If Acme’s here, can Coyote be far behind?

While riding my bike recently, I passed a construction site where a new house is being built. At the entrance to the project was a line of orange barrels marked “Acme Barricades.”

And I thought: “Acme Barricades? Wile E. Coyote must be building this house.” Because if you’re a kid like me who grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s, Acme could mean only one thing: the Acme Catalog from which Coyote ordered every gadget imaginable to outwit Roadrunner—gadgets that failed spectacularly every time.

During the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century, many corporations used the name Acme. It was a good name because “acme” is the Greek word for “high point, peak or summit,” implying that your company is tip-top, or better than any of the others. And it didn’t hurt that alphabetically, it would show up right at the front of the list in the phone book.

And yet, I thought, other than this morning’s orange barricade, when was the last time I ever saw any product with the name Acme on it? Do any companies call themselves Acme anymore?

TR KERTH / FLORIDA WEEKLY

As my mind spun through circles of ill-conceived logic, I resolved to do some Acme research as soon as I got home. Because, after all, that’s the main point of my morning bike rides—to prod my brain into following some absurd, meaningless train of thought that isn’t worth your time to follow. You probably have better things to do with your time, so I’ll dive down that rabbit hole of ridiculousness and then report back to you.

You’re welcome.

And so, when I got home, I dug through that rarely opened bottom kitchen cabinet where I stored paper phone books (remember them?) back in the days when I had an actual land-line telephone (remember them?).

And sure enough, there was an old 2018 Yellow Pages phone book, surely the last one ever sent to me. I was a bit surprised that I even had it, because I’m certain I had not opened a phone book for at least a decade before that one arrived.

So I went to work, scanning the Yellow Pages for Acme businesses, from air conditioning and appliances, through floor materials and florists, all the way past pest control, plumbers and beyond.

And I found not a single company called Acme in the entire book.

But why? How did one of the most common company names of a century ago—with products as diverse as whistles, anvils, and traffic lights—slide virtually to the edge of brand-name extinction?

The answer must surely be Wile E. Coyote, who ordered exclusively from the Acme Catalog whenever he sent away for some device to outwit the Roadrunner. Those film shorts began at the end of 1949 and grew in popularity over the ensuing decades.

The list of Acme products that Coyote ordered was virtually endless:

Acme dynamite.

Acme axle grease.

Acme giant rubber bands.

TR Kerth

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All were total failures in Coyote’s war against Roadrunner, serving only to bring harm to Coyote. And yet, undeterred, he dug deeper still into the Acme Catalog:

Acme rocket-powered roller skates.

Acme dehydrated boulders.

Acme jet-propelled pogo stick.

Failures all.

And bit by bit, year by year, as Coyote failed time after time with Acme product after product, the list of actual Acme corporations in the Yellow Pages grew smaller and smaller.

And today, according to my extensive research in scanning the Yellow Pages of a phone book from 2018, the Acme corporate name is virtually out of business—at least in my area covered by that neighborhood phone book.

But why stop there? To go the extra mile for you, I turned to Mama Google to see if Acme existed anywhere in the non-paper Twittersphere.

You’re welcome.

I found ACME Foods, founded in 1891 in Philadelphia and becoming a full-service Supermarket in 1937, decades before Coyote’s Acme Catalog appeared. It still clung to the name through most of the 20th century— at least until it was bought out by Albertson’s, which was later bought out by Kroger. Acme Food stores? Mostly gone now.

And there was Acme Tools, founded in 1948 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the year before the first Roadrunner film was made—but with a hard-hatted mascot in its logo that looks suspiciously like a scruffy coyote wearing sunglasses. ¦

TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Much of Central Florida could hear sonic booms on Thursday morning amid another SpaceX launch.

SpaceX is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, taking the Maxar 2 mission into orbit, according to company officials.

Thursday’s launch window runs from 9-10 a.m., with a backup opportunity available on Friday at 9 a.m.

When the launch does happen, Falcon 9′s first-stage booster is expected to land on SpaceX’s landing zone at the Space Force station about eight minutes after liftoff, a release from SpaceX states.

As a result, residents in the following counties could hear one or more sonic booms during the landing:

• Brevard County

• Indian River County

• Okeechobee County

• Orange County

• Osceola County

• Polk County

• Seminole County

• St. Lucie County

• Volusia County

“What residents experience will depend on weather and other conditions,” SpaceX said.

This won’t be the first time that a space launch prompted sonic booms in the region.

When the Ax-3 crew returned back in February, many Central Florida residents reported hearing a sonic boom as the crew plummeted down toward Earth.

