Lakeland, Polk County | featured news

Sharon Carl of Lake Wales cherishes the notion that she saw miracles performed in the days after Sept. 11, 2001. That morning found Carl in her office at the Chicago headquarters of United Airlines, her employer for nearly three decades at the time. In addition to her regular job in human resources, Carl was assigned to United’s Family Support Team, a group created in the 1980s to assist relatives of passengers in cases of emergency.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon building seemed to be the safest place imaginable — a well-guarded stone fortress that symbolized American military might. Judy Scott, an administrative assistant for the Department of the Army, was in her Pentagon office that morning when she received a call from her sister in Arizona. Carolyn Mann had just seen a news report about the plane flying into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, and she called in agitation to make sure Scott was all right.

As the unthinkable became reality on the morning of Sept. 11, Chester and Bonnie Spires of Eagle Lake had two specific causes for worry: Passenger jets had become newly vulnerable objects of terrorism, and the attackers seemed intent on striking the loftiest symbols of American power. The couple's son, Chester Spires Jr., occupied a position where those two elements intersected. Spires — “Chet” to his parents — served as a crew chief on Air Force One, the presidential jet.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office investigated a complaint against James Ballone in 2014 but lacked evidence to charge the Bartow man with a crime. Two years later, Ballone is accused of sexual battery on children as young as 2. Ballone, who faces 132 charges, used young children to manufacturer pornographic images, Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said Wednesday.