Ken Schwartz with a photo of his sister Susan Wright, who died of cancer in July. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Paula Detwiller

   If someone told you your risk for developing cancer might be significantly higher than average, would you go through genetic testing to find out?
Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps you’d say, “No thanks, I just want to live my life and take my chances.”
But what if the lives of your children — and your children’s children — hung on that decision?
That’s exactly what Ken Schwartz wants you to think about. Hard.
In fact, it’s practically all Schwartz can think about as he mourns his sister, Susan Wright, who died of cancer on July 2 at the age of 58.
Susan’s death prompted Schwartz, a Boynton Beach resident, to commit himself to educating people about genetic predisposition to cancer. His initial push is to persuade people of this fact: What you don’t know may kill you.

A grim discovery
What Schwartz didn’t know until well after his sister’s ovarian cancer diagnosis — after her disease went into remission and came back again, and she tested positive for the BRCA2 gene mutation — was that he and other family members carried that same genetic mutation.
It came from their bloodline. And it places them at high risk for developing ovarian cancer and breast cancer (which occurs in both women and men).
Like many other Jewish families living in the United States and Canada, the Schwartzes descended from Ashkenazi Jews, who lived for centuries in isolated geographic areas of Central or Eastern Europe to escape persecution. Intermarriage within these isolated populations produced a gene pool with a higher percentage of mutations in the BRCA genes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in 40 individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry has a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, compared to one in 800 members of the general population.
A quick medical explanation: All of us have BRCA genes. Their job is to repair DNA and control cell division in the breast and ovaries. Mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes make them less capable of controlling cell division — including the rapid cell division seen in cancerous tumors.
“Until Susan got sick, we never looked into family history,” Schwartz says. When they did, a pattern came to light: Schwartz’s grandmother died of cancer when his father was 8. His father’s two sisters died of cancer in their 30s. And now Susan was besieged with Stage 4 ovarian cancer.
For Schwartz, it was a no-brainer. He decided he must undergo genetic testing.
“I found out I was positive for the BRCA2 mutation. At that point I insisted that my daughters go for the testing, too,” he says.
Both of his daughters, age 36 and 33, were found to have the same mutation. They both made the gut-wrenching decision to undergo precautionary surgical procedures.
“It took a lot of thinking, a lot of genetic counseling, a lot of doctors,” Schwartz says. “But my daughters both decided it was time to take care of business, just like Angelina Jolie.”
The award-winning actress Jolie, who carries the BRCA1 gene mutation, made headlines in May by revealing she’d undergone a preventive double mastectomy to dramatically decrease her chances of developing cancer, which killed her mother at age 56.

Knowledge is power
Schwartz, 61, makes his living as a one-on-one medical exercise specialist. In the weeks since Susan’s death, he has dedicated himself to do whatever he can to get the word out about genetic testing, and why it’s wrong to bury your head in the sand.
“I’m making this a lifetime mission, to stop cancer and to try to keep my sister’s name alive,” he says. “I’m going to write articles every single month and send them to publications. I’m going to talk to genetic counselors and ask them to educate doctors. I want to speak to community and charitable groups about the issue.”
Schwartz is setting up a nonprofit organization called the Wright Foundation for Global Genetic Awareness. His long-term goal is to establish an international online platform for sharing cancer information and research discoveries.
Some of his elderly exercise clients are lending support — both moral and monetary. People like retired corporate titan Kurt Landsberger, 92, who lives in coastal Delray Beach. Landsberger’s 88-year-old companion, Rita Feigenbaum, says Schwartz’s efforts are sincere and necessary.
“I think there is an abysmal lack of knowledge about this important thing that people could be aware of, and save their lives or their children’s lives,” says Feigenbaum. “Somebody needs to be out there talking about it.”
If you’d like to help Schwartz talk about it, contact him at wrightfoundation58@gmail.com.

NOTE: Testing for the BRCA gene mutation can be costly (up to $3,000) and is not covered by all medical insurance providers. But a recent Supreme Court ruling that human genes cannot be patented ended one company’s monopoly on BRCA testing, and has already led to lower prices through competition.

Paula Detwiller is a freelance writer and lifelong fitness junkie. Find her at www.pdwrites.com.

Margaret Ann Lembo, owner of The Crystal Garden in Boynton Beach, leads a group in singing happy 25th birthday to the New Age store. The daylong event included a Q&A session with Lembo, as well as free gemstone and psychometric readings.  
Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Jane Smith

The Crystal Garden has thrived for 25 years on the positive attitude of its owner and co-founder.
Margaret Ann Lembo led the audience of mostly women in an impromptu rendition of When You Wish upon a Star at the Boynton Beach shop’s anniversary fete on Aug. 10.
As part of the daylong event, Lembo took some questions before offering free gemstone oracle readings. The first question came from a young woman who said she was stuck in a career rut. She wanted a job in forensics, but she was growing frustrated by the lack of offers. She had the training and education needed.
“Imagine yourself not in a rut,” Lembo said. “The key is imagination. It’s very powerful.” Soon she was singing the Pinocchio theme song and some of the women joined her.
Throughout the afternoon, Lembo held court in the back room where customers sat on folding chairs or plastic lawn chairs with balloons tied to the chair backs. As longtime customers flowed in, she greeted each one with a hug and reminisced about when they met.
Earlier, the store offered free psychometric readings, where practioner Lisa Shaw held a piece of a customer’s jewelry and told each person what she saw. To one woman, Shaw said, “You cut your hair.” The woman agreed. To a man, she said, “I am seeing an ear issue.” He responded that he has vertigo, which made Lembo say, “She’s really good, isn’t she?”
The store — which sells gemstones and crystals, statuary, New Age books, jewelry, meditation CDs and candles — got its start more than 25 years ago when Lembo and then-partner Carol Lonsdale dreamed of opening a shop together. Lonsdale had quit the banking business, as did Lembo, who was a mortgage banker.
“When the stock market crashed in 1987, I was catapulted out of mortgage banking, “ Lembo said.
Soon they were buying quartz crystals in Arkansas, where the Ouachita Mountains are known as the quartz capital of the U.S.
Lembo’s parents, then living in Ocean Ridge, helped her secure the abandoned real estate office at 2610 N. Federal Highway. She and Lonsdale cleaned up the store, scrubbing mildew and wallpaper off the walls, according to a video Lembo showed during the anniversary celebration.
Their money drawer was a cigar box, which Lembo still has. She and Lonsdale parted in December 1996, according to state records.
At Lembo’s 40th birthday party, customers were invited to come as they were in a past life;  many showed up as goddesses, the video showed.
These days, Lembo, now 55, has expanded the store’s offerings. At the anniversary celebration, she quoted her late father as saying, “A little bit here, a little bit there — it all adds up.”
She created a line of essential oils that she sells in the store and wholesales to other retailers, such as Whole Foods grocery stores. She’s published two books on crystals and another on chakras. She has angel oracle cards and an eBook on smudging.
The Crystal Garden website (www.thecrystalgarden.com) also has an online books section where different kinds of books are available, not just the ones sold in her store.
Then there are her classes, such as the Angel Messenger Program, a three-day program in September; Chakra Awakening: Crystal Healer Certification Level II, an all-day program; Full Moon Drumming Circle; and New Moon Sound Healing Crystal Singing Bowl Ceremony.
And her webinars, on angel communication and power animals, are offered for those who live out of the area or just need a more convenient time to take the class.
With all of that, she rarely comes to her store as it no longer has office space. She has six workers who run the store for her.
Her birds are integral to the store. Mikael, the white dove, “flies all over the store like the Holy Spirit,” Lembo said. She has had him since 1991. When his mate was alive, they gave out the eggs to customers who signed up to receive them, she said.
Sha Nay, a blue and gold macaw, is the greeter. She is 22 years old.
The birds used to have their own room in the store, but now that room is devoted to gemstones of all kinds and cuts. The stones range from aragonite for 20 cents each to chunks of raw ruby for $11 each. Each gemstone comes with a paper that explains its healing qualities. For example, aragonite is: “Creative Chaos. Directs you toward clarity, organization, and creative solution. Shows you the way into your own center to feel and know the depth of your emotions.”
Two of the more unusual items are a 1-foot-plus ruby in zoisite Buddha head that sells for $3,500, and a 5-foot citrine geode, weighing more than 200 pounds and selling for $8,000. Delivery for the geode is not included, Lembo joked.
She also loves the quartz crystal singing bowls that she uses in her ceremonies. The store sells a variety of colors, sizes and notes, from $175 for a small frosted bowl in root C to $699.98 for a cobalt bowl in G for the throat.
The Native American-made prayer fans feature turkey wing feathers, deerskin, glass beads and raccoon fur. They sell for $100.
The Crystal Garden opened at the height of the New Age movement. The Harmonic Convergence, the world’s first globally synchronized meditation, was in 1987, Lembo said. She attends the International New Age Trade shows each year to sell her merchandise. She defines the store’s typical customer as a woman, between 30 and 70, who is a spiritual-seeker and interested in self-improvement.
As of August, the Crystal Garden’s sales are up 15 percent over the previous year’s period, Lembo said. She declined to reveal specific sales figures.
She hopes to have the time to meet the needs of her customers in the years ahead.
“This store is really a jewel,” said the psychometric reader Shaw when asked to give a general prediction for the next 25 years. “And I see a room with more cushy chairs.”

