VOLUME 6 ISSUE 36
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Hometown Heroes Pg B2 SEPTEMBER 12 - 18, 2025
‘Into the Woods’
Stage production weaves fairy-tale magic to open The Civic’s 75th season.
School bus gun scare highlights radio gains and continued gaps By Jennifer Hunt Murty jennifer@ocalagazette.com
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n incident Monday morning in which a loaded revolver was recovered from a Marion County school bus underscored both the benefits and shortcomings of our local emergency communications systems. Ocala Police Department officers responded to the scene at Southwest 27th Avenue and Southwest 14th Street, where they recovered a loaded 38-caliber revolver, according to OPD records. The juvenile was arrested on numerous charges and was taken to the Department of Juvenile Justice (see page A4). No injuries were reported. A review of communications during the incident reveals both successes and gaps in how the various agencies involved coordinated their responses.
EMERGENCY RADIO BUTTON WORKED AS DESIGNED
Christian Gonzalez returns to The Civic in the role of Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Most recently, Gonzalez appeared as the lead of SpongeBob SquarePants in “The SpongeBob Musical.” For Gonzalez, “Into the Woods” has been on his bucket list since he started doing theater. “I’ve had a history of playing youthful, energetic roles in the past and Jack is among the best of that type. I haven’t had the opportunity to be in a dramatic piece in a while and while Jack has lots of fun comic moments throughout the show, he really has a terribly difficult and tragic story towards the end of the show, where, for a while, he’s a big target of blame by a large group of people,” he said.
At 7:25 a.m. on Sept. 8, the driver of Bus 1959, carrying roughly 25 students to College Park Elementary, activated the vehicle’s emergency radio to report that a child was armed. Within seconds, the transmission was received by Marion County Public Safety Communications, which classified the incident as an “active shooter” and pushed alerts through its system. The response was only possible because of a 2024 interlocal agreement that placed all Marion County Public Schools buses on the county’s emergency radio network. Before the agreement, bus drivers relied solely on bus dispatchers and cellphone calls to report crises, a vulnerability county and school leaders sought to eliminate. Since 2023, the county has made a significant investment to upgrade its radios at a cost of more than $10 million. It’s also recently increased the number of towers to serve those radios. The school district jumped on the opportunity to tag onto the county’s upgraded radio system, even though it tripled their service costs to $152,289 as of the last budget year. School District member Nancy Thrower, who played a major role in getting the interlocal agreement with the county for the collaboration, told the “Gazette” after Monday’s incident that
See Into the Woods, page A8
See School bus, page A8
Little Red Riding Hood, played by Iyanna Lynell, left, and The Witch, played by Abigail Blystra, center, threaten The Narrator, played by Kyleigh Wilkinson, right, as they rehearse a scene of “Into The Woods” at The Civic in Ocala on Sept. 9, 2025. The plays will run Sept. 11-28 at the theater.
By Jamie Berube jamie@ocalagazette.com
J
ustin Davis was wrestling with a stubborn computer in his home office when a call from The Ocala Civic Theatre, also known as The Civic, shifted his course as he was offered the role of resident music director. “When I got the call, I was in my home office working on another IT job and I was very excited, because it was an opportunity to do something creative. At the time, I was fighting with a computer that was not behaving, so I was very excited to think about the future of doing music with people instead of working with machines,” Davis said. Feeling out of place in the solitary world of IT, he craved connection. “I applied for the job and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but when I got that call that they wanted to move forward with me to be their next teammate, it was just an overwhelming sense of relief of finally being able to have that part of life filled for me while still being able to do IT work on the side,” Davis said. He later learned that he would lead the music for “Into the Woods,” the Tony Award-winning musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine.
“I feel like I’ve come home. It’s a lot of fun to connect up with such a great organization,” Davis stated. From Sept. 11-28, “Into the Woods” opens The Civic’s 75th season, weaving iconic Grimm fairy-tale characters with the tale of a baker and his wife in a magical forest. The story intertwines Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel with the baker and his wife, who hope to break a witch’s curse to have a child. In the magical forest, their quests for items requested by the witch to lift the curse include a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold, leading to encounters with giants, wolves and charming princes along the way. Directed by Executive Artistic Director Greg Thompson, this production is played by a darling, dynamic cast, with an evocative scenic design by Kaden Reynard and costumes by Amanda Jones. The show offers a mesmerizing yet sobering exploration of wishes and their repercussions. Thompson crafts a unique vision, presenting the story through a child’s imagination. “We tell the story through the eyes of a child—their narrator. It’s like the story comes alive in their imagination, mainly to help them deal with a tough personal situation. It’s
set among brambles and bushes of the forest, rather than the usual focus on tall, looming trees,” Thompson said. Exploring the complex nature of parent-child relationships, “Into the Woods” examines how the hopes, dreams and expectations that parents place on their children shape these bonds and the individuals involved, according to Thompson.
CREATIVE CASTING
Grooming for success Robert Fick got a second chance through a juvenile justice program that pairs young men with retired thoroughbred racehorses. By Margo Wilson margo@ocalagazette.com
Robert Fick, a groom, spends some time in the barn area with a 2-year-old Uncle Mo colt as he grooms the thoroughbred at Ocala Stud Farm in Ocala on Sept. 3, 2025. Fick was hired as a groom at Ocala Stud a year ago after participating in the Second Chances juvenile program. [Bruce Ackerman/ Ocala Gazette]
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fter Robert Fick’s father died, Robert’s world grew darker. Fick, then 15, started hanging
out with kids his dad might not have approved of. It didn’t take that long before Fick found himself at the Ocala Center for Success and Independence, a residential program for young men ages 12 to 18
who have been sent there after running up against the State of Florida’s Juvenile Justice system. But it was at the center that Fick learned about an equine program, run through the Thoroughbred
Retirement Foundation’s Second Chances Juvenile Program for the Department of Juvenile Justice. In the program, youth must have been See Robert Fick page A6
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