Syrian emigrant reflects on war ravaging homeland
For Marian Asfoura, who emigrated from Syria to the U.S. in 2006, the country that she left behind is not the one she recognizes on nightly news reports.
Features
The Dewars do as they please to find success in St. Augustine
From stepping away from baseball in 8th grade, to being asked to leave St. Augustine’s Sangrias in their 20s, twins Anthony and Zach Dewar have done whatever they please in their first decade of playing music together.
It’s Happening: Homeless One-Stop Center in St. Augustine
After months of planning, Home Again St. Johns has began fundraising and organizing the development of the one-stop center for the homeless on State Road 207. The facility will eventually be home to six, 5,000 sq./ft. buildings providing housing, healthcare, job training, mental health, substance abuse and basic education services.
Home Again St. John’s began as a local non-profit in 2009 with staff support from United Way of St. John’s County. Their goal is to redefine how the county deals with homelessness as well as open doors to more services.
Turning Potatoes Into Gold: The Story of Hastings
After the creation of the Ponce de Leon Hotel 125 years ago, Henry Flagler asked his cousin Thomas Horace Hastings to start a farm a few miles west of St Augustine to grow food for his guest.
Archaeologists unearth wells at planned academic building
By Joshua Santos | gargoyle@flagler.edu
During a recent dig, St Augustine City Archeologist, Carl Halbirt, found three old wells buried underneath the future site of Flagler College’s new communications building Pollard Hall.
Work moving ahead on latest campus building, Pollard Hall
By Justin Katz | gargoyle@flagler.edu
While the semester nears midterms, plans for Flagler College’s newest building are starting to come to fruition. Pollard Hall, named after its major donor, Nelson Pollard of Ponte Vedra Beach, will take the place of Flagler’s current Communication Building on Cordova Street.
Farm cultivates new life for disabled veterans
By Emily Hoover | ehoover@flagler.edu
Photos by Robert H. Heinrich
Down a long dirt road on the border of Duval and Clay counties, where the open air is clean and the sun just begins to peek through the clouds, is a farm that houses organic fruits, vegetables, livestock, honeybees and other commodities.
But for Adam Burke, founder of Veterans Farm, this farm is far from ordinary. The disabled combat veterans who work the farm during a six-month fellowship are more valuable than the goods they produce.
“I am very selective in [the veterans] I choose,” Burke, a U.S. Army veteran, said. “This is not about a paycheck. It’s about tranquility, peace in life, people who are looking for a change, to grow in their lives.”
Is your house making you sick?
Aside from the occasional asthma, Flagler student Corey Christian, 22, is in perfectly good health. So it came as a surprise when he found it harder and harder to breathe, even in his own home.
“When I was just laying in my bed and I’d have the window open and like a fan on me, just trying to get some air and I was out of breath” he said “I couldn’t stop coughing, I would actually vomit from how much I was coughing.”
Revamping communications: new academic building to replace communication facility
By Tiffanie Reynolds | gargoyle@flagler.edu
The corner of Cordova and Cuna will be getting a new look, but it will not only be for communication students.
Plans to demolish 31 Cordova, the current communications building, which is beside The Floridian restaurant, are already in motion, with a new two-story academic building replacing it. Still in the conceptual stages of planning, the vision for the academic building includes 12 classrooms, several faculty offices, a studio Mac lab and a screening room that will seat 108. The cost is estimated to be $5.5 million.
Preacher or protester? Tatter brings religious message to Flagler students
A young man in a black shirt with red and orange flames held a sign in his hand as he yelled at a crowd of Flagler College students, “You are all sinners!”
In December 2011 during fall finals, Zachary Tatter, 23, stood outside the Proctor Library and preached to students. Tatter, along with his followers, continue to return to the sidewalks of Flagler College’s campus and around downtown St. Augustine to preach their Christian beliefs.