Five years ago, 2020

• Tynes Elementary sixth graders went hands-on with Bluetooth-controlled robots that simulate the Mars Rover used by NASA last Tuesday.

• An idea by one council member to reduce parking space size requirements met with a resounding consensus of no.

• Sears, the last Jacksonville-area department store and cornerstone of the Orange Park Mall for the past 45 years, soon will be closing its doors.

10 years ago, 2015

• Diena Thompson lit the symbolic match that purged the community of the house where her seven-year-old daughter, Somer, was molested and killed in 2009. When she did, she gave the community a gift – a ritual that marks the beginning of a transition, according to a Jacksonville University sociology professor.

• In the wake of a negative audit handed to the company from which it buys its electricity, Green Cove Springs city leaders are taking steps to hold the agency accountable.

• A Fleming Island High senior was recently recognized with a regional art competition award. Weston Williams, 18, won a regional Gold Key

Award in the annual Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition for artwork he developed for an ad campaign for a local clothing line.

20 Years Ago, 2005

• The Green Cove Springs Police Department arrested Leo Kaczmar III in an undercover operation in which law enforcement officers posed as underage girls who were seeking companionship on the Internet. Kaczmar was charged with solicitation of a minor.

• Members of the Green Cove Springs City Council heard a report from Police Chief Gail Russell who declared the city’s police station to be inadequate. Council members discussed possibly moving the police station to a site on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, while City Manager Don Bowles urged council members to look to the future and consider a property where such a facility could expand.

• Clay County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested two men in the act of burglarizing at an apartment complex in the 2300 block of Twelve Oaks Drive in Orange Park. Toby Lane Hansen and Edward Larry Bell Jr. were charged with attempted burglary and theft.

30 years ago, 1995

• Orange Park Police Department Lt. James Boivin asked for the public’s help for information regarding a tombstone that was confiscated during an arrest. The headstone read “Elizabeth Ann Richardson, 1854-1919 Asleep in Jesus.”

• The Clay County Sheriff’s Office investigated what was believed to have been a gang-related shooting in the 200 block of Blanding Boulevard in Orange Park.

• Pearl Jones Bristow, 73, of Middleburg died in a two-vehicle crash near the intersection of Blanding Boulevard and College Drive. Officials said her 1983 Pontiac was struck by a 1992 Ford ambulance owned by a private ambulance service.

40 years ago, 1985

• Officials at Penney Retirement Community held a ribbon cutting for Pen-More Place, a 16-unit minimum care facility on Lewis Avenue.

• The Green Cove Springs City Council voted to appeal a state decision denying a $675,000 community development block grant. As proposed, 50 percent of the grant funds would go to help develop a golf course in the Governor’s Creek area.

• The Clay County School Board prepared to seek bids from architects for the design of two newly proposed schools, one elementary school for the Lake Asbury area and a high school to be built in conjunction with St. Johns River Community College’s Orange Park campus.