Eclectic works of photographer Valyn Calhoun, such as this mirror image, are on display at ActivistArtista on Industrial Avenue in Boynton Beach. Photo provided

By Greg Stepanich

    The Boynton Beach Arts District can be found in a block of repurposed warehouses on Industrial Avenue, a stone’s throw west of Interstate 95 off Boynton Beach Boulevard.
But if Rolando Chang Barrero and his fellow artists have their way, soon you’ll see their work in Boynton’s tiny downtown on Ocean Avenue.
“We want to create some sustainability for the city. Because the city needs something,” Barrero said, pointing to Ocean Avenue’s relative isolation south of Boynton Beach Boulevard. “They built up the marina, but they forgot that it’s real difficult to train people to cross a major road.”  
This month, Barrero’s ActivistArtista initiative at 422 W. Industrial Ave. is hosting an exhibit of work by the young Fort Lauderdale-based photographer Valyn Calhoun, whose disparate styles and influences are viewable in a small but fascinating collection of images that range from straight-on rock club coverage to shape-shifting patterns created from parts of his body refracted in mirror image.
There also is a series of photos that look like an outré spread for Vanity Fair, with a very beautiful dark-haired woman posing amid a heavily tagged urban landscape, dressed — or semi-undressed — in a castoff military-style uniform, or topless from behind in a pair of tight-fitting striped pants. As generically provocative as the poses may be, Calhoun knows how to compose an effective image.
Contrasted with that is a set of intimate nature pictures, tight close-ups of birds, dragonflies and plants, simple but pretty, and reflecting an entirely different sensibility;  as does a series of figures in silhouette, holding parasols or wearing wings, against multicolored backdrops that give the pictures a highly artificial but nonetheless attractive look.   
“I’ve been showing Valyn’s pieces, one by one, over the past two years … I like the way he thinks,” Barrero said. “I like the way he looks at things, and I like the way he looks at himself … It’s edgy, it’s classical, and he has the ability to transcend the medium. He knows how to manipulate his medium, and he uses it as vocabulary.”
This show, available for viewing until Sept. 27 by appointment with a call to Barrero, also evokes Calhoun’s being diagnosed with AIDS and hepatitis B earlier this year. A set of self-portraits shows his face and hands covered with blood as he screams, while in another, photographer Rita Baum has shot Calhoun, naked except for a white mink stole, looking at the camera with the telltale blood still on his hands.
Barrero said Calhoun’s friends stepped up to help after his diagnosis, and today the artist has stabilized on an expensive drug regimen. But he said he doesn’t want Calhoun’s work to be seen solely through the prism of his condition.
“So many people were talking about it that his art and his photography almost took a back seat. Valyn became the product,” Barrero said, which is why he wanted to host the exhibition, bringing Calhoun “back into the art scene and minimizing the whole AIDS thing.”
This exhibit presents the work of a man working through his influences and different styles; it’s promising rather than entirely fulfilling. It strikes the viewer as the efforts of an artist who could go in many different directions, and it will be interesting to see what he could do if he finds a specific métier he wants to pursue.
Meanwhile, Barrero’s artists are filling more spaces in the warehouses. One newcomer is abstract expressionist Diannett Doyle, whose husband, Sonny Doyle, an interior renovator, proudly shows off his wife’s big, colorful canvases. “That’s my favorite,” he said, pointing to the only small work on the walls, in which a thin strand of orange bunches up in the middle of a bright yellow background.
“I want a place where the young, emerging artists get a step up,” Barrero said of the arts district. “I want it to stay community-based, and I want to introduce good artists from outside. But I always want the focus to be that the good artists bring out the emerging artists.”
For an appointment to see the Valyn Calhoun retrospective, call Barrero at (786) 521-1199; for information about the district, visit www.activistartista.blogspot.com.
                                 
Literary arts: When the Palm Beach Poetry Festival returns to Delray Beach in January for its 10th incarnation, among the special guests will be Natasha Trethewey, the current poet laureate of the United States.
But before that, the organizers of the festival have planned three special events for this month.
On Sept. 18, the fest hosts a poetry reading by Bards of a Feather, which will gather at 12:30 p.m. at the Green Cay Wetlands Preserve, at 12800 Hagen Ranch Road in Boynton Beach. Participants are asked to bring four or five poems with a nature theme; the poems can be original or favorites readers feel like sharing.
A workshop for poets is offered the following Saturday (Sept. 21) at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts. Titled Exquisite Writing, the workshop begins at 1 p.m. It will be conducted by Miami-based poet and teacher Neil de la Flor, whose most recent book of poetry is An Elephant’s Memory of Blizzards, out this year from Marsh Hawk Press. There is a $10 fee to participate.
Finally, just over the county line from west Boca, poets will assemble at 1 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Bottega Wine Bar at 4455 Lyons Road in Coconut Creek. The event, called 100,000 Poets for Change, will showcase poems that promote social, political and environmental progressivism, particularly in the latter case on the question of sustainability. Local poets are encouraged to read their own short poems.
For information, write Blaise Allen, the festival’s director of community outreach, at DrBlaiseAllen@aol.com.
                                 
Music: The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival opens its first-ever winter concert series this month at the Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University in Boca Raton, and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lake Worth.
The two concerts, set for Sept. 19 at the Wold and Sept. 20 at St. Andrew’s, include a trio for bassoon, violin and cello by the early 19th-century French bassoonist and composer Francois René Gebauer and a trio for flute, violin and piano by the 20th-century Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. Also on the program is Aaron Copland’s Quiet City, in an arrangement for clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet and piano, and the great Clarinet Quintet (in A, K. 581) of Mozart.
Two other programs are planned in the winter series: Oct. 10 at the Wold and Oct. 11 at St. Andrew’s (music by Françaix, Brahms and two contemporary Americans, Clare Shore and James Stephenson); and Nov. 14 at the Wold and Nov. 15 at St. Andrew’s (pieces by Albinoni, Bernstein, Jolivet and Stravinsky). All concerts start at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20, or $45 for a three-concert subscription.
Call (800) 330-6874 for tickets, or visit www.pbcmf.org.
                                 
