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Charlene Couvillon will be inducted into the Viking Hall of Fame, honoring a career of nearly four decades in Okaloosa County schools before her 2015 retirement. A Labor Day weekend DUI checkpoint in Fort Walton Beach yielded one arrest and 16 traffic citations, and a Georgia man was arrested in a fatal shooting on State Road 85 in Niceville. Choctaw’s Carter Marracco is this week’s Athlete of the Week, local high school football Week 4 preview as district play begins, and today’s weather outlook.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Labor Day weekend DUI checkpoint in Fort Walton Beach yields one arrest, 16 traffic citations
A multi-agency traffic safety checkpoint on Highway 98 over the Labor Day weekend led to one DUI arrest, 16 traffic citations and four other arrests, the Fort Walton Beach Police Department said.
Officers conducted the checkpoint on the night of Saturday, Sept. 5, on Highway 98 at St. Mary’s Avenue SW, in front of City Hall. The operation targeted impaired driving over the holiday weekend.
Officers arrested one driver who was operating a vehicle at more than three times the legal blood-alcohol limit.
In all, officers checked 215 vehicles and issued 16 uniform traffic citations and three criminal citations, according to the department. The checkpoint resulted in one DUI arrest and four other arrests. Approximately 805 vehicles traveled westbound on Highway 98 during the checkpoint.
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GAMES
WordroW: September 9, 2026
WordroW is brought to you by Fort Walton Beach Chiropractic – keeping your mind sharp and your spine aligned, one game at a time.
Can you guess today’s 5-letter word in six tries?
WordroW is Get The Coast’s daily word puzzle featuring local words, places, and phrases from our community. You have six guesses to find the mystery word – green letters are correct and in the right spot, yellow letters are in the word but wrong position, and gray letters aren’t in the word at all.
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Choctaw’s Carter Marracco does a little bit of everything: on his birthday, he did all of it
Athlete of the Week is brought to you by Okaloosa Gas District – supporting the athletes who make our community stronger.
When Carter Marracco took the field against Pace on Sept. 4, his entire family had come down from Michigan to watch. His parents, Stephanie and Curtis, were in the stands. And the Indians still needed their first win of the season.
Marracco helped deliver.
The senior running back scored two touchdowns and a rushing two-point conversion, accounting for 14 of Choctaw’s 21 points in a 21-14 victory.
“That night was my birthday, so it was already a great night, and my whole family came into town from Michigan, so they were all there to watch it,” Marracco said. “I’m glad that we got the win.”
The Pace game was the latest chapter in what has kicked off a great senior season already. Through three games, Marracco has rushed for 180 yards and five touchdowns on 23 carries, added 75 receiving yards, and even thrown the ball in trick-play packages. Against Auburn in Week 2, he broke off a 62-yard run on his way to a 103-yard night.
SPORTS
Area high school football week 4 preview: District play begins
Week four is here, and district play has arrived across Northwest Florida.
Friday’s slate features several games with early district title implications. Choctaw opens district play at Escambia as a heavy favorite, while Crestview hosts Tate at Jack Foster Stadium looking for its first win of the season. Niceville looks to bounce back against Navarre, and Fort Walton Beach hosts Milton in a game where the Vikings will need to close the gap after a tough start to the year.
In Class 1A, Baker hosts Blountstown in a game that could shape the District 1 race early on. South Walton opens district play against a struggling Pensacola squad, Walton hosts Taylor County, and Freeport looks to roll against North Florida Christian.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Georgia man arrested in fatal shooting on State Road 85 in Niceville
A 25-year-old Georgia man was arrested on a murder charge after a fatal shooting along State Road 85 in Niceville on Sept. 7, according to the Niceville Police Department.
Officers with the Niceville Police Department and deputies with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office responded about 3:49 p.m. to State Road 85, roughly 0.77 miles north of State Road 293, after a report of shots fired and a person armed with a firearm, police said.
When they arrived, law enforcement say they found two people standing near a black BMW SUV parked on the northbound shoulder, directly parallel to a deceased person in the median. The two men, later determined to be occupants of the vehicle, were detained as part of the investigation and taken to the Niceville Police Department.
Detectives established probable cause showing that the 25-year-old suspect allegedly shot the victim multiple times outside the vehicle after the SUV had stopped on the northbound shoulder, according to police.
WEATHER
Today’s weather outlook
TODAY: Sunny, with a high near 89. East wind 10 to 15 mph.
TONIGHT: A chance of showers and thunderstorms after 10pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 80. East wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.
SCHOOL
Charlene Couvillon to be inducted into Viking Hall of Fame after nearly four decades in Okaloosa schools
Charlene Couvillon was sitting in a car dealership in Montgomery, Alabama, with her longtime friend and former colleague Alexis Tibbetts when the call came from Fort Walton Beach High School. She had been selected for the Viking Hall of Fame.
Her first reaction was pure Couvillon.
“Oh, my gosh. They’ve run out of people,” she said, laughing. “I don’t think that I’m really worthy of this honor. I just did my job.”
That job stretched nearly four decades across Okaloosa County: 10 years teaching at Bruner Middle School, 10 more in the classroom at Fort Walton Beach High School, six at the district level and more than a decade back at the high school as assistant principal and then principal. She retired in March 2015.
And if there is one thread that ties those chapters together, Couvillon said, it is that none of them were part of some master plan she had.
“Every move I made was not really something that I desired or longed for,” she said. “It just kind of fell in my lap.”
Couvillon will be inducted into the Viking Hall of Fame during halftime of the varsity football game on Friday, Sept. 11, at Steve Riggs Field at Viking Stadium.
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