CITRA, Fla. — The hum of machinery and the rumble of fruit on the assembly line are familiar sounds to those who work at The Orange Shop, a historic building in the heart of Citra.

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Over the decades that the business has been in operation, the owners have kept the classic machinery and way of packing and shipping gift fruit mostly unchanged, thanks to the family who started The Orange Shop.

“We're third-generation gift fruit shippers and packers,” owner Pete Spyke said. “My sister was in it, my brother was in it and then my parents and grandparents, so we've been packing and shipping for 80 or 90 years."

Spyke has helped to keep the business in the family — his grandfather first opened the H.L. Spyke and Son Fruit Company in South Florida in the 1930s but eventually moved the business to the small town of Citra just before World War II.

Pete’s father then helped to design and revamp the business’ production flow and machinery with his industrial engineering degree from Georgia Tech in the late 1940s, and most of the machinery and operations still serve it well today.

“We just focus on doing a good job and having good fruit, and that's our business plan," Spyke said. "Other than that, we don't want to change a thing, because our customers want it be exactly like it was when they were here last, so when they bring their kids or grandkids they can show them, too.”

The shop is located on U.S. Highway 301, a road that's been used for travelers since before WWII and made famous because of the abundance of citrus groves that populated the area.

Spyke said he hopes visitors to The Orange Shop leave the tiny town of Citra with a better understanding of the history and with some of the most mouthwatering citrus fruits to be found in Florida.

“We're proud that we're able to continue the legacy of The Orange Shop,” he said. “That's really what our whole career has been about. It's just what we do, and to have people that still support us is really something we are lucky to have and we're happy to do it.”

The Orange Shop is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information on the shop and any upcoming events, visit its website.

A 63-year-old Citra woman was arrested after two of her neighbors claimed that she threatened them with a gun.

On Monday, a Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputy responded to a local residence in reference to an aggravated assault incident. Upon arrival, the deputy made contact with the two victims who advised that the incident involved their neighbor, Cathy Tuggerson, according to the MCSO report.

The victims told the deputy that Tuggerson wanted them off the property, which they have been residing at for several years. At the time of the incident, Tuggerson observed one of the victims returning to the property, and she followed the victim to the front of the residence.

When Tuggerson began confronting both victims outside of the home, they began recording a video of the incident on a cellphone. The victims advised that Tuggerson was holding a silver firearm during the incident and had allegedly threatened to kill them.

In the MCSO report, the deputy noted that the video footage from the victims’ cellphone showed Tuggerson walking up to the base of the steps to their residence. The deputy observed a silver firearm in Tuggerson’s hand and she “waved it around” while telling the victims to get off the property.

As Tuggerson waved the firearm around, the deputy observed that she appeared to point it in the direction of the victims several times.

The deputy made contact with Tuggerson. After being read her Miranda rights, Tuggerson advised that she had posted an eviction notice on the front door of the victims’ residence. She stated that the victims proceeded to move the eviction notice, and they placed a barrier to prevent her from seeing them.

While Tuggerson admitted to having problems with the victims, she denied approaching their home with a firearm. She advised that she owns a silver handgun and she gave permission for the deputy to retrieve it from her residence, according to the MCSO report.

The deputy noted in the report that Tuggerson was wearing the same outfit that was observed in the video. In addition, the deputy observed that the silver handgun that was retrieved from Tuggerson’s home appeared to be the same firearm that she was holding in the video.

Tuggerson was arrested and transported to Marion County Jail where she is currently being held on $4,000 bond. She is facing felony charges for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill (two counts).

A court date has been scheduled at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, February 28, according to jail records.

Columnist

If you visit Pompeii, you can see a 2,000-year-old honky-tonk. The Roman city in southern Italy was preserved by a disaster we don't experience too often in Florida. Our hurricanes and wildfires destroy, but they don't bury the remains for the benefit of antiquarians and tour guides.

All Floridians can expect is that asphalt and concrete may cover some of our civilization, to be discovered by archaeologists of future millennia and classified as Old Plastic Culture, considered a sad and primitive time even by researchers trained to be non-judgmental.

Florida is a land of the eternal present. Every generation moves here, looks around and decides to remake Florida in its own image. Granted, Florida is a new place overall, with less physical heritage than Assyria or Massachusetts. But that's more reason to care for what past we have.

More from Michael Stephens:

If you place obscenities where kids can see them, you are not a conservative

Floridians are progress-obsessed, historically rootless and boundlessly optimistic

The distant clouds of chaos: Deceptive calm may give way to crisis

Colonial Florida got its start with the founding of St. Augustine in 1565. So did Florida's tourism industry, when Sir Francis Drake visited a few years later and burned it. There's nothing ruinous in St. Augustine. Everything has either been maintained all along, lovingly restored or reconstructed from the finest coquina money can buy.

