Blair Adams (brother and man of honor), Linda Adams (bride’s mother), Brittany Adams Manimbo (bride), Daniel Manimbo (groom) and Dave Adams (father of the bride) celebrate the couple’s wedding at Harbour Island in the Bahamas. Family photo

By Jane Smith

Warm sand squishing between toes. The soft sound of waves lapping at the shore. The gentle kiss of an ocean breeze.
For those reasons and more, brides often choose to get married on the beach.
Linda Adams’ only daughter had her choice of South Florida resorts for her wedding venue. But Brittany picked Harbour Island in the Bahamas because it had special meaning to the Hypoluxo Island family.
“We’re boaters,” Adams said, “and it was a family vacation spot for many years.”
For the price of a 250-guest wedding extravaganza in Palm Beach County, the Adams family had a more intimate but still elegant affair for 74 guests. The wedding lasted four days. Everywhere they went on the 3.5-mile-long island, the Brilanders (residents born there) greeted the bridal party, turning them into mini-celebrities.
The only thing they had to bring was Brittany’s wedding ensemble. From Boca Raton Bridal, she selected a Jenny Lee Couture silk taffeta gown in ivory blush with a James Clifford Swarovski crystal belt embellished with hand-sewn fabric flowers.  She wore a Cheryl King halo cathedral veil with sprays of Swarovski crystals along the edges. “It was just lovely in the candle light,” said her mom.
Their wedding planner, Ben Simmons and his partner Charlotte Phelan of Little Island Design, did all of the rest, including setting up a large white sailcloth tent that covered the guests as they ate, drank and danced on the beach. They also set up discreet portable screens nearby to shield the commodes and sinks from passersby.
“The restrooms felt like we were in Morocco,” Adams said.
That similar type of all-inclusive wedding package also is available at oceanfront resorts in South Palm Beach County. The Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach; the Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach in Manalapan; and the Boca Raton Resort & Club are among the properties with wedding packages. Even ElevenSpa in Delray Beach now offers wedding consultations.
A couple can marry overlooking the ocean at the Four Seasons Resort in Palm Beach. Photo provided

Four Seasons
At the Four Seasons, they host only one wedding couple at time, “so the Four Seasons becomes your wedding destination all your own,” said Laurie Zuckerman, public relations director.
They also host wedding weekends that include “fun rehearsal dinners like a Friday Night Clam Bake, the oceanfront reception and a beautiful brunch on Sunday.”
Its signature wedding package includes a cocktail reception with passed hors d’oeuvres, three-course plated dinner, custom wedding cake, Champagne toast and complimentary night in an ocean-view room for the bride and groom. The packages start at $179 per guest in the summer and $190 per guest during the season.
June is the most popular month for weddings at the Four Seasons, Zuckerman said. While it has an expansive beach, most couples prefer to get married on the resort’s oceanfront pool terrace, with its 180-degree views of the beach and ocean, she said. The resort likes to work 12 months in advance to give the bride her preferred wedding date.
The photographers, flowers, wedding officials and music are all extra. The resort has a preferred vendor list to match its five-star reputation.
Weddings take place in the courtyard of the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach. Photo provided

Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach
At the Ritz-Carlton, they don’t host weddings on the beach because it is too narrow, according to Nancy Deigan, senior catering sales manager.  The weddings take place in the courtyard with its infinity pool. That space can accommodate between 50 and 350 guests. The resort also has a pre-approved vendor list that matches its five-star reputation.
Intimate weddings can be planned 30 days in advance, but larger ones with 350 guests are often planned one year in advance to schedule the couple’s preferred date, she said.
Brides can expect to spend between $2,500 for an intimate wedding to $150,000 for weddings with 350 guests, Deigan said. She estimated the average cost per guest at $200, but again that depends on what the bride chooses, from buffet style to a plated, sit-down dinner.

