Local Folks: Laura Phillips Edgecombe
October 13 is a special day for Laura Phillips Edgecombe. It’s the day that, 14 years ago, she and her husband went on their first date. It’s also the day that, 11 years ago, they wed in Fletcher Park. Edgecombe is a third-generation Jaxson who grew up in Mandarin, husband Adam, a first-generation from the […]
Local Folks: Erica Lovelace
Jacksonville native Erica Lovelace is a chef extraordinaire and a culinary influencer who is simmering on the edge of success in Avondale. Born and raised in Mandarin, Lovelace had left for Tallahassee to study marketing and design at Florida State University, where she met Joshua Pekera. Together, they headed west and spent a decade in […]
Animal House: Shelter from the Storm
On Friday and Saturday, Sept. 1-2, Jacksonville supported a Hurricane Idalia Pet Flight Mission and Vehicle Transport Caravan that moved animals out of shelters in Florida to make room for pets affected by the storm. The flight was organized after Idalia, a Category 3 hurricane, made landfall Aug. 30 at Keaton Beach, Florida, in the […]
Local Folks: Craig Hamilton
A Man of Many Minerals At his core, Craig Hamilton is a collector. Over the years, he has collected coins, stamps, seashells and history, but what he loves collecting most is gems and minerals. He first started digging for rocks more than 65 years ago. When he was in sixth grade at North Shore Elementary […]
City Council Approves Florida Blue Office Space for JSO
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s (JSO) Homeland Security Division will soon be getting new office space in Brooklyn’s Florida Blue office tower. Currently, 135 of the division’s 205 employees are housed at a JSO facility at the intersection of Liberty and Beaver streets while the remaining officers are at additional off-site locations. At a Sept. 5 […]
Local Folks: Laura Lothman Lambert
“I love, love, love being back in Jacksonville!” said Laura Lothman Lambert. And this time, she’s here to stay. “Jacksonville is a very special place to me, having grown up here,” she said. Lambert first arrived in Florida at seven years old when her family moved to the San Jose area of Jacksonville from Atlanta, […]
Local Folks: Mike Kovacs
Mike Kovacs and his wife, Chelsea Hamilton, moved to Avondale in November 2020 from New York City. They were ready for a change of pace, a change of weather and a change of taxes. Kovacs and Hamilton tend to be analytical people and embarked upon “Operation Sunshine State.” For quite some time, they researched a […]
The Way We Were: Roger Vega: Unlocking the Past
Roger Vega is the one-man team behind his locksmith company, serving as the face and workforce of Piners Locksmith Service. He is also the keeper of a Jacksonville legacy that predates the beginning of his company and stretches back to Piner’s Grocery, the neighborhood grocery store that would serve as an anchor to the Miramar […]
