St. Croix-based radio personality Roger W. Morgan and his popular Free Speech call-in program, heard on all three islands, has disappeared from the airwaves, but is back in an online version.

Morgan, a staunch Virgin Islands cheerleader, especially for St. Croix, has sold his radio station, moved to California and re-launched Free Speech as an Internet-only radio show.  And he says he’s trying to rebuild his audience.

“I was facing big legal fees after a few Senators challenged our license because our show challenged their support for legislation that gave them a big pay raise,” Morgan tells us. The charges were ludicrous, but it cost me a lot of money to keep my name clean, so we sold the station to pay off the legal bills.”

Morgan also blamed the downturn in the economy for deciding to sell the station.

Morgan and his wife first visited St. Croix in 2000 and loved it so much they moved to the island a year later.

“My passion for St. Croix and its people is genuine. It is our intention to return again as soon as we can,” Morgan says.

The radio station, Paradise Radio 93.5, has now changed to a country music format. But you can still enjoy Roger W. Morgan and the Free Speech fireworks online, here!

Roger is a radio legend.  Learn a bit about him, and read our full interview.

Wasn’t that utility pole in the middle of the roundabout supposed to go away?

It will…eventually.

“WAPA has done all of their stuff, moving wires and pulling them through the underground conduits we installed, but Innovative [Telephone] hasn’t done it’s part,” project manager Butch Brooks tells us. “Every week they say they’re going to get to it. There is really very little left for us to do until they pull their cables.”

Once the phone company gets around to it, the Roundabout will be within days of done, Butch says.

“We’re 96 percent done right now. We’ll take down the pole, put down one more coat of asphalt and do some striping, and that’s it.”

Butch is also supervising the extensive North Shore Road work, and he says that project is about 50 percent done.

Oh good. Marketplace has just installed relief for the staggering tomato prices at Starfish.

Just get to the second floor and give yourself a good jolt. Then, obviously, take the stairs to the 3rd floor. Excellent post-cardio event advice.

…do this don’t do that, can’t you read the signs?

This is just begging for us to hang a red dry erase marker next to it.

What would you write?

Actually, that’s a Jamaican Fruit Bat. And that cute kid is 5 year old Isaac, son of Seddy and Raquel Callwood who own One Love on White Bay.

Isaac was one of several Jost kids who recently got up close encounters with the bats as part of an evening youth outing hosted by the Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society.

“It was a good opportunity for our children to be introduced to our island’s only native mammal,” Susan Zaluski, director of the Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society tells us. “Like older Jost van Dykians, Jamaican Fruit Bats are farmers and help the island by spreading the seeds of plants and trees.”

We are also told it is Jost Van Dykes, not Jost van Dyke.  “That is the historic name for the island, and that’s the name we use,” says Susan.

You can learn more about the Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society here!

Every now and then you see some jaw-dropping prices on hard-to-get things at the grocery store, but if that’s not a typo, that’s got to be the biggest jaw dropper we’ve ever seen.

You’d have to be drunk to pay $10 for 1 tomato! …uh, Well, okay then, maybe they will sell a few.

Let us know how your $40 spaghetti sauce turns out.

Happy birthday to our friend, Maddie, who turned 70 this week.

Maddie lives on a boat, so her back yard it whatever she wants it to be. For example, waking up to sunrise over Sandy Spit if she wants.

Maddie also got a rainbow for her birthday.  We think that’s a very good sign. (And 70 in dog years is the new 60! You go Maddie.)

Here is Kirsten Dorsey with BF Josh and some happy hour acquaintances at Woody’s.

Why is Kirsten, a Jack of All Trades at The Banana Deck, smiling?

Because she went to Maryland and left something there.  Her gall bladder.

“Doctors on St. Thomas told me I needed to have it removed a few months ago, so I went home to Baltimore to have it done, and just recently returned to St. John.  It all went well and I am glad to be back,” Kirsten tells us. “It’s warmer here!”

It didn’t all go according to plan though.

“My dad was very excited because the doctor told us we could keep any gallstones they found, but they didn’t find any,” she says. “I thought it was gross. I don’t know what he planned on doing with them, but he was disappointed.”

Tuesday brought a bit of rain. The island needs it. The forecast calls for more.

This sounds like a whole lot-a can’t miss it fun.

DPNR and the Coast Guard are holding a Safe Boating Day May 22 with everything from knot tying classes to a helicopter sea rescue demonstration.

It’s part of Safe Boating Week.

Click on the picture to see the whole flyer.

This photo was sent to us anonymously, so we followed up.

It comes from Maria Makris, in Crystal Lake, Illinois, who discovered St. John in 1997, but waited a full decade before her second trip.

“We went back in 2007 and the love gods hit like a ton of bricks,” Maria says. Ever since, we go down at least once a year, sometimes twice.”

Maria says they stay at the Pillsbury Sound House when they visit. Their favorite beach is Maho and they even have their favorite spot on the beach.

Woody’s and the Beach Bar are favorites hangouts.

“We love Love City. Clearly, no worries. You forget about everything else in your life,” Maria says. “St. John becomes your life, until the day we leave in which case we weep at the ferry and don’t even speak. We are true St. Johnaholics.”

Yes Maria, you are. And there’s no 12 step program required!

The St. John Market on the South Shore Road has a tiny rock falling problem. Just a little one. But it seems persistant.

The rocks especially love to tumble into the handicap space meaning if you park there illegally there is a very, very slight chance an angry god could actually make you handicapped.