That's far from the state of most other Spanish outposts across Florida. Fernandina's Fort San Carlos is lucky to have a historical marker noting the earthworks that have become mere undulations in the ground. Fort San Marcos de Apalache boasts stone walls still tall enough to delay an angry possum.

Florida's Spanish missions have typically been rediscovered through postholes and potsherds.

Northern Marion and southern and eastern Alachua County form what's remembered as the Old Citrus Belt. Citrus first became vital to Florida here, prospering until freezes drove the industry south after 1899. It's one of the few regions of Florida to ever know decline.

Hamlets like Island Grove, Citra, Cross Creek and McIntosh slumber on as living museums. Citrus packing houses stand like Greek temples, remarkably akin to them in both dimensions and dignity. Their wood and tin have grayed like stone. Look carefully and you may even see some scraggly orange trees still hanging on, survivors of groves sacred to the gods

Now we explore slightly lost cities and other curiosities of proto-modern Florida.

Opa-locka's over 100 Moorish Revival buildings give the South Florida town a medieval Baghdadi exoticism that would make Harun al-Rashid proud. One almost expects to see Sabu fly past on a carpet.

Opa-locka's faded 1920s charms are, well, part of its charm. People actually live here, rather than being a ticketed attraction. You can drive down Aladdin Street and Ali Baba Avenue in an air-conditioned comfort you'd seldom have at Disney.

At Santos, south of Ocala, U.S. 27/301/441 divides to form a wooded island of a few acres. Hidden here stand four huge concrete pylons intended to support a bridge over the Atlantic-Gulf Ship Canal. This giant ancestor of the Cross-Florida Barge Canal was fortunately halted in the 1930s.

Untouched by time, the mere thirty-foot pylons suggest Mayan ruins, while the sixty-footers could be relics of Atlantis. After every other human trace across Florida has crumbled, they may still stand, glories of a cancelled past.

On U.S. 41 north of Dunnellon, scrub forest gives way to a desolate field. Beyond sit eight round, domed buildings made all of brick, windowless and forlorn. In some older land they might be mistaken for the tombs of pagan kings. (Actually, they're disused charcoal kilns.)

I was about 6 when I first saw them. It was night, in a Florida far lonelier than today, and if you'd told me that Satan's demons live there, I would have believed it. Even recently, viewed on an afternoon of storm clouds and thunder, they seemed somehow involved in calling up the winds.

With the cult of the new and shiny enshrined as Florida's state religion, Florida's ruins are too often considered eyesores, spared only by the cost of removal. The wonder and mystery they lend to our plastic state is seldom appreciated.

Who knows what remains out there, unrecognized and unloved? Fine old houses falling down, overgrown graveyards with stones aslant, abandoned stretches of the first highways to bring tourists south in their Model Ts? We do know that once they're gone, Florida can never, ever get them back. Of course, we could always build some fiberglass replicas.

Michael Stephens lives in Gainesville.

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A 48-year-old Citra woman was arrested by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office after she was accused of using her hands and arm to choke a female victim during an argument over bills.

On Friday, December 16, an MCSO deputy responded to a local hospital in reference to a domestic battery incident. Upon arrival, the deputy made contact with the female victim who advised that Brandi Stewart Murch had placed her hand and arm on the victim’s neck during their argument, according to the MCSO report.

The victim told the deputy that Murch quickly approached her during the argument, and Murch allegedly placed her hands and arm on the victim’s neck while pushing the victim on the bed. According to the victim, she did not lose consciousness during the incident, but she stated that she had to use her legs to “get Murch off of her.”

The argument continued as Murch and the victim yelled at each other. The victim stated that Murch proceeded to charge at her, and Murch placed her hand on the victim’s throat as they both fell onto the floor. While on the floor, the victim stated that Murch placed her forearm on the victim’s neck, and the pressure restricted the victim’s breathing.

The victim told the deputy that she was able to get Murch off of her for a second time, and Murch briefly left the room. When Murch returned, the victim advised that Murch pushed over a shelf near the room’s entrance, and it struck the victim’s right arm.

In the MCSO report, the deputy noted that the victim had a large bump and swelling above her elbow, as well as additional swelling on her hand. The victim stated that she was unable to move her arm.

A witness spoke with the deputy and recalled seeing Murch’s hands on the victim’s throat as they both fell to the bed during the altercation. When Murch and the victim rolled onto the floor, the witness advised that Murch continued to keep her hand around the victim’s neck while punching the victim.

