Volusia News Now

Monte Henkenberns blew a .132 in a breathalyzer test, more than three times the legal threshold of .08 for drunken driving, when he was arrested April 15.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- When Monte Andrew Henkenberns was pulled over on an early Sunday in April in the 500 block of South Peninsula Avenue, it marked the fourth time he'd been arrested on a charge of driving under the influence.

By Michael Visconti

EDGEWATER -- I am here in Connecticut for the Christmas Holidays and I see all the people are not in the Christmas spirit: The churches are crowded and all are looking for guidance, hoping to hear words of comfort and praying over the loss of 26 lives at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

They are praying that we can put an end to this kind of tragedy: Twenty children and six adults at an elementary school. How can this happen?

In a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. a gunman killed 12 and wounded 70. A few years ago at Virginia Tech, another gunman killed 32 and wounded 17. Back in 1999 in Columbine, two teenagers with guns killed 12 and wounded another 21.

Photos for Headline Surfer / A mail truck caught fire in Edgewater as shown here, but the carrier saved the mail inside.

EDGEWATER -- The post office motto states: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." It doesn't say anything about the mail truck catching fire.

That is exactly what occurred in the 1400 block of Willow Oak Drive in the Florida Shores subdivision when a U.S. Postal Service carrier's mail truck caught fire last March while he was making his appointed rounds. It comes in as No. 86 in Headline Surfer's countdown of the top 100 stories of 2012.

Daytona newspaper's own archives show issue was addressed in March 10, 2008 publication, despite sensational reporting earlier this month as 'news'

DAYTONA BEACH -- Even though County Chair-elect Jason Davis told a Daytona Beach News-Journal reporter in a front page story on Dec. 6, that a charge of fraud against him a decade ago had been dropped in an interview he gave the newspaper four years ago when he was running for Congress and published, it was nonetheless reported as fresh "news."

An online search of the News-Journal's print archives shows that indeed Jason Davis was telling the truth as demonstrated in a story published March 10, 2008, on the print newspaper's local section front under the headline, "Incumbent Fennel no sure thing for House seat."

By Cheyenne Drews

Images such as this are displayed by Facebook users in paying tribute to the 20 first graders among the 26 people killed in Friday's Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- There’s no word for a parent who loses a child. There shouldn’t have to be one.

Innocent children are the images of purity, of selflessness, and of innocence before what we call society corrupts what was innately good. And now, children are the victims.

On Friday one of my classmates and I had been on a bus heading back towards my school from a field trip when something repeating faintly over the radio caught our attention: “Elementary school shooting.”

By Darlene Vann

Sandy Hook teacher Kaitlin Raig recalls the situation at hand in an emotional interview with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer. The video is included with Darlene Vann's blog installment.

EDGEWATER -- With so many images, statements, concerns and a visibly grieving president speaking to us, what struck me the most in the aftermath of the horrific massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school was ABC anchor Diane Sawyer’s interview with one of the teachers who lived through this tragedy.

By Jeanette DiCara

EDGEWATER -- My family and I were shocked and very saddened to find out that an adult had killed young children in Newtown Connecticut on Friday. My daughters asked me how someone could bring themselves to do this terrible crime to children?

We pondered together on how could it be possible that any person be so disconnected from the empathy they have for others to commit such a heinous act on anyone, else especially on innocent children?

As I think back on my children in their early elementary school years, I remember being able to still pick them up and curling up in bed with them at story time each night.

Headline Surfer photo by Henry Frederick / Althea Philord, shown here at New Smyrna Beach City Hall commission chambers, is head of the city's nationally-recognized finance department.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The City of New Smyrna Beach Finance Department earned national recognition in June for meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting from the Government Finance Officers Association in Chicago.

"We have received the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the current year's budget," said Finance Director Althea Philord. "It is the highest form of recognition in governmental budgeting."

The recognition for Philord and her staff comes in at No. 87 in Headline Surfer's countdown of the top 100 local stories of 2012.

The locator map shows where an elderly Ormond Beach fisherman drowned.

DELAND -- An 81-year-old Ormond Beach man fell into the Norris Dead River, a tributary of the St. Johns River, at the Highland Park Fish Camp and drowned on Feb. 2, according to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

The tragic death of Richard Bass comes in as No. 88 in Headline Surfer's countdown of the top 100 local stories of 2012.

A witness called 9-1-1 at 7:07 a.m. to report that Richard Bass had fallen off a dock and disappeared into the water.

Deputies and rescue personnel from Volusia County Fire Services arrived on scene and helped search for the victim who was found at approximately 7:57 a.m.

The elderly man was then transported by EVAC Ambulance to Florida Hospital DeLand where he was pronounced dead at 8:28 a.m.