NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Fire Chief Dave McCallister was honored by the Volusia League of Cities' Distinguished Service Award for 2012.

This awards were presented to outstanding individuals who have made their community, and Volusia County as a whole, a better place to live. The recipients were honored at a Volusia League of Cities banquet May 24, at the Smyrna Yacht Club in New Smyrna Beach.

Blaine O'Neal Award of Excellence, the top overall award, went to Port Orange City Manager Kenneth Parker.

Report grim: At least 27 confirmed dead

By Darlene Vann

EDGEWATER -- I am in shock and not sure what to even say about the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Ct. I come from Connecticut and lived in Sandy Hook immediately before I moved here in 1968.

Back then, it was then a very small town like Oak Hill. Everyone knew their neighbor and we all went to Newtown to shop and go to church and school since at that time those things did not yet exist in Sandy Hook. I was stunned to hear the news anchor say the shootings were at a Sandy Hook elementary school of all places. 

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- For those of you out there doubting the power of online news and how fast it travels consider this: Headline Surfer's story on the Holly Hill man charged with murder for allegedly gunning down his housemate over a spoiled pork chop, was posted only an hour ago and already is atop the Google News Directories for Daytona Beach and among the top accessed stories trending online at mid-day.

Headline Surfer (via HeadlineSurfer.com) was the fourth-ranked news site nationally on the Google search engines behind the Huffington Post,  Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle.

Prosecutor: Victim killed in 'ambush' shoot-out

Jerry Crew was found guilty of second-degree murder in the April 16, 2011, shooting death of 19-year-old Donnell Ellis Jr., even though he didn't pull the trigger. Ellis was actually killed when he and Crews lured a drug dealer and two associates into a motel room with the intention of robbing them and shots were fired.

DAYTONA BEACH -- After a lasting four days, a Volusia County jury deliberated for three hours Thursday before finding 56-year-old Jerry Roy Crew of Holly Hill guilty of second-degree felony murder and robbery, offenses that could net him a sentence of up to life in prison.

35-year-old killed instantly by two rounds to head from .22-caliber Ruger rifle

HOLLY HILL -- Police Chief Mark Barker shook his head in disgust in describing what set off 55-year-old Thomas Mathew Hahn Jr. to the point where he allegedly retrieved a .22-caliber Ruger rifle and blasted away at housemate Robert Gray until he lay dead in the living room of the residence they shared with two others.

When cops arrived, they found 35-year-old Gray dead on the floor of Hahn's living room in the 800 block of May Avenue just before 10:30 p.m. Tuesday while Hahn sat in a chair near the body.

The Bermuda Estates Apartments in Ormond Beach was the locale of a violent comfrontation between two brothers in their early 30s.

ORMOND BEACH -- An argument between two brothers Thursday turned violent when one stabbed the other in the face and ear, police said.

Here is a synopsios of what happened in the 3:20 p.m. inccident at the Bermuda Estates Apartments, 10,000 St. George Road No. 23, as described by Ormond Beach Police spokesman Lt. Kenny Hayes: Patrol units found 30-year-old Andrew Taylor on the complex grounds bleeding from wounds to the face and ear. Andrew’s brother, 32-year-old Eric Taylor, fled the area on foot prior to police arrival. The younger Taylor who was not cooperating with the investigation was transported to Ormond Memorial Hospital for treatment. Police located Eric Taylor nearby at the Walmart store and apprehended him after a brief foot chase.

Eric Taylor was charged with one count of aggravated battery -- domestic violence.

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES -- On Nov. 6, the American people consigned their future and that of their country, their children and grandchildren to socialist hell.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The Elections have come and gone and many folks are too weary to think about politics. However, one political element that got little attention during the recent elections was the “Tea Party.”

Photo for Headline Surfer / This shot taken from the rafters of the New Smyrna Beach High School gymnasium on Wednesday will be used for a new poster to help high school students throughout Central Florida learn about the importance of organ and tissue donation.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Some 350 students, along with a few teachers and administrators, formed the No. 8 inside the high school gym Wednesday to symbolize the number of lives that could be saved from the organs of someone who has died.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jim Newcomb isn't the only captain in the Daytona Beach police force to have been involved in alleged wrongdoing that Chief Michael Chitwood has managed to keep under the radar while all too eager to publicly make examples of patrol cops accused of wrongdoing under supervision of these very captains.