Lake Butler Community Page News Tidbits

By Ted Barber

Club President Shane Collins opened the luncheon meeting with Art Peterson’s prayer for our work and the food, Dave Mecusker’s lead for the Pledge of Allegiance, and Dale Walker’s attempt with Art Peterson’s recovery of the opening song.

Our guests included Tammy Still, District Representative for Representative Bobby Payne, and our guest speaker Ryan Perez, our Union County Commissioner and UCHS faculty member.

Ryan Perez discussed the importance fiber interconnectivity has to our County in terms of expanding high speed internet access. Union County has 4,508 family households with a population of 15,535. The percent of participation in a recent survey to get grants for improving our current availability was 3.50%. The speed necessary to have adequate service is typically at or above 25 Mbps. We have about 61% at or above the acceptable range.  The need to improve availability has been made very evident with the pandemic causing students, businesses and individuals to rely more heavily on the internet. Data Mining has stirred the need to apply for grants. Perez believes our input is critical to gaining the necessary grants for providers especially for the 38% plus of our County that fall below the 25.0 Mbps range.

The “Did You Know?” question asked under Marine Lt. Presley O’Bannon in 1805 and attack on this North African port city began to end terror by pirates. The city was Tripoli and Derick Thomas had the correct answer.

Upcoming programs include: May 4- Kaleb Archer, May 11- Ted Barber, May 18- David Beatty, May 25- Carlton Faulk, June 1- Nancy Griffis, June 8- Dave Mecusker, June 15- Garrett Milton, June 22- Sara Owen, and June 29- Jody Read.