The rural Panhandle town of Jay, Florida, has made a controversial pick to replace its outgoing town manager: a registered sex offender who was convicted of sex crimes involving minors.
April Watson, Jay’s operations manager, is poised to take over the role of Jay town manager when current Town Manager Eric Seib officially retires July 3.
Watson pleaded no contest in 2010 to three charges of engaging in unlawful sexual activity with minors and is a registered Florida sex offender.
Nonetheless, Jay Mayor Shon Owens said the crimes happened “a long, long, long time ago,” that people change, that Watson is the best person for the job, and that there is “a great deal of confidence within the community in her ability to do the job.”
Here’s what to know about Watson and the town of Jay.
Who is April Watson, prospective Jay town manager?
April Watson, 50, is currently the operations manager for the town of Jay and is set to take over the role of town manager in July.
At the time of her criminal offenses in 2007, Watson — then 31 years old — taught math at Jay High School and was the adviser for the junior varsity cheerleaders.
She and another teacher, Ashley Burkett, had sex with three 17-year-old male students on an occasional basis over a four-month period between July 1 and Oct. 31, 2007, court records show.
Watson and Burkett were arrested by the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 6, 2009.
Investigators learned from two of the teenagers involved that they’d had sex with Watson at either her residence or Burkett’s home. The third victim said he was involved in sexual activity with Burkett at her residence and at Watson’s home.
In depositions reviewed by the Pensacola News Journal, two of the young men said that the activity was consensual and they did not want to see the women get in trouble.
Watson pleaded no contest in 2010 to three charges of engaging in unlawful sexual activity with minors and is a registered Florida sex offender.
Court records indicate that both Watson and Burkett were sentenced to 15 months in prison and served a year of that time. Both were placed on community control, a form of house arrest, for 18 months, and probation for five years. Watson and Burkett were each released early from both the community control and probationary periods after satisfying requirements imposed by the courts.
Both Watson and Burkett lost their jobs with the Santa Rosa School District after being convicted.
Where is Jay, Florida?
Jay is the northernmost town in Santa Rosa County in the western Florida Panhandle, sitting just south of the Florida-Alabama state line.
The town had a population of 524 residents, according to 2020 Census data, and a median household income of $48,359.
What is Jay, Florida, known for?
Jay is a rural community primarily known for its agricultural industry.
Santa Rosa County is historically the state’s No. 1 cotton producer and No. 2 peanut producer. Florida’s cotton production is concentrated in Santa Rosa, Escambia and Jackson counties, and one-third of the state’s cotton comes from farms in northern Santa Rosa County. The town of Jay holds the only two cotton gins in Florida and some of the state’s richest farmland, according to its website.
The town’s website also notes, “Jay is your typical small town U.S.A. It has restaurants, beauty shops, barbershops, service stations, banks, grocery stores, a drug store, flower shops, garages and auto supply stores, hardware supply stores and more.”
“With it’s friendly and caring people, this small town near the Florida/Alabama border has perfectly illustrated small town U.S.A. for more than 100 years.”
What is Jay’s history?
The town of Jay was incorporated in 1951 and named after its first postmaster, J.T. Nowling. With agriculture as its main source of income, Jay’s population hovers around 600 people.
“Jay’s heritage dates to the early 1900s when the community was dependent on agriculture-related ventures, including cotton, peanuts, soybeans, corn and timber production. Then in the 1970s oil was discovered. The ‘oil rush’ of Santa Rosa County changed the small community like never before. People bought land and mineral rights in hopes of striking it big — some did, and some didn’t. Today, the small community is reaping the benefits of the gushing crude oil that has provided Jay more than $400 million dollars in revenues,” the town’s website says.
Jay, Florida, has a history as a “sundown town”
While Jay is mostly known today as a quiet, tight-knit farm community, it has a century-old legacy as a “sundown town.”
The phrase refers to the implied threat of violence for any Black man or woman who found themselves in the area of Jay after sunset. Pensacola historian Tom Garner collected documented oral history accounts about signs around the town that said “(Slur), don’t let the sun set on you in Jay.”
He also researched what appears to be the forced removal of at least 175 Black residents from the Jay area circa 1920.
The impetus for the exodus seems to be an incident involving a Black man named Albert Thompson who killed a White man named Sam Echols when Echols tried to forcibly take a piece of farm equipment owned by Thompson.
In a book of collected memories of J.C. Franklin, who was born in 1914, Franklin recounts his memories of growing up in Jay. One entry notes, “A Negro killed a white man over the use of a stalk cutter and all the blacks were moved from the area.”
Census records would later show that 175 Black residents had lived in the Jay census district. In 1930, that census district had been expanded but by then the number of Black residents was zero.
A 1974 article in the Tampa Bay Times noted the lack of Black residents and quoted the then-mayor of Jay, J.D. Bray.
“The sun doesn’t set on a colored man in Jay,” Bray said. “Come 4 o’clock, they’re gone. They were run out of here back in the days of the turpentine still. And they know better than to come in here.”
Another article in the Fort Lauderdale News in 1985 reporting on the oil boom in Jay again noted the lack of Black people in the town, quoting an unnamed elderly patron of the Kountry Townhouse diner.
“They don’t let the sun set on them in Jay … ain’t had no colored living here since 1922,” the elderly man said.
News Journal reporters Tom McLaughlin and Jim Little contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Sex offender eyed as Jay Florida town manager. What to know about Jay.
Reporting by Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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By Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