Couples can marry at the Boca Raton Resort & Club’s pool cabana, which offers ocean views. Photo provided

Boca Raton Resort & Club
At the Boca Raton Resort & Club, the four-diamond Beach Club is a popular wedding venue.
The resort can work with only two months of notice, but prefers 12 months to ensure the bride gets her choice of date.
First, they ask the bride about her wedding plans. “Some have been dreaming of this day since they were 6 and have it all planned out,” said Jillian Stevens, the resort’s wedding specialist. “Then others have no idea of what they want.”
Its beach weddings start after 5 p.m. mainly because that stretch of beach is used by the resort’s guests. “That way, after all the activities are done, it’s a nice, intimate experience,” she said.
Brides who come for destination weddings prefer that “toes in the sand experience,” Stevens said. But most of the local couples prefer to get married on the pool deck so that guests don’t have to take off their shoes. The sand also can be difficult for older or disabled guests to walk on, she said.
After Hurricane Sandy passed by last October and the resort lost most of its beach, it brought sand onto the pool deck for one couple who wanted a beach wedding.
The resort has its own onsite planning and décor consulting firm called Boca by Design, which can assist a bride with the whole ceremony and reception. It also has an onsite floral shop where they direct brides. A preferred vendor list for photographers and music also is available.
Depending on the type of food chosen, brides can expect to spend at least $250 per guest, which includes a five-hour reception in the Dunes Ballroom with a Champagne toast, four-course dinner, custom wedding cake, service charge and tax. The cost can go up to $350 per guest for a more upscale  menu. The resort also charges a $2,000 ceremony fee for the use of the space.

ElevenSpa
ElevenSpa in Delray Beach also is getting into the wedding planning business with its new Marry Me program. Monte Durham of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta fame is the creative director of the spa’s full-service bridal experience.
Durham visits the spa once a month where appointments are set up for consultations with the bride and her family, said Ileani Garrido, spa director.
The Marry Me service starts at $250 for a one-hour consultation, then goes up from there depending on what the bride and her family want, she said. He’ll advise the brides on the best color lipstick to wear on the big day to the perfect chandelier earring. Plus, he can help the bride select her wedding dress, she said.
ElevenSpa works with Boca Bridal for this service.
When planning a beach wedding, the spa, which opened on Nov. 11, 2004, has an in-house person that can arrange tents to be set up on the beach.

Bahamas island wedding
For weddings on Harbour Island, which is accessible by boat from nearby Eleuthera with an airstrip, Little Island Design provides a one-stop shop, Simmons said. A Brilander, he hires local residents and vendors to fulfill the bride’s dream wedding.
Depending on the type of food, his company charges from $60 to $160 per guest and $15 to $30 per head for drinks. Setup costs are extra, as are other services. They may include full sit-down service for dinner under a tent on the beach, someone to officiate the ceremony, music, flowers and photography, he said.

Wedding planners erected a tent for the Bahamian nuptials of Brittany and Daniel Manimbo. Screens to the left mask bathrooms. Family photo

For Linda Adams, the four-day celebration was “just magical.” Even a year later, she gushes about her daughter’s wedding and how relaxing but elegant it was.
The island is known for its pink sand, “inhabited by roosters and royalty,” Adams likes to say.
Simmons flies the flowers in from Nassau for his events. Brittany chose to go with white orchids for herself and garden roses for the groom and the “man of honor,” who was her brother Blair, said their mom. The bride didn’t have any female attendants but selected her brother for the supporting role he played in her life.

The guests arrived via golf carts to the tunes of an island band playing. The seats for the sunset ceremony were white-washed benches with linen cushions, which Adams described as “so simple, yet so cool.”
The band played during the cocktail hour, where wedding guests could sit on white couches and chairs, with candles and lanterns providing the light outside the tent.
“Ben had local chefs at cocktail hour preparing fresh ceviche, seafood shots and famous conch salad next to the open bar (which also featured) large glass containers of Island Rum Punch,” Adams said.  
After cocktail hour, the reception continued under the white sailcloth tent filled with white candles and giant Japanese hanging lanterns with a sit-down dinner of rack of lamb and hogfish snapper, she said.
Later that night, about 11 p.m., the Adams-Manimbo wedding guests congregated on white linen sofas that were placed on beach “around one of Ben’s giant bonfires.” After-dinner liqueurs were served, cigars were smoked, and the sweet sounds of ocean waves provided the background music.
A full moon lit the beach that night. “It was soooo pretty with perfect weather, too,” Adams said. “I’m so grateful!”    