Meanwhile, St. Paul’s Episcopal opens its 26th season at the Delray Beach church at 3 p.m. Sept. 22 with the Trillium Piano Trio of Jupiter. Cellist Susan Bergeron is taking over for Benjamin Salsbury, who has left the group. Bergeron will be joining pianist Yoko Sato Kothari and violinist Ruby Berland for two short works by contemporary composers: William Bolcom’s Haydn Go Seek and Arvo Pärt’s Mozart-Adagio. Those will be paired with two major canonical works, the Piano Trio of Chopin and the Trio No. 1 (in G minor) of Rachmaninov.
                                 
September also is a big month for the Cruzan Amphitheatre out west of West Palm Beach. Jason Aldean arrives Sept. 7, followed the next day by John Mayer. On Sept. 14, it’s Maroon 5 (joined by Kelly Clarkson and P.J. Morton), and country songbird Miranda Lambert (with Dierks Bentley) comes to the venue Sept. 21. Tickets are available through LiveNation or Ticketmaster.

Zeki the cat and Chipper the dog demonstrate the possible danger that our pets can unwittingly pose to electronic devices such as iPads. Photo provided

By Arden Moore   

    Arguably, our pets rank as our most priceless asset, but they can also take a big bite out of our wallets. In fact, you may need to sit and stay as I reveal a startling economic epidemic.
    In a recent national survey performed by Square Trade, a top-rated protection plan company, pets have destroyed more than 8 million smartphones, iPads, laptops, television remotes and other cherished electronic devices — setting back pet parents a whopping $8 billion in replacement costs.
    And you thought losing a left shoe or a sofa cushion to a chew-happy puppy was frustrating.
    In fact, I recently polled my Facebook followers about these high-tech pet hijinks. Sandy Storrie reported the demise of two smartphones at the “huge mouth” of her chew-happy service-pup-in-training named Muddy. Amy Shojai’s first German shepherd chewed three TV remotes before his first birthday. Angela Badu’s great Dane named Louie is guilty of stashing three iPhones into his crate and “killing” them by sitting on them. Sandra Gilbert has lost count of the number of charging cables bitten in half by her kittens, who apparently mistake those dangling cords for mice tails. This is only a small sample of far-too-many tales.
    To save our pricey electronic possessions and maintain harmony (and safety) in our pet households, we must first examine what is provoking these actions by our pets.
    Dogs, cats and other pets investigate their surroundings by sniffing, pawing, chewing and, yes, sometimes, making urinary deposits on chosen objects. This “p-mail” is a pet’s way of saying to others, “Hey, this is mine. Back off.”
    Next, we must factor in the the unshakeable love and devotion our pets direct toward us. Many constantly download what matters to us. They see us tote cellphones, iPads and laptops from room to room. They notice how focused we are when type messages on Facebook or other social media venues. So, if they can’t be in our laps or next to us, they turn to objects emitting our scents in a strong way.
    Yep, these objects tend to be our electronic gadgets. In our pets’ mind, these items must be checked out. They do so by biting them, tail swatting them off coffee tables, pawing them off countertops and marking them with urine or drool (or, ugh, both).  
    Recently, Square Trade asked me to conduct a national satellite media tour to offer tips to counter this costly epidemic. With my background in pet behavior and pet first aid safety, I present this threefold strategy that will save you money, keep your pets safe and protect your pricey devices:
    1. Banish boredom in your pets by providing them with daily mental and physical exercise outlets. Provide them with safe chew toys, or battery-operated toy mice that make erratic movements. Engage your pets by playing interactive games with them.
    2. Tuck power cords inside chew-proof tubing or spray the cords with bitter apple, minty breath spray or even pickle juice. Most pets detest these scents.
    Get into the habit of always stashing your pricey devices out of paw’s reach — inside drawers, cabinets and never on coffee tables, on your bed, kitchen counters or inside open purses left on the floor. Never charge devices in outlets easy for pets to reach.
    3. Invest in an affordable protection plan for your devices. Accidents do happen. I’m eligible for an upgrade for my smartphone and after doing the math, discovered the $99 two-year protection plan offered by Square Trade costs less than the plan being offered by my phone provider. That gives me peace of mind, especially since I have dropped my phone twice into a filled, large pet water bowl.
    Resist texting or talking on your cell phone when you’re taking your dog for a walk or a hike. If your dog spots a squirrel or other temptation, he will yank on the leash and possibly cause you to be off-balance and drop that cellphone out of your hand and right on the concrete sidewalk.
    I keep my cellphone in a rubberized case with a sturdy clip that fastens to the waistline of my pants when I walk Chipper and Cleo. I have the phone in case of an emergency, but during the walk, I strive to live in the moment and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells with them on our daily walks.
    Share your worst pet-vs.-tech story with me at Arden@fourleggedlife.com. The “best of the worst” tale will win an autographed copy of my latest book, What Dogs Want. Be sure to include any photos as well.
    
Arden Moore, founder of FourLeggedLife.com, is an animal behavior consultant, editor, author, professional speaker and master certified pet first aid instructor. Each week, she hosts the popular Oh Behave! show on PetLifeRadio.com. Learn more by visiting www.fourleggedlife.com.

Enjoy an afternoon of shopping with the latest fashions in shoes and accessories from top designers along with silent auctions, lunch and complimentary bubbly at Quail Ridge Country Club, 3715 Golf Road, Boynton Beach. Proceeds benefit the Delray Beach Public Library and the Bethesda Hospital Foundation for breast cancer treatment and educational programs. 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. $45. 266-0799 or www.delraylibrary.org. ABOVE: Library board member Heidi Sargeant and Honorary Chairperson and board member Jan Kucera at last year’s event. Photo provided

    For the past two decades, Gumbo Limbo Nature Center’s (GLNC) Sea Turtle
Conservation team has rescued sick and injured sea turtles throughout southern Palm Beach County. In January,
2010 efforts were stepped up with the opening of their Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Facility (STRF). Since then, over
240 injured or diseased sea turtles have been brought to the STRF for treatment. Turf, a sub adult loggerhead
turtle, was found in the intake canal of the St. Lucie Power Plant this past May.
When Turf arrived at GLNC, her prognosis was grim. Weighing only 68 pounds, she was 30‐40 pounds underweight.
STRF staff knew that the chances of this turtle surviving were very slim. Tests determined that Turf was
suffering from a severe blood infection. It is not known exactly how she got the infection, but just like humans,
sea turtles sometimes get sick, too. After emergency triage and 48 hours of critical care, Turf started responding
to medications and treatment, and developed a healthy appetite. She also proved to be one of the most charisma
sea turtles to come into GLNC, where she would often be looking out of her tank window with curiosity at
guests, or even enjoy a belly scratch from staff. After three short months of proper diet and medical treatment,
Turf has made a full recovery and is ready to be sent back to her ocean home.
Ryan Butts, Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Coordinator, explained that he and his staff knew that Turf was in critical
condition. “Turf was drastically underweight, and probably had not eaten for several months. Had she not been
rescued at the St. Lucie Power Plant, she probably would not have survived much longer out in the ocean.” said
Butts.
“Turf’s recovery was a wonderful surprise to us all at GLNC.” says Manager, Stefanie Ouelletie. “Many times sea
turtles found in such a declined condition do not survive.”
The public is invited to join Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in the release of Turf on Wednesday, September 4, 2013
at 4:30 pm at Spanish River Park in Boca Raton. Entrance fees to the park will be waived beginning at 3:30 PM for
those attending the release. The release will take place on the beach near the center tunnel. Visitors to the STRF
are invited to sign a large Bon Voyage card though Wednesday. Located at 1801 North Ocean Blvd, the Center is
open 7 days a week, 361 days a year. The suggested donation of $5 per person supports all aspects of the Center.
Gumbo Limbo Nature Center is committed to coastal and marine education, preservation, conservation, and
research. The Center is a collaborative project between The City of Boca Raton, The Greater Boca Raton Beach
and Park District, Florida Atlantic University, and Friends of Gumbo Limbo, a 501©3 organization.

