Top 100 Volusia County Stories

 NSBNEWS.net video by Sera King. New Smyrna Beach resident Bill Koleszar gave city commissioners an ultimatum: Either cut the budget by $1 million or face voter wrath. The commissioners did as he asked.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A retired police chief armed with 40 years of budgeting experience and backed by more than 200 supporters told the New Smyrna Beach City Commission at a Set. 24 public hearing that an 11.2 percent mill-rate increase was not going to fly and that there would be hell to pay come election time or even sooner through voter recalls for any of them who didn't heed his warnings. He got his way with $1 million subsequently cut "

NSBNEWS.net photo by Sera King. Because of Volusia County School District budget cuts, several elementary schools were closed for this school year, including Samsula Elementary, which reopened as a charter school renamed Samsula Academy.

DELAND -- Nowhere has the downturn in the economy had a stronger effect locally in 2008, than the Volusia County Schools with $45 million-plus in state budget cuts that forced the district to lay off more than 200 teachers, close several schools and legal sparring between the schools superintendent and the president of the teacher's union.

 Courtesy photo. Volusia County Judge Dawn Fields ruled in December that former City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Mike Shallow had a right of privacy when he was behind a closed bathroom stall in the Volusia Mall and because of that right, the accusation of lewd behavior was not found credible, and therefore, the case against him dismissed.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Former Daytona Beach City Commissioner Mike Shallow, who made two unsuccessful runs for mayor, was acquitted Dec. 16. of lewd and lascivious behavior amid accusations he was masturbating in a bathroom stall at Sears in the Volusia Mall.

Courtesy photos. Mark Williams, news director at WNDB radio 1150 in Daytona Beach, has provided regular updates on the Caylee Anthony homicide in Orange County from the onset on the Nancy Grace show on CNN Headline News.

DAYTONA BEACH -- We've heard his voice for years as news director/reporter on WNDB radio 1150 am, but since early summer he's been a regular fixture on CNN Headline News' Nancy Grace reporting on the Caylee Anthony homicide.

Courtesy photo. Craig Leron Flynt, the son of a Daytona Beach police officer, shot and killed the mother of his four children in August, pumping the final bullet into her head with a .357 Magnum as police arrived. He was later sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Craig Leron Flynt, 37 and the son of a Daytona Beach police officer, stood above his fallen ex-girlfriend and mother of his four young children pumped a second bullet into her head across the street from her Maley Street residence just after midnight on Aug. 4.

Courtesy photo. Kyle Busch bests Carl Edwards to take the 2008 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

DAYTONA BEACH -- After finishing second twice two previous times, Kyle Busch finally won the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, eking out Carl Edwards to victory under a checkered-caution ending in the July 5 race flag under the lights.

Courtesy photo. Paul Newman, Hollywood icon, philanthropist and race-car driver, was a fan-favorite at the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway. The 83-year-old actor died in February.

DAYTONA BEACH -- He was known for his role on the big screen as "Cool Hand Luke" and behind the wheel of a sports car, he had the steady hand as well, taking the checkered flag in the GTS-1 class at the Rolex 24 At Daytona at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 5, 1995. Paul Newman was 70 then, but continued to race well into the 2000s. The Hollywood icon and racing enthusiast who started out at a small racing track in Thompson, Conn., 30 minutes from his Hole in the Wall Camp for cancer-stricken children, died Feb. 26, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 83.

Headline Surfer photo by Sera King / Jill Biden, wife of Vice President-elect Joe Biden campaigned for him and Barack Obama in New Smyrna Beach, just 11 days before the general election.

By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. -- Jill Biden, wife of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, urged nearly 300 Democratic supporters at the Woman's Club of New Smyrna Beach on Oct. 24 to take advantage of early voting before the expected Nov. 4 election-day crush.

Coutesy photo. Roy Lee McDuffie was sentenced at re-trial in November to three life sentences after his first trial conviction and death sentences were tossed on technical grounds in the 2002 killings of two Dollar General Store employees in Deltona during a robbery that netted him $7,000.

DELTONA -- Roy Lee McDuffie got his wish Nov. 19, when a jury recommended three life sentences in favor of returning him to death row in the 2002 killings of two employees of the Dollar General Store in Deltona.

NSBNEWS.net photo by Sera King. New Smyrna Beach police Cmdr. gave a riveting speech during a 9/11 remambrance ceremony, one of several around Volusia County.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Police Cmdr. William Drossman urged some 300 people gathered at a service at VFW Post 4250 to commemorate the seventh anniversary of 9/11 to not lose sight of America's purpose as the leader of the free world.