PLANT CITY TIMES &
Observer
Area Games prep.
SEE PAGE 12.
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
VOLUME 4, NO. 37
FREE
The Price of Progress
•
FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2017
YOUR TOWN
Residents weigh in on a potential rezoning for development near Walden Pointe. SEE PAGE 3.
JOINING THE RANKS Ryan Johnson, a Durant High School senior, was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. In August, he’ll officially become a cadet and pursue his dream of a military career.
Courtesy photo
N.L. and Dorothy Snow have been married for 68 years.
Happy Anniversary N.L. and Dorothy Snow, of Plant City, celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary Thursday, March 23. N.L. Snow served as a medic in the United States Army in World War II through March 23, 1946. Exactly three years later, N.L. Snow and Dorothy Snow were married on March 23, 1949. The couple has two children, Connie Snow Dennison and Linda Snow Carroll. They also have three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
EMILY TOPPER MANAGING EDITOR
R
yan Johnson was trying not to get his hopes up.
The Durant High School
senior knew how hard it was to get into the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 2015, the school established by Thomas Jeffer-
was the premier institute.”
my sophomore year. I want to
In addition to submitting his SAT scores and filling out admission forms and essays, Johnson also had to get recommendation for admittance to the academy by elected officials. He received nominations from both U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross and Sen. Marco Rubio. Johnson was one of only 10 students in Florida to be recommended by the Florida senator. But after receiving the nominations in November, he had to begin the waiting process. Most applicants didn’t hear back from the academy until March or April, if not later. Or so Johnson thought. In midJanuary, on a trip to West Point, his cellphone rang. “The plane landed and I checked my voicemail,” he said. He had a message from Rubio:
be a leader, and I knew that it
SEE JOHNSON PAGE 4
son accepted only 10% of its 14,829 applicants. “I’ve wanted to go for about two to three years,” Johnson said. “My father and grandfather both served, so I was interested in the military in general. I became interested in West Point at the end of
Back to Kindergarten The Plant City High School Drama department will present its spring production, ‘All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten’ at 7 p.m. Friday, March 24 and Saturday, March 25. The production will be held in the auditorium of Plant City High School, 1 Raider Place. The play is based on a book of short essays by author and minister Robert Fulghun. Tickets are $5 for children and $10 for adults.
Plant City leads county’s effort to enhance the Vietnam Memorial The Wall of Faces Project is an effort to attach more names and stories to the existing memorial in Washington, D.C. DANIEL FIGUEROA IV STAFF WRITER
His callsign was Covey. It was near dusk on Aug. 23, 1967, when United States Air Force Capt. DeRex Williams Jr. was piloting his Cessna O1E “Bird Dog,” an unarmed, fixed wing, propeller-driven aircraft about the size of a pickup truck. He was 50 feet above the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam, a mountainous area of triple-canopy jungle and dense rainforests. He and an observer from the Marine Corps were on a visual reconnaissance mission looking for signs of North Vietnamese Army convoys coming down the trail, which was often used to transport arms and personnel for opposition
forces from north to south Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia. While approaching the airstrip at Khe Sahn in the Quang Tri Province of the Republic of South Vietnam, small-arms fire from enemy forces punctured the cockpit and damaged the plane’s engine. Williams suffered multiple injuries from the enemy fire and attempted to crash-land his plane. He was able to save his observer, but not his own life. At 34, it was the Plant City resident’s second tour in Vietnam. Fifty years later, thanks to the Wall of Faces project, the memory of Williams’ sacrifice and his visage will be preserved for generations to come. The Wall of Faces is an effort put
forth by the the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to enhance the commemoration of the more than 58,300 American soldiers who sacrificed their lives during the Vietnam War. The project seeks to add photos and personal stories to those names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. “They are attaching a photograph or information about that person’s history to the name, so it’s just not a name on a wall,” Shelby Bender, president and executive director of the East Hillsborough Historical Society said. She’s assisting with identifying fallen soldiers from Hillsborough and Polk counties. “They’re giving life to the names.” Since 2009, the VVMF has collected more than 50,000 photos for the project. The 50,000th addition was Daniel Figueroa IV
SEE MEMORIAL PAGE 4
Shelby Bender with records and military awards of USAF Cpt. DeRex Williams Jr.