By Paula Detwiller

When LaDeshia Brooks attended fifth grade at Galaxy Elementary School in 1989, the school didn’t seem old to her.
“I just remember my classroom was in a portable,” she says.
But by the time Brooks grew up, earned an elementary education degree from the University of South Florida and began her teaching career at her old school, it was definitely looking old.
“Some rooms had really bad water leaks. The building smelled musty. Possums would come in overnight and tip over garbage cans, and the custodians would have to clean it up.”
Brooks was not heartbroken when Galaxy was torn down. It was time, she says. And when folks in her old neighborhood pushed for a replacement school to be built, she was impressed.
“It showed the community could come together for something they believed in.”
And now?
“The school they actually built is beyond anything I could imagine,” says Brooks, 36, who lives in Greenacres. She is excited to begin her 14th year of teaching at the new, all-green Galaxy. “It’s a new concept for our district, and it’s really going to give the kids something different.” A reading specialist, Brooks will plan her fourth-grade lessons in accordance with the school’s E3 (energy, environment and engineering) curriculum focus.
“We’ll still be covering our standards. Other teachers will be teaching the E3 subjects, but I will be incorporating them into my reading materials.”
“The whole thing is amazing,” she says, referring to the school’s large size and modern, green-technology composition. “It’s truly a learning facility, not just a school.” 

Congratulations are in order. The Florida Press Association has awarded Coastal Star staffers with eight awards in its 2012 Weekly Newspaper Contest. We consider this quite an honor since we are the only monthly newspaper in the competition.
    The honors are awarded by journalism professionals outside of Florida and came in Division A — which is for newspapers with a circulation of over 15,000.
    First place awards went to the staff (special kudos to Scott Simmons and Jerry Lower) for overall graphic design, and to writer Tim O’Meilia for agricultural and environmental reporting for his story on the coastal whitefly epidemic. O’Meilia also received a third place in this same category.
    Tim Pallesen placed second and third for both local government and state and local tax reporting. Greg Stepanich of the ArtsPaper was awarded a second place for arts, entertainment and review reporting, with Paula Detwiller placing third for health, medicine and science reporting and Ron Hayes placing third for best obituary.
    We are extremely proud of the topical range of these awards and believe they illustrate the excellence and scope our unique publication.  
    Please join us in congratulating our staff for a job well done.

—Mary Kate Leming, Editor

This month, we are happy to expand the range of coverage in The Coastal Star with a new feature, Business Spotlight, which highlights the news and announcements of local businesses.
Christine Davis, a veteran real estate and business writer,  will anchor this column for us.  Reach her at cdavis9797@comcast.net.
We look forward to reading about you.
— Jerry Lower,
Publisher

Marie Speed takes a moment from an hourlong practice session to pose with her dance coach and partner James Brann.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes
    Oh, the things a good woman will do for a good cause.
    For five years, Marie Speed maintained, “No, absolutely not.”
    She was honored to serve on the application review committee of the George Snow Scholarship Fund. Since 1982 the fund, named after the late developer, has donated $4 million to deserving students. Last year alone, 73 young scholars shared $500,000 in grants. Speed helped evaluate their applications.
    And then, in 2008, the foundation introduced a new fundraiser. “Boca’s Ballroom Battle” was a local version of television’s Dancing With The Stars. Eight local “stars” competing. Donors sponsoring their favorites. A night of cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and dancing at the Boca Raton Resort & Club. And a coveted “mirror ball” trophy to the first-place winner.
    By any standard, Speed is a local star. Since 1991, she has edited Boca Raton and Delray Beach magazines. She has served on the board of the Caridad Center, worked with the Boca Chamber of Commerce and edited Mizner’s Dream, its annual publication.
    But ... dancing?
    “I’m too shy,” she protested. “Too old, too clumsy, too self-conscious.”
    Actually, she’s 61 but doesn’t look it. Born in Virginia, she grew up in St. Petersburg and lived two years in London, where she saw the Beatles perform live before Americans had heard their name. And she’s very far from shy.
    This year, Marie Speed surrendered. On Aug. 16, the editor will dance. Or something like it.
    “I’m the oldest and the chubbiest, and I’m terrified!” she said recently, managing a resigned smile in the home office of her Ocean Ridge cottage. “I’m so far out of my comfort zone. I’ve always loved to dance, but this is real dancing. With steps!”
    Fortunately, she’s been paired with a real dancer to help her learn those steps.
    For the past three months, Speed has been meeting three times a week with James Brann, a professional instructor at Boca Raton’s Fred Astaire Dance Studio.
    “You strap on your dance shoes, and then you strap on a guy like James and hope you don’t make a fool of yourself.”
    She remains silent on the dance itself, except to say it has a Broadway theme.
“I will say it’s totally age-inappropriate, overly ambitious for me and completely hilarious.”
    The entire routine lasts only 90 seconds.
    “My dance is so fast that if I miss one step it throws the whole thing off,” she says.
    For Speed, speed is of the essence. But she is resigned; she is rehearsing three times a week. And she is scared.
    “My greatest fear is forgetting my steps,” she says. “I have this image of myself freezing and having to be wheeled off like Hannibal Lecter on one of those dollies.”
    She sighs and tries to concentrate on all the young students those scholarships help.
    “I don’t hope to win the trophy, I just want to finish with my dignity somewhat intact,” she says.
    “And then I’m going to have the biggest martini ever known to man.”

If You Go
What: The sixth annual “Boca’s Ballroom Battle,” a local version of television’s Dancing With The Stars, to benefit the George Snow Scholarship fund
When: 6-9:30 p.m. Aug. 16
Where: Boca Raton Resort & Club
Cost: Seats are $150 each, or $225 for ‘preferred seating.’
Donations: To sponsor Marie Speed and meet her seven competitors, visit www.ballroombattle.com and click on donate

By Tim Pallesen and Steve Plunkett
    
    Don’t fret, Delray Beach. You are going to get your very own Trader Joe’s after all.
    City officials began to worry after the California-based specialty grocer announced early last month that it will open a store on South Federal Highway in Boca Raton next year.
    Boca Raton officials and residents greeted the food store — known for a $2.99 bottle of wine dubbed “Two Buck Chuck” and employees wearing Hawaiian shirts — with open arms.
    “Welcome, Trader Joe’s, to the city of Boca Raton,” CRA Chairwoman Constance Scott said after the agency voted 5-0 on July 18 to formally approve the retailer.       

     Trader Joe‘s first opened in 1958, and is said to enjoy a near cult-like following. It sells a mix of gourmet, organic, vegetarian and imported foods, mostly as private label products, along with milk, eggs and other basics, all at low prices.
    Employees refer to themselves as “crew members” and “traders of the culinary high seas.” The walls are cedar-covered and adorned with local artwork.
    Delray Beach officials had been planning for a Trader Joe’s to help anchor Delray Place, a new shopping center on Federal Highway and Linton Boulevard, but worried they had lost their bid when the company announced its Boca Raton location first.
    “It’s never been a situation of either Delray or Boca,” company attorney Jeffrey Lynne said. “A lot of people had their ego and pride hurt that Delray Beach was not announced first.”
    But the company waited until July 23 to formally announce it was opening a 10,000-square-foot store in the “Village by the Sea.”
    The Boca Raton location at 855 S. Federal Highway received quick zoning approval largely because no nearby homeowners objected.
    But the Delray Beach site was delayed for 18 months after a dozen homeowners in the adjacent Tropic Isle neighborhood raised concerns.
Delray Beach commissioners finally gave zoning and site plan approval for Delray Place after concessions satisfied all the homeowners except Nancy Schnabel, whose home will have the center on two sides.
    “My home will have the look and feel of a prison,” Schnabel told commissioners.
    “I would hate to be those people,” said Commissioner Shelly Petrolia, who cast the lone vote against Delray Place.
    Other speakers at the July 9 hearing applauded the $30 million Delray Place as a catalyst for redevelopment along South Federal Highway.
    “This is a fabulous opportunity for South Federal to get a gateway,” Tropic Isle homeowners president Kelli Freeman said.
    “This area of Federal Highway desperately needs a catalyst,” Mayor Cary Glickstein agreed. “We need to get something going in that part of the city.”
    The major difference between the two Trader Joe’s sites will be size. Boca Raton’s store at 855 S. Federal Highway will be larger, at 12,000 square feet.
    The Delray Beach location, scheduled to open in October 2014, will be the fourth new Trader Joe’s coming to Florida next year.

