A Sanderson man with a criminal record for dealing drugs pleaded no contest to a trio of felonies stemming from a violent encounter with two county deputies a year ago and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Kharis Clayton, 29, entered the no contest pleas on May 7 to battery on police, resisting police with violence and escape. He gets credit for more than a year in county jail since his arrest on April 28, 2012.

Mr. Clayton attacked a county canine deputy and his dog following a traffic stop on CR 127 and fled on foot. He was arrested in Jacksonville the following day at the residence of a girlfriend.

Deputy Chris Walker stopped the suspect that afternoon for not wearing a seat belt, and said Mr. Clayton got out of his Pontiac cursing and refusing requests to remain in the vehicle. He struck the officer in the throat, knocking him to the ground, and resisted being handcuffed.

Fearing the havoc that an anticipated increase in health care costs as high as 30 percent or more would have on their household budgets, Baker County teachers made an unusual public plea to the school board for across-the-board pay raises this week.

The president of the teacher union, Westside Elementary School teacher Angela Callahan, led a small contingent of classroom instructors to the board meeting on the evening of May 6 to discuss their concerns.

“What we’re hearing is the increase could be 32 to 35 percent,” Mrs. Callahan said, standing in the Olustee Volunteer Fire Station where the meeting was held. “That is a catastrophic decrease to our salaries.”

With $860 in “take home pay” every two weeks, she said, such an additional burden would be “catastrophic on me and my family.”

She said her premium, which covers health insurance for herself and her children, is about $500 monthly. If premiums are hiked an additional 30 percent she would have to fork over another $150 a month in the coming school year. She then hinted that more teachers may decide to leave the profession they love because they can’t afford to stay in it.

County firefighters saw a large oak tree that was uprooted on May 3 and fell across N. Clinton Ave. in Glen.

The nor’easter that swept over the southeast last week dropped 4.5 inches in the Macclenny area during a three-day period beginning about mid-day Wednesday, according to readings from the Ag Center weather station.

The tower there clocked wind gusts up to 18 mph on Friday, May 3, and wind speeds averaged about 4 mph during the storm.

Robert Fletcher, the county’s road department director, said there was only one road officially closed by the county, Tiger Lakes Road, due to the storm, but no homes were located there.

He said others roads were left “rough and bumpy,” which is typical of heavy rainfall on dirt surfaces.

“We didn’t have anything major,” said Mr. Fletcher. “But we’ll be working the graders overtime for a few days to give these school buses some relief.”

Troy Howell enters courtroom for sentencing May 7.

A Glen St. Mary man who operated a marijuana grow house was sentenced this week to 7.5 years on drug and child abuse charges, the latter related to imprisoning his 18-year-old nephew.

Troy Edward Howell, 31, was living with the victim, his juvenile niece and another juvenile nephew at a residence on Crews Road while running the grow house inside a second home on the property.

There investigators recovered nine zip lock bags of processed pot buds, 96 pot plants, hydroponic stations, chemicals, fertilizer and a 16-gauge shotgun, according to police reports. Investigators also noted razor wire and infrared surveillance cameras on the property when they arrived in October 2011, responding to allegations of child abuse by the niece, who spoke on behalf of her uncle at the sentencing hearing before Circuit Judge Mark Moseley the afternoon of May 7.

She said she loved Troy Howell and didn’t want him punished harshly.

“His intentions were good,” she said. “His actions were a little bit out of hand. Some people just get a little too aggressive and it happens. Things just happen. I love him to death and I want to see him.”

Troy Howell’s two sisters and the defendant’s mother also asked for leniency, saying he was “a good man” and he only chained up his eldest nephew to keep him from running away and taking drugs.

After the hearing, his sister Shannon Smith, the mother of the two youngest children, said her family’s been torn apart by the case.

“It’s a hard situation,” she said. “Brandon [the child abuse victim] is my son. Brandon was doing a lot of wrong things. And Troy is my brother. It’s been a very hard thing to deal with. So it is what it is, and we’ll make it through it. I just want to put my whole family back together. That’s all I want.”