet. Fulgurites are natural tubes or masses of sintered soil, sand, and/or rock that form when lightning strikes the ground.

30 years ago, 1987
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office charged Fred Carlton Ward, Paul Fletcher Sisk and Michael James Fontana with the murder of John Irven Stratton, who police said, died from massive blunt trauma to the head.

Dick Post, Clay County planning and zoning director, told a chamber of commerce gathering that impact fees should be considered as a way to fund infrastructure needs that come with massive population growth.

The Keystone State Bank opened a branch office in Middleburg. The first deposits were made by Jimmy Sheetz and his wife.

40 years ago, 1977
After sitting at the No. 1 position on the county’s road-paving priority list, the Board of County Commissioners voted to spend $55,000 to complete the paving of Moody Avenue.

Clay County joined the Town of Orange Park to bid $150,000 on a 36-acre tract of land near Montclair Elementary to build a park.

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office joined the police departments in Green Cove Springs and Orange Park to conduct a drug sting that ended in the arrests of eight adults and six juveniles.