Dan Moffett contributed to this story.

The new Galaxy Elementary School in Boynton Beach will be the greenest school campus in the state when it opens this month. At its heart is a two-story Wonderment Center, a gathering and learning spot.
Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Former Galaxy student excited to teach at new school

By Paula Detwiller

When school starts on Aug. 19, students enrolled at the brand-new Galaxy Elementary on Boynton Beach Boulevard just east of I-95 will be walking into Florida’s greenest school.
That’s “green” as in highly energy efficient and sustainably designed. The nearly completed $30 million school is likely to qualify for the highest level of certification available from the U.S. Green Building Council: LEED Platinum. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
No other school in Florida, and few in the entire country, has achieved that ranking to date, according to Galaxy principal Edmund Capitano.
Impressive, yes. But the bigger story in education circles is how the school’s design will enrich its curriculum. Galaxy’s educational focus will be on energy, environment and engineering — E3 for short — and the building itself will allow for countless teachable moments.

Builders used environmentally friendly materials throughout.

Not like your old school
Think back to your elementary school. Remember the mysterious door marked Boiler Room that was always locked and only the custodian had a key? At Galaxy, all rooms containing the building’s mechanical equipment are clean, well lit, and have windows for students to peer inside.
“Everything’s labeled so when children come in, they can look through these glass windows and see the mechanical systems in action,” says Capitano.
Those systems include air-conditioning equipment that produces ice during the night (when energy demand is low), then uses it during the day to chill water to cool the building. The school has a solar-powered hot water system and, if grant funding comes through, a cistern will capture rainwater for irrigation while wind turbines along the edge of the property will convert Boynton’s breezes into energy.
Touch screens installed around the school will display real-time information about the building’s electricity usage and water consumption. Capitano says students will be taught to take readings, graph observable data, write about their findings, and share it verbally. It’s the essence of “whole child” education, he says.
“It’s not like, OK, time to go to math, time to go to science. No, we’re integrating everything, and the kids won’t even realize they’re doing it because they’ll be having fun,” Capitano says.

Lumber reclaimed from the old Galaxy Elementary School sits stacked in a classroom. The wood will be used to build furniture and other fittings

Tapping into the wonder
An enormous two-story room in the center of the school is known as the Wonderment Center, so named by Zyscovich Architects, the school’s designers. In addition to serving as the school cafeteria and auditorium, the Wonderment Center will have interactive science exhibits: gears mounted to the wall with workable pulleys; a parachute-drop display to teach students about gravity; and on the high windows facing da Vinci courtyard (yes, it’s named after Leonardo), hanging prisms will demonstrate light refraction.
The school’s media center (they used to call them libraries) overlooks an elevated terrace that soon will be sprouting grasses and native plants.
“This will be the first green roof for the school district,” said senior project manager Matt Mahoney of Pirtle Construction during a recent tour. “The kids will exit from the environmental lab onto a patio where they’ll have access to the green roof to take measurements and make observations.”

Even the playground equipment offers lessons about solar power.

A new kind of choice
The new school replaces the old Galaxy Elementary School campus, whose buildings dated back to 1958 and previously housed Boynton Junior High. In late 2007, the School District of Palm Beach County voted to close Galaxy and move students to other schools in order to save money.
But after lobbying from parents and church leaders in the surrounding area, the School Board reversed its vote — and Galaxy’s history took an interesting new turn.
Plans were drawn up to demolish the old school and build a pre-kindergarten-through-fifth grade “choice” school.
“What makes Galaxy extra-special is that we are taking any child who lives within our geographical boundary, as well as any child in the school district with an interest in environmental science,” says Capitano. “If you live within the boundary, you’re in, there’s no application process for you. Whatever seats are left over go to the kids who apply through the choice program.”  
As of this writing, about 60 choice students have applied and been accepted. There’s no need for a lottery yet, since enrollment has not exceeded the new school’s capacity of 680 students.   

 Tanks store ice used to chill water for air conditioning.

It takes a village
Carrying out the vision for the “greenest school in the galaxy” has involved the entire community. The project budget includes $2.3 million in grants and donations, which are still being raised. The Quantum Foundation awarded a $750,000 grant to pay for the Wonderment Center, and private donors have kicked in about $120,000 so far.
The city of Boynton Beach, whose Climate Action Plan emphasizes sustainable development, gave the school district four acres of land behind Galaxy that’s to be developed and jointly used. When Galaxy students aren’t out there studying indigenous flora or native gopher tortoises, neighbors will be able to use it as a city park.
“We want kids to get a feel for science every day of their lives,” Capitano says. “These are the formative years when kids start understanding that, hey, if I can dream it, I can build it. We’re teaching them to take their ideas and apply them to problems in the real world.”
Donations on behalf of the Galaxy school project may be made to The Education Foundation of Palm Beach County. To learn more, visit www.galaxygreen.org.

Galaxy elementary school’s green components/teachable features
Some of the systems, methods, and materials used in the construction of Galaxy Elementary School:
• IceBank energy storage air conditioning
• Solar panels and solar-powered water heating
• Wind turbines to generate electricity
• Tilt-wall construction with 8-inch-thick concrete walls
• Vegetated green roof
• Sustainably harvested lumber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
• Pine planks from the old Galaxy school will be reused to build new furniture  
• Floor tiles made from linseeds: durable and need no waxing
• Cistern for capturing rainwater to irrigate gardens
• Waterless urinals in the boys’ restrooms
• Waste from demolition of old school was recycled, thus diverted from landfills.

On average, green schools cost 1 to 2 percent more to build than conventional schools, use 33 percent less energy and 32 percent less water than conventional schools. (Source: Greening America’s Schools: Costs and Benefits, 2006.)

Pine Jog Elementary School in West Palm Beach, built in 2008 and designated LEED Gold, saved the school district $50,000 in energy costs the first year, according to Zyscovich Architects’ Thorn Grafton.

Just before the settlement, nearly 20 signs had been painted on the walls and shutters of Martin O’Boyle’s home. Most had been removed by July 30. Jerry Lower/ The Coastal Star

By Tim O’Meilia
    
    Tweedledum and Tweedledee will soon be gone from the south side of Martin O’Boyle’s Gulf Stream home, banished back into Lewis Carroll’s imagination.
    Also vanishing is the array of murals and signs on his house skewering town commissioners and officials. By mid-August his canal-side home will be back to a town-approved beige tone.
    Disappearing soon are the nearly 20 lawsuits and one federal case O’Boyle has filed against the town since April.
    All are part of a settlement reached July 26 by the town and O’Boyle to end their four-month dispute that has already cost several hundred thousand dollars.
    In exchange, O’Boyle will get what he wanted from the start — approval for the home remodeling he was denied in March, including a 25-foot-tall entryway.
    Gulf Stream also will pay him $180,000, a sum O’Boyle said he has paid so far in legal fees battling the town.
    The town also will drop code violation citations issued to O’Boyle for the colors of the paintings and signs. After a code enforcement hearing lasting nine hours over three days, the special magistrate will issue no ruling.
    And the town issued an apology to O’Boyle:
    “The town is indebted to O’Boyle for the many deficiencies in connection with the town code that he has identified since his submission of the application. The town commission believes that O’Boyle’s actions will ultimately result in Gulf Stream being a better and friendlier place to live,” says paragraph 34 of the 21-page settlement.
    O’Boyle called it a win for both sides. “It’s a tremendous victory. I will be able to transform my house into what I think is a beautiful home. But the biggest victory of all is the town recognizing the code is not what they thought it was,” he said.
    O’Boyle praised Mayor Joan Orthwein for spearheading the Town Commission’s move to urge the town’s planning advisory board to re-examine parts of the town’s code “so we have little more flexibility. You can’t pigeonhole everything,” he said. “I’m very, very proud of her.”
    Orthwein and Town Manager William Thrasher, who interprets the code, were the primary targets of O’Boyle’s satiric lampoons on the side of his $1.6 million house, the yard signs and writings on plywood shutters over his windows.
    He said his inability to install hurricane-resistant windows made his home uninsurable.
    O’Boyle said the town was the bigger victor by agreeing to rewrite the code to account for oddly shaped lots. “It’s going to be a much better place to live,” he said.
    Town commissioners held a closed-door session to discuss their legal options July 24 then held a special session July 26 that recessed numerous times while lawyers wrangled over the details of the settlement.
    The commission voted 4-0 to approve the settlement. Commissioner Garrett Dering was absent.
    “Not doing it would have cost unpredictable magnitudes more,” said Commissioner Bob Ganger, who with Dering voted to approve O’Boyle’s plans in March. He said O’Boyle was determined to get what he wanted.
    Town Clerk Rita Taylor could not say how much the town had spent dealing with the lawsuits and hundreds of public records requests from O’Boyle and his lawyers. She said not all the bills were in.
    “The applicant was extremely knowledgeable, very creative and extremely persistent,” Ganger said. “His tactics would not be something you hope anyone else would use.”

Gulf Stream School administrators are asking residents to donate historic photos, old yearbooks, uniforms and other memorabilia of the early decades of the school. Photo provided

By Rich Pollack

    If you went to Gulf Stream School and have old uniforms, photographs, yearbooks or even old paperweights, your alma mater wants to hear from you.
    As the school prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary later this year, members of the event’s planning committee are collecting memorabilia that will be on display at the school and during a gala celebration on Dec. 7.
    Committee members have already sifted through dozens of boxes of photographs and old papers taken from archives and attics, but the search continues — especially for some early yearbooks as well as for items that reflect the school’s history and traditions.
    “If former students or their relatives have old uniforms they’d like to share with us, that would be great,” says Casey Wilson, Gulf Stream School’s director of development.
    Wilson said the committee is especially in need of items from the early years of the school, which was started by Ada Belle and Bill Johnston, who came to Florida from Connecticut in 1938 in search of a better climate for their daughter Judith, who suffered from asthma.
    “We have all the yearbooks from the 1970s on up, but we’re still missing several from the 1950s and ’60s,” Wilson said.
    In addition to looking for these items, committee members also are searching for alumni and their relatives who can help identify some of the students and faculty members whose images were captured in early photographs.
    “There are a lot of names of students from the early years that we just don’t know,” Wilson said.
    The committee is also inviting former students to come by and share their memories.
    “I’m sure there are a lot of stories we haven’t heard,” Wilson said.
    To share memories or memorabilia with Gulf Stream School, contact Casey Wilson at 276-5225 or at cwilson@gulfstreamschool.org.

By Tim O’Meilia

If Gulf Stream residents want new street lights and street signs, they’ll pay for them with a 24 percent increase in town property tax that will stretch over the next two years.
    That tax hike was also slated to pay for the town to defend 21 lawsuits filed by resident Martin O’Boyle, who sued over the denial of his home renovation, public records requests and the town’s sign code. But O’Boyle and the town settled their dispute July 26.
    Town commissioners set a preliminary tax rate of $3.70 for each $1,000 of taxable property value for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, up from this year’s $3.10 rate. But they plan to “chip away,” as Commissioner Bob Ganger said, to reduce the rate before final budget hearings in September.
    The owner of $1 million in taxable property value this year would pay $600 more next year, if his property value remained the same. But values in Gulf Stream increased an average of 5.4 percent so the added tax would be more.
    “I know the headline will be that taxes are going up 24 percent,” Ganger said. “But we need the subhead and the story to say it’s costs that hadn’t been anticipated and the town needs to be gussied up.”
    The town’s civic association has said it supports increasing the tax rate to install 88 new street lights, estimated to cost $380,000. The town would repay a low-interest loan over 18 months, including $280,000 in the new budget.
Town Manager William Thrasher said the legal budget would be reworked since the expenses for the O’Boyle suits would no longer be necessary. Some of the additional $120,000 in legal and professional fees will be shifted to other projects as the commission determines. But the overall budget is likely to stay the same, he said.
    The $3.4 million budget proposed by Thrasher — about $400,000 more than the current year — would repay the town’s reserve fund about $6,700, based on a $3.49 tax rate. The commission took about $50,000 from reserves this year to balance the budget.
    But Ganger and Commissioner Garrett Dering wanted to return more to the reserves. “We had $1.5 million in (reserves) and now we’re down to $981,000,” Dering said. “We can’t keep doing that. Let’s go to $3.70.”
    Ganger agreed: “If we should put more into our budget, now’s the time to do it.”
    The budget includes a 2.5 percent salary increase for all town employees.  Fire service from Delray Beach will increase 5 percent.
    Commissioners set public hearings on the budget for 5:01 p.m. Sept. 13 and Sept. 24. They expect to discuss the budget further at the Aug. 9 meeting.

    In other business, commissioners:
    • Learned Thrasher had canceled this year’s software purchases, a Town Hall expansion design, a barrier island fire district study and Town Hall painting because of increased O’Boyle lawsuit costs and police payroll.
    • Agreed unanimously to ask the advisory Architectural Review and Planning Board to consider changes to roof styles and roof and building colors. “It’s time Gulf Stream needs to be a little more open-minded,” said Mayor Joan Orthwein, who proposed the examination. Residents have complained about a too-restrictive town code on design and color. “Twenty years ago there was a fear of McMansionization. Now there’s so many young families and so much new construction. We have a lot of cookie-cutter houses. We need some diversification,” Orthwein said.

Scott Simmons/The Coastal Star

The Plate: Oceans Crispy Calamari
The Place: Oceans 234, 234 N. Ocean Blvd., Deerfield Beach; (954) 428-2539 or oceans234.com
The Price: $12.99
The Skinny: Crispy calamari with a view.
That’s what sums up this little snack.
Oceans 234 is crowded and noisy, like many a beach hangout.
But the food at this oceanfront eatery is  well thought out. Case in point, this bowl of calamari.
The rings of squid were lightly breaded then sauteed until crisp and set atop a bed of mixed greens.
A honey balsamic glaze and red pepper relish brought it all together.
It could have used a little less of the saffron-infused aioli that covered the whole dish. The concoction detracted from the crispy coating of that tender calamari.
— Scott Simmons

