It was a cool but sunny morning on December 2, 2010. A big day for Nease High School as the United States Navy held its Annual Military Inspection and Pass in Review of the Junior Reserve Officer Training program. Each year, high school JROTC’s programs are inspected by the branch of service they represent, as a part of the overall yearly evaluation criteria. There are currently 620 Navy JROTC programs (units) worldwide. The Nease NJROTC program was established in 1993, through a joint effort of St. John’s County School District and the United States Navy. The outstanding cadets of Nease have earned the Distinguished Unit Award for each of the past 16 years and they were the top unit in Area-12 four of the past five years. Nease currently has 203 cadets enrolled in the program.

The Flagler College Political Guild will host a panel on relations between Palestine and Israel that will include former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, former CIA Clandestine Service operations officer Ron Estes and Spanish Foreign Service Ambassador Santiago Martinez-Caro. The panel will be held Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in the Virginia Room of the Ringhaver Student Center on Sevilla Street.

The St. Johns County Education Foundation (SJCEF) honored the community’s mentors at the Annual Take Stock in Children Mentor Appreciation Luncheon on Wednesday, January 12.  SJCEF board members and staff and the St. Johns County district staff joined these mentors to pay tribute to the importance of programs such as these.