When Murch left the room and returned shortly afterward, the witness stated that Murch proceeded to push the shelf onto the victim.

The deputy made contact with Murch. After being read her Miranda rights, Murch admitted that she had placed her hand around the victim’s neck during the altercation. However, Murch claimed that the victim had punched her in the face first, according to the MCSO report.

Murch also initially denied utilizing the shelf during the altercation, though she later admitted that she had “knocked it over” when she returned to the room.

Murch was arrested, transported to Marion County Jail, and she was later released on $1,500 bond. She is facing a felony charge for committing domestic battery by strangulation.

A court date has been scheduled at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, January 17, 2023, according to jail records.

As the North Marion High School Colts football team trotted back out on the field for their game against West Port High School, head coach Greg Carr glanced at his star wide receiver, senior Elija Walton, 17, warming up with a game of catch before the second half.

The coach was thinking his player had been too quiet and needed a second-half worthy of a heart-thumping sports video. “We need to get him some highlights,” Carr said.

The coach’s focus on Walton is understandable.

Walton is a highly touted athlete heading to the top level of college football, the football bowl subdivision (FBS), next season at Georgia Southern University. That night, though, Walton had been relatively quiet on the field through two quarters of play.

Stadium lights shone down on Walton’s pink headband. Carr understood his team needed to involve its leader.

And right on cue, Walton staged a second-half outburst, scoring a touchdown.

Under the direction of Carr, 37, who boasts an accolade-laden college football resume himself, Walton became the first player from North Marion to reach the FBS in his time playing for the Colts.

“It means a lot because it shows the younger guys around me that it is possible,” Walton said.

Walton plays in Citra, Florida, a town north of Ocala with a population less than 7,000, but he is originally from Columbus, Georgia. His connections to high-level football run deeper than his head coach; his older brother, Kiante, played football at the University of Indiana.

Walton met Carr when he arrived at North Marion. He started playing with some of the high school players when he was in eighth grade.

Carr himself excelled as a wide receiver while at North Marion. All-State honors his junior and senior seasons in 2002 and 2003 were enough to earn offers from national programs such as the University of Georgia, University of Florida and University of Miami, but he chose to continue his education at Florida State University.

The Seminole totaled over 2,500 receiving yards and scored 29 touchdowns in his career at FSU. After a stint with the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League and then trips to the Canadian Football League and Arena Football League, Carr wanted to get into coaching.

“When I was done playing football, the first place I thought to come back to was home,” Carr said. “I want to bring all the experiences I’ve had and things I’ve seen, and bring that back here.”

North Marion athletic director Dale Hall, having been at the school for over 20 years, saw Carr as a player and then was involved in hiring him as a coach.

“Greg has had a very positive impact on our football program,” Hall said. “He cares for his players, and it shows. Those guys are willing to do anything for him.”

This year marks Carrs’ fifth back at North Marion, though it’s also his first as head coach. Still, he’s had a front-row seat to Waltons’ entire career as a Colt. Carr said he started out as a quarterback as a freshman, but it took just a few reps at wide receiver to make the decision to swap positions simple.

“We put him at receiver against West Port,” Carr said. “He caught a post route and went 70, 80 yards untouched. After that point, I said ‘No more quarterback talk, it’s receiver talk from now on.’”

Walton entered his senior campaign with more than 300 receiving yards already under his belt. The 6-foot-4-inch receiver has equaled that amount and then some, registering 475 receiving yards through six games in 2022.

Walton also competes on North Marion’s track and field team in the off-season. His third-place finish at the state level for high jump is just another indicator of his elite athletic talents. Beyond his ability, though, the senior has grown into a role model for his team.

“He’s a guy that will give his teammates the shirt off his back,” Carr said. “He’s a guy that the younger guys can look at and want to emulate, from his work in the classroom to extra work in the weight room.”

When he isn’t on the field, Walton can usually be found on the sidelines near his coach watching his teammates play. The elite athlete leads by example instead of shouting orders at his teammates.

“He’s not very vocal, but he’s a ‘I’ll show you what I mean’ type of guy,” Carr said.

As his final year as a Colt wraps up, Walton helped his team win the final regular season game of the year against Seabreeze High School by a score of 55-34. The Colts fell to Eastside High School in their first playoff game, ending Walton’s season.

Still, the end of his high school career and the impending transition to college marks a goal fulfilled and a dream realized.

“It means a lot because it shows the younger guys around me that it is possible,” Walton said. “Just be patient, and your time will come.”