BEFORE

AFTER

By Jane Smith

When you want to repaint your coastal home, how do you go about choosing a color?
Do you collect pages from home magazines that show pictures of houses painted in colors you adore?  Pick out colors based on a favorite artwork? Or go through your wardrobe to see what colors you favor when clothes shopping?
Do you then buy several different paint colors that are applied to the walls in a checkerboard style? And then, after several attempts you might select one you can live with.
There is an easier and less costly method of selecting paint colors to give your home curb appeal. It involves the services of a color consultant who knows paint colors and how they are influenced by light.
A good one will help select a color palette to create a color flow that forms a harmonious home.
“That’s very important,” said Veronica Bower, a certified color consultant with Benjamin Moore stores in Boca Raton and West Palm Beach. “When you walk through the front door, you want to see the same color in the foyer.” She tries to keep the colors inside balanced by selecting pastels with pastels and bolds with bolds.
 For the interior of a home, she suggests that clients decide on the furnishings and artwork first, and then the paint color.
“Paint should be the last thing chosen,” said Bower. If the paint is selected first, you are “tied down to that specific color — your choices are limited by the paint color for furniture and hard goods.”
Two South County coastal women who recently hired Bower to help pick paint colors rave about her color knowledge.
“She has a fresh eye, knows her colors and is pleasant to be around,” said a Boca Raton homeowner who lives along the Intracoastal Waterway.
Her Key West-style home needed to be repainted because of its waterfront location. Years of salt-water breezes took their toll on home. Andover Management Co., whose judgment the home owner trusted, suggested Bower.
Bower drove out to the Intracoastal house to do the in-person consultation.
“She spent hours and hours because my husband and I have different tastes,” the wife said. “She asked us what colors we liked. I told her I didn’t have any preferences, but knew what I didn’t like. My husband wanted something bright.”
Bower came up with a color palette for the home’s exterior that pleased both husband and wife. It was repainted in May.
For that exterior paint job, with its body originally painted in bright aqua, trim in white and accent color in off-white, Bower selected a fresh palette. The colors selected were: Hawthorne Yellow for the body, Serenity for the accent color and White Dove for the trim.
She suggests three colors for the exterior, likening that selection to the outfit a person might wear: shirt, pants and a scarf or vest to set the outfit.
The body of house color is very important because it is the largest area, she said. Trim paint colors go on soffit, fascia, window sills and sometimes the garage door. The accent color goes on the front door and shutters.
For coastal homes, which often have stucco surfaces, she recommends a satin sheen for the exterior. Flat paints will soak in and absorb quickly, making the exterior surface feel chalky and causing the color to fade quickly. “Think of it as a little bit of sunscreen for your exterior,” she said.
Bower got her start with Benjamin Moore paint colors in 1997 when she lived in North Carolina. She also studied paint colors through in-person seminars and online until she had the hours to become certified.
After moving to Florida, she began working in 2008 at the Boca Raton Benjamin Moore store. She does color consulting there 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays and Wednesdays, she is at the West Palm Beach store during the same hours. The in-store consultations are free. For an in-home consult, she charges an hourly fee, which varies depending on distance and the day.  
Pictures on a smartphone or from a magazine don’t provide the true color resolution of a paint color, she said. “You really need a paint color chip.”
In addition, the way the paint colors looks on walls inside a home or on its exterior can vary by the quality and quantity of the light available.
“A paint color is 50 percent natural and artificial light and 50 percent the paint color,” Bower said.
Time of day also influences a color because of the position of the sun and the direction a home faces.

Benjamin Moore color consultant Veronica Bower helped the owner of this Delray Beach condominium choose a soft neutral paint color with butter and cream tones that create a cozier feel than before (below). Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

The Delray Beach oceanfront condo owner heard about Bower from a Boca Raton cousin. That woman had talked with Bower about paint colors for a bathroom project.
The condo owner wanted a calm but peaceful color she could be comfortable looking at, plus one that would look good with the water view.
Bower selected Philadelphia Cream for the living room, described as “a very soft neutral with a little cream and butter mixed in together to create coziness.”
The other Benjamin Moore colors selected for the condo are: White Sand in the kitchen and hallways, Burlap in the master bedroom and bath, Edgecomb Gray in the powder room with the ceilings and trim in white dove.
The condo’s interior was repainted in June.
The owner recently raved about how the paint colors transformed her condo.
“In some ways, it looks like a new apartment,” she said. “The colors chosen make certain things pop out that previously were hidden. I am very happy with it.”                                                                      

The Rev. Canon William Stokes of St. Paul ’s Episcopal Church is surrounded by his family, including, from left, daughter Erin Potter, wife, Susan, and son Richard, as The Very Reverend Kathleen P. Gannon, curate, prays over them as Stokes begins his transition to become bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey. The minister, known to the congregation as ‘Father Chip,’ held his last service on July 14. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

View more photos from Rev. Stokes last sermon

By Tim Pallesen   

    It was appropriate that the Rev. Canon “Chip” Stokes chose the story of the Good Samaritan for his farewell sermon.
    St. Paul’s Episcopal embraced poor Haitian immigrants living around the church during Stokes’ ministry. Christ told the parable of the Good Samaritan so Christians will be compassionate to their neighbors.
    “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Stokes reminded his congregation in his final sermon on July 14 before leaving to become the bishop of New Jersey. Stokes has been at St. Paul’s since January 1999.
    “The point we learn is not who deserves to be cared for, but rather the Lord’s demand to become a person who treats everyone we encounter with compassion,” he said. “One must take the same risks with one’s life and possessions that the Samaritan did.”
    The city of Delray Beach honored Stokes on July 9 with a proclamation describing him as an agent for change who celebrates diversity and cultural change.
    “You are truly one of the unsung heroes in our town,” Mayor Cary Glickstein told him. “Most people don’t know how profound the impact that you, your wife, Susan, and the church under your leadership have had on this community.”
Stokes thanked his congregation for allowing him to be a Good Samaritan.
“It is a ministry to the frightened, hurting, alien, naked and defenseless that the Lord and his gospel call us, always!” he said.
                                              ***
    The U.S. Bishop of the Episcopal Church has accepted an invitation to attend the 60th anniversary celebration at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton.
    Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will lead a Saturday night worship service on the beach on Dec. 7 in addition to Sunday worship on Dec. 8, which will be followed by a gala luncheon at the Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club.
“We’re honored and thrilled,” said Patricia Jordan, the anniversary organizer who said she never expected that the bishop would select St. Gregory’s when other Episcopal congregations also invite her to their anniversaries.
    “The etiquette is like when a college invites the president of the United States to be their commencement speaker,” Jordan said. “I guess our timing was right.”
    Jefferts Schori was elected in 2006 as the first woman primate in the worldwide Anglican Communion. She was born in Pensacola.
    St. Gregory’s, which began in 1953 and grew to 1,200 members, is known for its vibrant outreach missions and worship services rich with Anglican tradition.
                                              ***

CROS gleaners harvested peppers last February at Bedner Farms to feed the poor. Photo provided

    More than 1,600 volunteer gleaners harvested 319,483 pounds of produce to feed the poor during the 2012-13 growing season.
    The county’s largest gleaning program is run by Christians Reaching Out to Society with volunteers from church groups, school groups and service organizations. The Caring Kitchen in Delray Beach is one of its major food recipients.
    Because of bad weather, the harvest fell short of the record 345,225 pounds of sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and other crops gleaned from local fields in 2011-12.
    Too much rain in October and a freeze in February hurt this season’s sweet corn production. “We were off 75,000 pounds in sweet corn alone,” gleaning director Keith Cutshall said.
    But a new alliance with the owners of Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market west of Boynton Beach, yielded 66,000 pounds of produce this year.
    The Bedner family has farmed 900 acres west of Boynton since the early 1960s. They are the only farmers in Palm Beach County who sell their produce at their own farmer’s market. “We’re a small business giving back to the community,” said Bruce Bedner, one of three brothers who farm the land.
    “They really opened their fields to us,” Cutshall said.
    Even better, CROS volunteers were allowed into the Bedner Farms processing plant to rescue cucumbers, cantaloupe and sweet corn rejected because they were not pretty enough. “It’s perfectly good produce that doesn’t look too good at the supermarket,” Cutshall said.
    The volunteer gleaners celebrated this year’s harvest with a picnic at Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market on July 27.
    CROS could get even more produce from the Bedner Farms processing plant from next season if more volunteers sign up during late March to mid-May.
Anyone interested can call Cutshall at (561) 233-9009, Ext. 107.                                            

***
    Catholic schools take pride in the achievements of their graduates. So much so that St. Joan of Arc Catholic School recently tracked its graduates to see how they fared in high school and beyond.
    The Boca Raton school, begun in 1960 with nuns from the Sisters of Mercy in Ireland as teachers, has grown to 550 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.
    The school emphasizes technology, language and math, with high school courses in Spanish and Algebra. St. Joan has been named a Blue Ribbon School of Academic Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education.
    St. Joan’s list of successful graduates includes both the valedictorian and salutatorian this year at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale and the salutatorian at Pope John Paul II High School in Boca Raton, where a St. Joan graduate was the valedictorian last year.
    St. Mark Catholic School in Boynton Beach had graduates named the valedictorians at both Pope John Paul and Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach this year.
St. Mark closed, but the remaining three K-8 Catholic schools in southern Palm Beach County stay proud of the foundation they give students.  
“We’re still very strong,” said Vikki Delgado, principal of St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic School in Delray Beach, where graduates often excel at American Heritage High School in Delray Beach.
    “Students with a Catholic education are prepared,” Delgado said. “They are seen as leaders who take initiatives.”

