Trooper Anthony Stone
(Times photo: Jeff Klinkenberg)

Want to know what a reporter wrote about after encountering one of Florida’s finest at a local gas station?

Their chance encounter occurred at a local gas station, on SR 98, in the Florida Panhandle. The reporter, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer, JEFF KLINKENBERG, had stopped to fill his truck's gas tank at the gasoline pumps. While waiting for the tank to fill, he noticed a warning sticker on the service-station pump that read, "If You Don't Pay For Your Gas You Could Lose Your Driver's License!" Next to the warning was a photograph of Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Anthony Stone, from Troop H - Tallahassee. Mr. Klinkenberg, like countless other motorists who have seen the warning stickers throughout Florida's gas stations, wondered about the man in the photo, wearing the FHP uniform. Was he a former Marine drill instructor? Was he as fierce as this photo portrayed? Well, he was about to find out, up-close and personal.

Please read the story, as it was published on April 6, 2004, in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper.