The Navigator is sponsored by Mary’s Little Lamb Preschool at 7311 N. Armenia Ave. in Tampa. We are a nationally accredited preschool established in 1959.

Free Childcare and a paycheck. We are currently seeking a qualified toddler teacher or teaching assistant. The ideal candidate must be creative, energetic, dependable, nurturing, patient, have a passion about the growth and development of the children, and be a team player. Requirements: pass a level 2 background screening, high school diploma or higher, completed or willing to start and complete the DCF 45 training hours, get CPR/First aid certified.

Interested in sponsoring the Navigator? We need to talk.

5 QUESTIONS

Riding Posse With Michael Moore

Michael Moore of Plant City is a member of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Mounted Posse, a nonprofit organization that assists the Hillsborough County Mounted Enforcement Team. Members are expert horsemen/women, and their mounts are calm, cool, and collected in all situations, including fairs, parades, search and rescues, and manhunts. The posse attended the Back To School Bash event at Hillsborough County Fairground on Aug. 12. Learn more at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse Facebook page.

Are posse members sworn law enforcement officers?

No, we’re a volunteer unit that helps out the Hillsborough County Mounted Enforcement Team. We assist in search and rescue operations, crowd control and ride in parades. We do public relations events, like this Back to School Bash at the county fairgrounds today, with the sheriff’s office. During the holidays, Black Friday especially and closer to Christmas, we might be on site at shopping malls — Westfield or Brandon — as a crime deterrent.

What do you do in the field?

We do the same things the deputies do. We ride in different formations close together to cover the ground thoroughly. We might be looking for a missing person or someone lost or injured or deceased. We’re certified in CPR and first aid. We also look for weapons used in crimes or for ones tossed away by fleeing suspects.

What kind of horse do you ride?

A Percheron. Her name is Belle, and she’s 21 years old. She’s been in the posse for about 2½ years. I’ve been a volunteer for 15. It’s more about the psychological state versus the breed, though. You need a horse with stamina and a quiet mind, one that’s not super reactive. They have to be able to put up with lights, sirens, helicopters, crowds, carnival rides when we do county or state fairs. My wife, Holly, joined the posse in 2003, and today is riding a Clydesdale, Spartan. He’s 6. They’re our personal horses. We left one at home today.

Do you have any cool equipment?

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister has really gotten behind the posse. He wants us to be uniform — to look the same. So we have the same shirts, and the sheriff’s office provides our horses with matching saddle pads, martingales and bridles that identify us. Our helmets have “P-O-S-S-E” on them. I do it because I like it.

How do people get involved?

They can check out our Facebook page and email me from there to get in touch. To be a member of the posse, they have to qualify as a team with their horse. And then they have to go to three meetings and three functions and also be voted in by the other posse member. We’re gaining ridership.

GET INVOLVED

Civic meetings of note during the coming week Sept. 26-Oct. 2.

WEDNESDAY: The Bicycle Advisory Committee of the Hillsborough Transportation Planning Organization will vote on the final list of the Top Ten Dangerous Locations for Bicyclists and Pedestrians. Plan Hillsborough Committee Room, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., 18th Floor, Tampa. 5:30 p.m.

REPORTER

Lucy Morgan’s mission was to ‘roam around Florida and cause trouble’

She was not the first pioneering newspaperwoman but surely the most significant

By Diane Roberts / Photo credit: State Library and Archives of Florida

Untold numbers of Florida politicians spent their careers in fear of Lucy Morgan. Lobbyists and cops, too.

As they should have, especially if they were lying or on the take or abusing positions of power or groping female employees — which they too often were.

Jack Latvala, a Republican former senator from Pinellas County, once hollered at Lucy, “I would rather have an enema than be interviewed by you!”

Another time, when a lawmaker tried to evade her questions, Lucy followed him into the gents.

I remember sitting in a Rules Committee meeting sometime in the late 1980s when Lucy, then capital bureau chief of the St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times, sailed in. The atmosphere shifted. She smiled sweetly at the legislators sitting up on the dais, but some of them suddenly had a hunted look in their eyes.

If you were supposed to be a public servant but you served no one but yourself, Lucy Morgan would find you out and take you down.

Now Lucy has died at the age of 82. Those of us who worked with her, or for her, or just hung out at her house drinking copious amounts of good red wine, cannot get our heads wrapped around this.

Lucy, tough, funny, stiletto-sharp Lucy, Lucy the Hall of Famer, Pulitzer-winner, dogged investigator, epic badass, would surely live forever.

That’s not, of course, the way the universe works.

She’s left us: her family and her friends and her husband Richard — a great newspaper editor who always said Lucy was the finest reporter he ever worked with — her daughters and her grandchildren and her much-loved cats Johnny and Willie.

The great stories — by her and about her — remain.

Read more at the Florida Phoenix

WHAT THEY SAID

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BRIEFS

Rick Steves Visits: Everybody’s favorite travel guide, Rick Steves, talks about his trips to Italy, England, France, Norway, and other destinations while The Florida Orchestra, conducted by Michael Francis, plays Beethoven, Elgar, Grieg, and Verdi. Awesome images on a big screen, too. Friday, March 15, and Saturday, March 16, 8 p.m., Mahaffey Theater, tickets $35, $55, $75, and $100.

Sandbag Options: Wondering what to do with those county-issued sandbags you collected, now that hurricane Idalia is gone? Save them for the next one, recommends Hillsborough County. The season officially ends Nov. 30, so you may need them again. Store them off the ground in a covered location for reuse. Later, spread the unused sand in your yards or drop them off at one of the county’s recycling centers.

Tampa Streetcar Remains Free for Now, DeSantis and Newsom to Debate, and Remembering Lucy Morgan

Plus, riding posse with Michael Moore.

CURRENTS

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