Brittany and Daniel Manimbo’s wedding at Harbour Island                            

The Plate: Jerk Chicken
The Place: Temple Orange, the Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach, 100 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan; 533-6000.
The Price: $28
The Skinny: We always try not to be a jerk, but sometimes it happens.
At least it’s a happy happening when it means being a jerk at the Ritz-Carlton, because that means we are sampling Chef David Sears’ Caribbean-inspired fare.
Never mind that Chef David is trained in classic French technique.
He hails from the Bahamas, so he gives this dish island flavor with a French flair.
The Ritz’s Jerk Chicken consists of chicken served bone-in with a pineapple jus atop coconut jasmine rice — talk about the tropics! The tender chicken is flavored with enough jerk seasoning to give it mild heat.
And that pineapple jus? It offers a sweet counterpoint to the spice.
It is served with a red bean puree and braised greens.
A dried pineapple tuile trims the dish out nicely.
— Scott Simmons

The Rev. William “Chip” Stokes of St. Paul ’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach has been elected the bishop of New Jersey.
“I am humbled beyond expression,” Stokes said after his May 3 election over eight other candidates. He leaves Florida on Aug. 1 and will be ordained as bishop on Nov. 2.
The St. Paul’s congregation ministers to the Haitian immigrant community that surrounds its church on Swinton Avenue. Paul’s Place is an afterschool refuge next to the church for neighborhood children, who are able to excel academically with church tutors.
    That ministry was attractive to the Episcopalians who voted for Stokes to come to New Jersey, according to the Rev. Gregory Bezilla, the chairman of diocese’s transition committee.
    “What they see in him is someone who is willing to take the lead in speaking and taking action on behalf of marginalized people, the poor and immigrants especially,” Bezilla said. “I also think he is someone who is deeply concerned about young people.”
    Stokes, 56, has served St. Paul ‘s for 14 years. He will face challenges at Diocese of New Jersey with poverty, dwindling church membership and the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
                                 ***
    The interfaith bond between St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church and Temple Beth El began with a 1980 bomb scare at the Jewish synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur.
    A Jewish rabbi asked a Catholic priest for help when Temple Beth El was evacuated during worship services. Torahs and other Jewish ritual objects were carried next door to St. Joan of Arc so the Jewish worship service could resume.
    The Jews and Catholics have gotten to know each other since then, understanding each other’s religion. Their annual Interfaith Weekend has been celebrated for the past 27 years.
    Father Robert Levitt, past president of the largest Catholic seminary in the U.S., spoke to the two congregations about ecumenical understanding and cooperation on April 27-28.    
                                 ***
    The concept of giving to the less fortunate is taught early, starting with 3-year-olds, at Boca Raton Christian School.
    More than 250 students in pre-K through eighth grade participated April 6 in a marathon day of community service that the school has sponsored annually since 1983.
    Each class learned about its service project in the weeks before the event. Parents contributed all the supplies that were needed.
    The youngest pre-K children filled bags of rice for needy families who receive groceries from CROS Ministries in a project called Grains of Gratitude. Other toddlers decorated the bags.
    Every class had an interesting project. First-graders made teacups for widows. Fifth-graders weeded the garden of an elderly woman near the school.
    Even firefighters got a little love when seventh-graders served them breakfast at their fire station.
                                 Debbie Dingle’s succesful ascent of a peak near Mount Everest has inspired fellow parishioners of Advent Lutheran to join in her quest to help fight human trafficking. Photo provided

