BONIFAY – Josh White was an orientation leader at FSU 25 years ago when he fell for another orientation leader from a small town he had never heard of before. His career took them across the globe, from South Florida to France and Saudi Arabia.
COVID brought them back to her hometown of Bonifay and family in 2020, and this week White became the newest prosecutor in the 14th Judicial Circuit, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
“I went home with her one weekend back then and it was like I stepped back in time, and I liked it,” White said. “Big cities are a lot like big restaurants – they’re nice but they’re all kind of the same. The little restaurants, like little towns, are unique and Bonifay is a really nice place to raise a family.”
White and Sarah Swindle White, whose father Dr. Jeff Swindle was a longtime Bonifay dentist, soon married. White was a law clerk for Judge Polston at the First District Court of Appeal, and a commercial litigator at Akerman LLP in South Florida. His career then took his family to Saudi Arabia where he was in-house counsel for ARAMCO for nine years. He then joined AIRBUS in France for about three years.
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In 2020, COVID, and the family’s desire to live and raise their family in America, brought them back to Bonifay.
“We bought a house here. We came and stayed during COVID because France had onerous and authoritarian lockdown requirements,” White said. “When you live overseas for a long time, your kids become third-culture kids and they don’t really understand their identity as Americans. I wanted our kids to know and love America and to value their American identity.”
That awakening is also what brought White to the SAO, handling misdemeanor cases in Holmes and Washington counties.
“I really love America,” he said. “I’ve lived in a lot of places and America is an amazing country. A benefit of being back home is that I want to serve in some small way, and this is something I was attracted to even when I was in law school.”For more information, contact Mike Cazalas , or call 850–381–7454.