5 years ago, 2012
The Board of County Commissioners placed $225,000 in its capital improvement budget to use as matching funds for athletic associations that lease county parks and ballfields for youth sports. Commissioners passed the measure under the hope that the nonprofits would conduct fundraisers to match county funds.

After serving four years as a housing counselor to families seeking to have their dream home, Carolyn Edwards was promoted to president of Clay County Habitat for Humanity.

After a three-year search, the Clay County Sheriff’s Office arrested Benjamin Rex Moats, 29, for running a psychedelic mushroom grow operation in his apartment near Orange Park. Police seized 169,000 psilocybin mushrooms, 41,000 inoculating mushrooms and 13,000 sport syringes.

10 years ago, 2007
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office arrested more than 230 people in a sting dubbed Operation Night SITE, which stands for Strategic Intervention and Tactical Enforcement. The operation targeted suspects likely of committing vandalism, auto burglaries and thefts in the Wells Road and Orange Park Mall corridor.

Ranked No. 16 by Major League Eating, Hall Hunt, 25, of Orange Park returned from New York City where he competed in the nationally-televised Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest where he ate 29 dogs and finished ninth place.

Builders working in the Oakleaf Plantation community reported that the 4,000th-home had been built in the 6,400-acre master planned development that begins in Duval County and heads south into Clay County.

20 years ago, 1997
The Board of County Commissioners raised concerns about covering its employees who have pre-existing medical conditions as it debated approval of its health insurance plan.

The Clay County Health Department ordered the swim park at Eagle Harbor closed after a water sample tested positive for giardia, a microscopic parasite that can cause an intestinal infection marked by abdominal cramps, bloating, nausea and bouts of watery diarrhea.

Rescuers with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office failed to save Patricia Allen, 40, when she and her husband James Allen fell off their boat in Black Creek. James was saved, but his wife drowned.

30 years ago, 1987
With new bylaws in hand and nominating committees appointed, the Lake Asbury Elementary School Parent-Faculty Association prepped for its first second meeting in preparation for the start of the school’s first year of operation.

The Green Cove Springs City Council voted to authorize staff to procure a $1 million loan to cover capital improvements for the next five years.

Sheriff Jennings Murrhee said Richard Allen Webb, 29, of a Canis Drive Address near Orange Park was charged with armed robbery after an investigation at the Jax Liquors store on Blanding Boulevard.

40 years ago, 1977
County Commission Chairman Hank Bruning met with state officials to try and recover $308,732.56 it paid into the Cross Florida Barge Canal Authority Fund since the project was abandoned by President Jimmy Carter.

A second attempt in 15 months by Louis Huntley to install gas pumps at his Huntley Jiffy Store at 1890 Kingsley Ave. was shot down by the county’s Planning and Zoning Board.

Two months before classes were set to begin, Moosehaven decided not to lease pasture land it owned on the corner of DeBarry and Gano Avenues to St. Johns River Community College to locate its first-ever Orange Park campus.