    Debbie Dingle’s rocky climb up a 18,124-foot summit next to Mount Everest wasn’t easy.
    Most of the 45 women mountain climbers raising awareness about human trafficking got terribly sick because of bad water they drank at the bottom of the mountain. Dingle lost 10 pounds. A helicopter was called to rush the woman sharing Dingle’s tent to a hospital.
    Above the tree line, the climbers knew they couldn’t all reach the top. “We were all so sick and weak,” Dingle said. “Some knew their bodies would not allow them to continue.”
    Dingle, representing Advent Lutheran Church of Boca Raton, was one of 25 climbers who braved 60 mph winds to reach the very top of the giant summit on April 19.
    The soccer mom repeatedly sang a song that she had learned as a child in church:
    “If you trust in me, and stay in song, everything is going to be fine,” Dingle sang repeatedly as she climbed up the mountain.
    Dingle’s mission has caught fire at Advent Lutheran. “This is becoming a significant ministry for our church,” said her pastor, the Rev. Andrew Hagen.
    The congregation first supported her last year when she raised $70,000 to rescue women from prostitution, exploitation and poverty by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
    “The higher up you go, the more momentum you gain to serve the cause when you come down the mountain,” Hagen said.
    A dozen Advent Lutheran women will climb Pike’s Peak in Colorado to get started. Another church group will go to India to see the job training that the mountain climbers provide for rescued women.
                                 ***
St. Mark Catholic School has suddenly closed after a dramatic 44 percent drop in enrollment.
The pre-K through eighth grade school in Boynton Beach had 225 students this past year. But the ax fell when only 126 enrolled for the upcoming 2013-14 school year.
Originally, 166 students had pre-enrolled for next year and the Diocese of Palm Beach was assisting in hopes that St. Mark could hold on. But then an additional 40 students left and all hope was lost.
“In the past few weeks, the number dropped significantly as students transferred to other schools, including new local charter schools,” St. Mark priest Richard Florek wrote parents on May 24.
“Despite our best efforts to increase enrollment, the decrease in students has created a most challenging financial situation and would create a financial burden on parents and the parish,” Florek said. “This has been a very difficult decision to make.”
The Diocese is helping families of the remaining 126 students enroll at other nearby Catholic schools, including St. Vincent Ferrer in Delray Beach.  The hope is for the eighth-graders to remain together at another school next year. “They have been at St. Mark for a long time and are a close-knit group,” Gary Gelo, schools superintendent for the Diocese, said.
St. Mark School opened in 1958 with nuns from the Four Sisters of Charity as its first teachers.

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

   Students practice breathing exercises during a Meditation and Mindfulness seminar facilitated by Charlene Wilkinson at Unity of Delray Beach. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Paula Detwiller

Meditation dates back thousands of years. In modern times, it’s been commercialized, co-opted by new-age psychology, and pooh-poohed by skeptics.
    But meditation endures. Why? For one thing, it’s a powerful antidote to that familiar by-product of a multitasked life: “monkey mind.”  
    Gotta leave for that appointment by 10 o’clock, no later. Oh, we’re out of olive oil. I wonder why my daughter isn’t calling. Another shooting on TV?  Must Get Cat Litter. I cannot be late for that appointment today …
    These random, ping-ponging thoughts are like static in a broadcast signal, interfering with our brain’s ability to focus, remember and perform efficiently, says Charlene Wilkinson of coastal Delray Beach.
    Wilkinson is a corporate attorney who has studied and taught meditation for more than 30 years. She recently conducted workshops in meditation and mindfulness at Unity Church in Delray.
    “I have students in their 70s who come in and say, ‘I can’t get my mind to slow down, I can’t sleep at night,’ ” Wilkinson says. “It may be that as we age, our nervous systems are less able to deal with all the things coming at us. But with practice, meditation can slow the mind down and bring it into its natural state, which is a very calm, peaceful state.”
    Bringing the mind into stillness has helped one of Wilkinson’s students, 58-year-old Luanne Cadem, cope with her high-stress career as a litigation paralegal.
    “It helps me focus,” Cadem says. “I’ve seen a tremendous difference.”
    Another student, retiree Lotus Boss, 68, says daily meditation enables her to maintain emotional equilibrium, cultivate a positive attitude, and deal with the aches and pains of aging.
    “Even when I’m aching, I can detach from it more easily because I’m calmer,” Boss says.
    There are other benefits, too — both mental and physical. St. Andrews Club resident Ann Purcell has practiced Transcendental Meditation since the early 1970s and has traveled the world teaching the trademarked TM technique. She cites research that shows it can help improve job performance, lower blood pressure, relieve depression, and reduce the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
    “When we’re tense and anxious, we’re more incoherent, but when we’re settled and clear, we’re more focused and can accomplish much more,” Purcell says. She recently published a book called Let Your Soul Sing: Enlightenment is for Everyone.
    Given all the distractions of modern living, is regular meditation difficult? It depends on whom you ask.
    “With TM, you learn right from the start that it’s easy and effortless,” Purcell says — but she adds you must learn it from a certified TM instructor. The standard fee is $1,500.
    Wilkinson, who teaches for a nominal fee or simply a “love donation,” is amused by claims of effortlessness “because meditation isn’t easy. It’s a discipline. We have to make the effort, set aside the time, find the place, use our techniques — primarily focused breathing and repeating a mantra — and then surrender to the results,” she says.
    If you’ve read the best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, you’ll remember the author’s struggle to settle into her meditation sessions at an ashram in India. In the end, she was able to overcome “monkey mind” and find inner peace.
    You can, too. And you don’t have to book a trip to India to try it.

