THIS WEEK IN DESTIN HISTORY: A Rodeo record was set as 100,000 flooded the Seafood Fest

Here’s what The Log reported for Oct. 6 and 10:

•The Destin Charter Boat Association grilled the Committee for Incorporation about the effects of Destin becoming a city. When CFI’s Bob McIlroy told Capt. Tommy Green that development along “the new 98” would be outside city limits, Green replied that “you can’t get what we need.”
“We lost the battle,” McIlroy said, “but we’re trying to win the war.”
McIlroy told the DCBA that residents’ property taxes wouldn’t automatically go up, because if the county raised property taxes, the city’s rate could be lowered.

•Couch Construction announced that it would have a small asphalt plant set up within a month to lay asphalt along the 7.4 miles of the new 98 — a total 140,000 tons. Couch said it expected to finish by Nov. 1985.

•The Red Cross accused Northwest Florida Blood Center of pushing patients and their families in Pensacola hospitals to donate enough blood to “replace” what they used — a policy the center supposedly abandoned.
“We encourage everyone to have friends or relatives to give blood, so it will be there for the next guy” the center’s Gene Roberts replied, but they didn’t push anyone. “If we get no response, we don't follow through.”

•The DCBA voted to file a formal complaint with the Florida Marine Patrol against boats from outside Destin that dumped “thousands of pounds” of dead fish into the Gulf.
“The press is going to say we did that,” Capt. Tommy Green told The Log. He said the boats had netted heavy loads of skipjack, a bait fish, then thrown away whatever they didn’t want to bring to shore and “just let them die.”

•Facing a code-enforcement citation for debris dumped on his harbor property, Capt. Olin Marler said he was only responsible for 30 55-gallon drums he planned to use for an artificial reef.
“It’s turned into a junkyard for everybody,” Marler said, adding that he’s put up a No Dumping sign.
Marler told The Log that after the Destin Fishing Rodeo ended, he’d clear out the items he’d placed on the lot, but he didn’t have the ability to move things such as the commercial-sized freezers people had left there. If the county wanted those moved, he said, or wanted the lot clean before the Rodeo finished, “they can move it. I’ll remove everything I can.”

•Department of Community Affairs Planning Manager Barbara Henderson said the state’s new rule restricting state money for development in barrier-island areas — a term the state was applying to Destin and South Walton — wouldn’t affect funding for hospitals, fire services or schools.
One resident at a DCA meeting said out-of-state lenders were already refusing mortgage applications because of the rule. Henderson said the Destin/Walton area wasn’t unique, and that she didn’t think government should subsidize growth in “high-hazard coastal areas.”

•Residents of the 267 phone exchange in South Walton were given an Extended Service Area: Instead of long-distance rates, it only cost $1/month to make phone calls to Destin and Fort Walton Beach.

•The Department of Environmental Regulation approved Sandestin’s plan for a rip-rap weir to replace the natural dam at a coastal dune lake. The dam had failed twice in two years, dumping polluted water into Choctaw Bay.
The DER said the rip-rap would be an improvement, but it couldn’t guarantee any structure would hold water back forever.

•The developer of Wild Dunes in South Walton said he would pump sewage 1.5 miles down the road to Blue Gulf’s sewage treatment plant, because Wild Dunes’ neighbors were objecting to his plans to have a sewage treatment plant there.

•Sharon Ward of Freeport was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 1983 shooting death of her husband. The verdict was second-degree murder.

•The Log interviewed Kathleen Elizabeth Melvin Jones, who arrived in Destin from Panama City in 1914, as a 12 year old. Jones remembered making scrub mops from palmetto fronds and cooking with pickled beef and canned sausage until her family could afford an icebox.

•Gary Wayne Cooper was arrested and charged with murdering his live-in girlfriend, Linda Joyce Willis. Cooper allegedly beat her for eight hours before she died.

•Okaloosa County Commissioners said they opposed an amendment on the November ballot that would create single-member county districts. The commissioners said if officials only had to answer to one district, the temptation to focus county resources there would be too great.
“It’s easier for the politician,” Commissioner Mike Mitchell said, “but the government isn’t structured to benefit the politician.”

•A consulting engineer told Destin Water users that groundwater seeping into the utility’s sewer lines was increasing the flow into DWU’s sewage-treatment plant. Since DWU had maxed out its sewage-treatment capacity earlier that year, the engineer said extensive, expensive repairs might be necessary.

•Okaloosa County officials said there’d been no delay in updating the county’s Destin Airport Master Plan, even though no work had been done in the past five months and the county hasn’t secured federal approval for funding. Airport Manager Coy Thomason said it would cost $100,000 to 200,000.

•A DER biologist turned off the aerators in Old Pass Lagoon on Oct. 1, to be turned back on again Oct. 15. The biologist said two weeks without using them would tell whether they really improved water quality in the harbor.

•The Holiday Isle Improvement Association voted to spend $30,000 installing aerators in the island’s finger canals, in hopes the environmental improvement would be sufficient for the state to allow more docks there.
Board members said that it was important to improve water quality in any case. One member said he remembered when you could eat oysters out of the canals and the mullet were so thick “that you could walk on them.”

•Sundestin’s plan to relocate its parking area north, to make room for a new shopping center, was scheduled to go before the County Commission.

•Destin building permits in September totaled $1.1 million, $100,000 less than August and down from $12.5 million in September 1983, when SunDestin won approval for its $9 million building.
The biggest projects in September 1984 were a $331,000 Western Sizzlin’ restaurant and a $122,600 five-unit townhouse project on Airport Road.

•Dr. Earl Brandon of Tuscaloosa set a Fishing Rodeo record with a 343.5 pound warsaw, caught on Kelly Windes’ Sunrise. Brandon said he’d been fishing the rodeo with Windes for 15 years.
“The rod was bent double and there was no way to just hold the rod and crank on that fish,” Brandon told The Log, adding that while it took a quarter of an hour to land it, it seemed like “a couple of hours.”
Brandon said he had no idea how big it would be because had nothing to compare it to: His biggest previous catch was a 30-pound grouper.

•South Walton residents raked the Fire District over the coals for proposing to replace the $25 a home flat tax with a .5 millage rate.

•The Walton County Commission began negotiating to hire Barr, Dunlap and Associates to draw up a zoning plan for the county.

•100,000 people turned out for the Seafood Festival in Destin, setting a new record.