"Pensacola: A Proud Past, A Better Tomorrow" airs a look at environmental health of waterways in Escambia County on BLAB-TV. Cox Cable customers can tune to Channel 6 for the Pensacola-based cable access channel, and Mediacom customers can locate the channel at 38. The show will rebroadcast periodically.

The show features guests discussing the health of area waters. Debbie Ritchie, the show's host, will also be joined by Carl Wernicke, editorial page editor of the Pensacola News Journal.

"We want to simply paint a portrait of our community," Ritchie said. "Where are we? What are our strengths? Weaknesses? Are the solutions we talk about for some of the problems we face working? Really, if we can continue these shows and expand the discussion into other forums, we hope to generate a community conversation and to set some benchmarks so that next year or five years from now, when we look at these issues we will have the information we need to judge if we are moving in the right direction."

Guests on this show include:

• Richard Snyder, PhD., Director of the University of West Florida Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bio-remediation
• Taylor Kirschenfeld, Escambia County Environmental Programs Manager
• Marty Donovan, Pensacola City Councilman
• Enid Sisskin, PhD., local community activist
• Capt. Robert Turpin, Escambia County Marine Resources Division

Emerald CoastKeeper will be honored as a "Difference Maker" in our community. The Emerald Coastkeeper, is an environmental group whose members are citizens in the Northwest Florida Gulf Coast area dedicated to the protection of the area's waterways. The group is part of the Water Keeper Alliance; a group composed of more than two hundred organizations throughout the world.

"Pensacola: A Proud Past, A Better Tomorrow" debuted in March is a community affairs program designed to address basic issues in the Pensacola area.

"Our idea is to have these shows look at a number of important topics affecting community," said Quint Studer, president and founder of the Gulf Breeze-based Studer Group, a healthcare consulting firm and the show's sponsor. "We feel like if we can identify some areas of valid concern and interest -- education, job development, the environment, housing -- and get some objective information out there, the community will be able to not only see and understand the problems we face but will be able to see whether we as a community are making progress in those areas. I’m a firm believer that if people understand the problems, they will work to solve them.”