As boosters and spacecraft fall through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds, they spark shockwaves that travel through the air — sometimes heard by people on the ground as a sonic boom.

For Thursday’s launch, the 45th Weather Squadron is forecasting a mere 20% chance of weather getting in the way. That falls to only 10% if pushed to Friday.

Either way, News 6 will stream the launch live at the top of this story when it happens.

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A Florida State University team of faculty and administrators has served as integral partners in supporting Jefferson County Schools (JCS), providing research expertise and resources, as the district establishes a new community partnership schools model.

Through the success of this initiative and the dedication of JCS faculty and staff, the school district earned a ‘B’ grade from the Florida Department of Education for the 2023-2024 school year.

As a core partner, FSU has provided evidence-based research support and helped leverage relationships to provide a wider array of resources and services to JCS, helping remove barriers to education in the community.

“The FSU team is proud to play a part in the achievements of Jefferson County Schools and the community partnership schools model,” said Jarrett Terry, assistant provost for centers, institutes, and community engagement. “We recognize and commend both the Jefferson County community’s and the school district’s hard work and dedication, which were the main drivers of the success that propelled them to achieving a ‘B’ grade. FSU is committed to supporting and enhancing the partnership’s efforts in working toward solutions for community-defined problems.”

In 2022, JCS launched the new school model to better support the district’s success while simultaneously addressing the needs of the community. The innovative community partnership schools (CPS) model is an evidence-based approach that aims to improve student achievement and well-being by addressing the academic, social, emotional and health needs of students and their families.

The model involves four types of community partners, who have all signed a 25-year memorandum of understanding as part of the shared governance model:

• Local school district: Jefferson County Schools
• Nonprofit: Children’s Home Society of Florida
• Higher Education: Florida State University, Florida A&M University, and North Florida College
• Health Care: Florida Department of Health – Jefferson

The CPS model focuses on four pillars: wellness supports, expanded learning time and opportunities, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership and practice. All services and supports at the school fall under one of these four pillars.

With Children’s Home Society of Florida as the lead partner, partners work with the community to identify and address the barriers and opportunities for learning and development.  All of the partners have a place on the executive cabinet, which meets monthly to discuss goals for the year, strategic planning and how to best provide services and supports.

Erin Bush, assistant professor in the School of Communication Science & Disorders within FSU’s College of Communication and Information, currently serves as the faculty lead for FSU’s support of the CPS. Over the past two years, she and her team have facilitated a needs-assessment for the district to best determine what the needs and challenges in Jefferson County are and how the school and community can be mutually beneficial partners.

“We’re really working with the community and researching with them,” Bush said. “We can’t come in and provide a top-down solution and think that’s going to work as an outsider to any community. We have to come in and really get to know the community to begin to understand their unique needs.”

The needs-assessment included participants from all aspects of the greater JCS community and was conducted to collect and analyze data on student and community member perceptions of the benefits and challenges they experience living in Jefferson County. The study also reviewed existing and available community supports and resources.

“The CPS model really takes into consideration all aspects of students’ lives and tries to support their health and well-being not just keeping it isolated to their school performance,” Bush said. “The model understands that school performance is greatly influenced by all of the other things going on in the students’ lives and in the community.”

The results of the needs assessment are set to be presented to the community partnership steering committee and will inform new programming and services for the community.

“FSU was particularly instrumental in supporting the needs assessment for Jefferson County Schools,” Bush said. “The needs assessment is necessary to uncover what needs to be done for the community in the future. But the real heroes of the story are the individuals at Jefferson County K-12 school and the community partnership school. We’re just happy to be one of the supportive partners.”

Jefferson County K-12, the only school in the district, is the only K-12 community partnership school in the state of Florida and enrolls over 700 students annually. Lori Livingston, director of the community partnership school at Jefferson K-12, said that having a large age range of students presents more opportunities than it does challenges.

“We have consistency with not just the education, the quality of the education that’s being provided, but also the relationships that are built with the staff, parents and community,” Livingston said. “With a community-based research approach, we are really able to maximize our resources while creating ownership within the community.”

Bush and Livingston jointly presented the findings to date during the July Learning Series of FSU’s College of Medicine’s Network for Clinical Research, Training, and Community Engagement (NCRT-CE) series, providing insight into how FSU’s faculty and partners can focus on public impact activities.

“Having Florida State University as one of our core partners definitely adds to the legitimacy of the CPS model, and not just on paper,” Livingston said. “Assistant Provost Jay Terry sits on our cabinet and helps us solve problems and commits resources, which is invaluable for us. Florida State has found ways to support us outside of the box and is invested into going above and beyond the minimum requirements to really make an impact and a difference.”