Tim Pallesen writes about people of faith, their congregations, causes and community events. Email him at tcpallesen@aol.com.

Anne Marie Riviecco makes a point during the ‘You’re Never Alone’ discussion group. Rivieccio, 63, is the newest and youngest member of the group. Referring to her circle mates, she says: ‘They’ve all moved on and they’ve helped me to move on. We’ve become more of a socio-political-economic-whatever-hits-our-minds-that-day discussion group.’
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Paula Detwiller

   On a recent Saturday morning, 13 seniors sit in a circle inside a meeting room at Grand Villa Senior Living Community in Delray Beach. Designated group leader Nat Spector —who is 94 but looks about 10 years younger — rattles off his list of topics for discussion today: the George Zimmerman trial, the immigration bill, health care costs, new abortion laws in Texas and new phone service options at Verizon.
    Wait. Isn’t this supposed to be a bereavement support group? It feels more like the old PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
    A dark-haired woman to my right, Anne Marie Rivieccio, explains.
     “We’re a group of people who got together because we had a loss. But we don’t talk about our losses anymore and lament the past.”
    Rivieccio, 63, is the newest and youngest member of the group. Referring to her circle mates, she says: “They’ve all moved on and they’ve helped me to move on. We’ve become more of a socio-political-economic-whatever-hits-our-minds-that-day discussion group.”  
    Officially, the group is called “You’re Never Alone After Bereavement.” Sponsored by the nonprofit Senior Foundation, it is designed for people 50 and older who have lost a spouse or significant other. On this day, five men and eight women occupy the circle. Average age: about 82. New members are always welcome.
    “We know it [bereavement] is a very sad state because we’ve all been there,” Spector says.
    Longtime member Harriet Lipkin, 80, says if a new person needs to talk about their loss, members listen and try to give practical advice and support based on their own experiences.
    “We tell them, the first year you’re expecting them [the deceased partner] to come home. The second year is worse: You know they’re not coming home,” Lipkin says.
    But rather than dwell on losses, the group focuses on sharing information, thoughts, ideas and opinions. They are a lively bunch. And they all agree that discussing current issues and events gives them new things to think about, and a place to go each week to socialize with peers.
    “I want to tell you, I’m here two years,” says Jeanette Kramer, who is sitting to my left, “and I really feel that I gained something. Not only knowledge of current events, but…”
    Before she can finish, the gentleman sitting next to her pipes up.
    “You gained me!” says Ed Sandler.
    The room erupts in laughter. I learn that Ed and Jeanette, who met after joining the group, are now a couple. And it turns out that Nat Spector and Harriet Lipkin started seeing each other 10 years ago, shortly after meeting in the support group.
    Numerous studies have shown that social interaction can promote physical, emotional and cognitive health among senior citizens, a group at risk for isolation, loneliness and depression.
    That’s why J. Robert Gordon, former senior services coordinator with the Mental Health Association of West Palm Beach, launched the “Never Alone” group 15 years ago. He is delighted it’s still going strong.
    What makes it successful?
    “They communicate with each other,” he says. “They’re all in the throes of aging, with all of its problematic conditions. They talk about nutrition, they talk about politics, they talk about crypts and cremation — there’s nothing off limits here, nothing.”
    That includes topics that members wouldn’t discuss with their own families, Gordon says. As a result, a good deal of bonding occurs.
    Members go out to breakfast together after their meetings. Six of the women traveled to Europe together. Eighteen members took a Hawaiian cruise together a few years ago.
    “You become friends almost instantly,” says Rivieccio, the newcomer. “And you look forward to it. You really look forward to getting up and getting out.”
    “You’re Never Alone” meets every Saturday morning from 9 to 10:30 in Delray Beach. For more information, contact J. Robert Gordon at the Senior Foundation Corp. of Boca Raton, 361-9091.

Paula Detwiller is a freelance writer and lifelong fitness junkie. Find her at www.pdwrites.com.

Inez Layne flies a dragon kite with her daughters Rhyan and Elle Fleisher, during Family Fun Day at The Cornell Museum in Delray Beach. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Kelly Wolfe
    
What a kite is or isn’t depends on who’s flying it. It could be meditation or math, work of art or small business empire. Consider:
    Kite as techno geek: You can now play kite-flying games on iTunes, Facebook and with a Droid app.  
    Kite as historian: The kite is a Johnny-come-lately at 3,000 years old, compared to other ancient seaside must-haves like beer (3,000 B.C.) and flip flops (4,000 B.C.).  
    Kite as literary device: Joyce Carol Oates published a kite-shaped poem in Slate in 2003, but if I had to pick a favorite kite poem I’d pick The Box Kite, by University of Florida professor William Logan.
    Kite as slang: To kite a check is to pass a fraudulent one.
    Joe Gillie, president and CEO of the Delray Beach Center for the Arts, sees kites as short stories, each one with its own narrative.  
The center now has 100 kites on display, including a 25-foot dragon kite built by the center’s maintenance team, Marc Stevens and John Morgan, mentioned specifically because it was such a weird favor to have to ask. (When you’ve finished setting up the chairs for the wedding, can you give me a hand with this 25-foot dragon?)
For his part, Gillie said he painted the dragon and topped it with a papier mâché head.
    The center assembled the exhibit in six months. It includes 40 Japanese kites on loan from the Morikami Museum, as well as Indian fighting kites, Hi-Flier Top Flights from the 1950s, and stunt kites on loan from Randy Lowe, known around here as Randy the Kite Man.  
    Lowe, 62, a retired Boston math teacher, taught his students geometry using kites.  
    “Flying a kite is all math,” Lowe said. “It’s the same principle as flying an aircraft. There’s a lot to learn; it’s not simple.”
    Lowe has about 50 kites, his favorite a 3-D replica of a skin diver. He performs at parties and celebrations, has a regular weekend gig at the Boca Raton Beach Club, and can be seen on weekdays on Delray Beach.
    Kite flying “is relatively inexpensive, compared to some other addictions, and it doesn’t have the health risks,” said Mel Hickman, executive director of the American Kitefliers Association in Portland, Ore.
    “You’re concentrating on something small, or a small portion of the universe, and you can let everything else just fade away for a while. It forced me to slow down, not rush, and gave my heart a chance to slow down. It sounds metaphysical and maybe it is,” Hickman said.   
    If we’re to believe legend, the first kite was born when a Chinese farmer tied a string to his hat to keep the wind from taking it.
From there, kites were used in military operations, celebrations, leaflet dropping, festivals and thermometers — all before Ben Franklin pulled electricity from a Philadelphia storm in 1752.
    Since then, big moments in kites include carrying orders during the American Civil War (researchers are still working to determine to what extent) and flight tests with the Wright Brothers in 1899, according to the kite-fliers association.
Hickman’s own kite history includes this favorite memory: “Here on the West Coast, you get a chance to fly with the setting sun. That’s something really special.”

If You Go
What: ‘Flying High: The Story of Kites’
When: Until Sept. 29, Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where: The Delray Beach Center for the Arts at Old Schoolhouse Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
How much:  $10 for adults, $6 for seniors and students with ID, $3 for children 4-12