David Manning

When David Manning began attending the Christian Fellowship Temple in the mid 1990s, he knew he’d found a special place to learn about the message and love of God.

David Thomas, one of the pastors of CFT, and Mr. Manning developed an immediate kinship, a bond that continues to grow stronger with each passing year.

“Our members love David,” said Pastor Thomas. “It’s hard not to love him.”

When Mr. Manning was 7 years old he was struck by a car while riding his bicycle. He awoke in St. Vincent’s Medical Center to find he was paralyzed from the chest down and unable to walk.
The future was uncertain, but he went through several years of rehabilitation and eventually graduated from Baker County High School.

Helene Guest (left) during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“This is God’s project,” said Helene Guest of the Baker County Community Garden project that broke ground with a ribbon-cutting ceremony August 6.

In the planning stages since May, the community garden is the vision of Ms. Guest, who spearheaded and manages the Baker County Farmers Market.

The vegetable garden will be located on north CR 228 adjacent to the Baker County Sheriff’s Complex. A cadre of volunteers, including the Ag Center’s master gardeners, will be highly involved in bringing the project to fruition.

Funding for the first phase of the community garden comes from a $5,000 grant that originated through the Baker County Health Department. There are currently about 2 acres devoted to the project with the possibility of expansion in the future.

Brandy Sapp and Dr. Santon Longenecker

Last year, Brandy Sapp suffered a freak accident. Unaware of the damage to her body, her situation went undiagnosed for months, leading to a widespread infection. The damage rendered her nearly paralyzed and almost claimed her life.

Enter Dr. Stanton Longenecker, a Jacksonville orthopedic surgeon with an engineering background. A new hip prosthesis he helped develop has recently given Brandy back her life.

“Her case was the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Dr. Longenecker. “It’s highly unusual for a 30-year-old woman to break a hip and just as unusual for the situation to drag out like it did. Life dealt this young woman a really bad hand of cards. It was my job to reshuffle the deck.”

Brandy is the first to receive the newly designed titanium short stem prosthesis and her prognosis is excellent. Her goal is to be walking on her own by the time her children start school Aug. 23.

“I’m more than pleased, I’m ecstatic,” Dr. Longenecker said of his patient’s remarkable progress.“At her age, she had the most to lose if it didn’t work and the most to gain if it did.”

Anthony Siddell and image of Mary.

When army nurse Anthony Siddell was stationed in Frankfort, Germany in 1981, he passed some of his free time by painting.

The young soldier painted a mural on one wall of the day room in the barracks.

“I wanted to depict America, from one end to the other,” he said of the panoramic landscape he created.

According to Mr. Siddell, a write-up on the mural appeared in an issue of The Army Times.

He did paintings and gave them away to fellow soldiers. After leaving the service he continued to paint. Four years ago, he and his family moved from Jacksonville to Glen St. Mary.

For some time, Mr. Siddell has been thinking about one of the paintings he did during his time in Germany, which he gave to a female soldier who was being discharged.

After some searching, he finally located an old slide he took of the painting before giving it away and was able to make several photo reproductions which he had mounted.

He recently donated one to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Macclenny.

The image shows a very pregnant Mary, on the eve of Jesus’ birth, standing at the door of the inn. She’s just received the news that there is no room available and looks back at the viewer with an expression that seems to say, “Well, what now?”