A few places to learn
Peaceful Mind, Peaceful Life
A nonprofit organization based in Boca Raton
Meditation and mindfulness seminars held in various locations
http://peacefulmindpeacefullife.org/events/

Unity (Church) of Delray Beach
101 NW 22nd St.
Delray Beach, FL  33444
276-5796
Check website for occasional meditation workshops
www.unityofdelraybeach.org/events

Palm Beach Shambhala Meditation Group
“Learn to Meditate” program at the West Palm Beach Library
411 Clematis St.
West Palm Beach, FL  33401
6-7 p.m., second and fourth Tuesdays of the month
868-7701

The Sacred Treehouse
250 Royal Court
Delray Beach, FL 33444
278-6033
www.sacredtreehouse.org

The Quantum Healing & Empowerment Center
12 NE Fifth Ave.
Delray Beach, FL 33483
272-3733
www.spiritgrowth.com

The Transcendental Meditation Program
of Delray Beach/Boca Raton
660 Linton Blvd., Suite 201A
Delray Beach, FL 33444
314-1945
www.tm.org/transcendental-meditation-boca-raton

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

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder and toe-to-toe with arms crossed in supplication, members of the Isamic Center of Boca Raton participate in a midweek prayer service.  Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Tim Pallesen

Muslims have joined Christians and Jews to support Family Promise, the interfaith effort to provide emergency shelter for homeless families with children.
“We want neighbors to know that Muslims are ones you can count on to be there for them,” said Mohamed Abushadi, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Boca Raton.
The Islamic Center joins 13 Christian churches and four Jewish synagogues to give volunteer and financial support for South County homeless families.
The move is evidence that Muslims are blending into the spiritual fabric of their community.
“The universal message of humanity and brotherhood defines us,” Abushadi said. “As Muslims, we find it essential to explain the true nature of Islam, which means submission to God.
“Submission to God implies compassion to all humankind,” he said.
The Muslim congregation began here with students at Florida Atlantic University holding their Friday prayer services in a classroom in the art department.
The congregation got noticed eight years ago when it bought a school east of FAU that has become the Garden of Sahaba Academy, a school for 190 students from kindergarten through ninth grade.
“That was a big milestone for us,” Abushadi said. “An actual structure of our own gave a strong message that this was a legitimate center where our outreach began.”
Hundreds of Muslims worshiped in the school’s main hall, overflowing outdoors because the space was too small.
The solution was a new $2 million mosque that opened next to the school last August.
The 30,000-square-foot mosque has room for 500 men to pray in its main hall. Women pray in smaller rooms on the second floor.
Muslims have faced hostility and prejudice when they opened mosques in other American cities. But the Muslims here invited their neighbors to dinner and their opening went peacefully.   
Now Christians and Jews have embraced the Islamic Center as the newest member of Family Promise, one of the South County’s most ambitious interfaith charities.
Twelve host congregations now take turns to provide shelter for homeless families in their churches and synagogues. The Muslim congregation joins five others that just provide volunteers and financial support.
“We haven’t reached the level of participation where we want to be yet,” Abushadi   said. “We’re testing the waters to see how much we can do to
help.”                                        

A ‘family’ portrait of the seniors in Arden Moore’s household: (l-r) Chipper, 10;  Cleo, 10 and Murphy, 14. In dog years, Arden is 10.  A dog’s age in human years is calculated on age and weight. The old saying that one year in a dog’s life equals seven human years is roughly true.     

I remember the first time I spotted my 19-year-old cat, Little Guy, looking confused in a corner of my living room. He appeared to be lost. He also began vocalizing more with a mournful meow that seemed to say, “Where am I?”
    At the time, I wasn’t sure what was happening to him, but now I would be. Little Guy had developed feline dementia, also known as feline cognitive dysfunction.
    He lived to be 20 and during his final year, I had trained all guests to gently guide this brown-striped tabby out of corners and to sweetly answer, “Little Guy, over here” whenever he began making those sorrowful howls. In people years, he lived to be 96 years old.
    Today, I share my home with three seniors and one youngster. My dogs, Chipper and Cleo, are 10 and my cat, Murphy, is 14. In human years, the dogs are roughly 60 years old and Murphy is 72. Zeki is the feline kid at age 4. So far, my ageless canines still love to surf and take long hikes, and Murphy still enjoys our daily play sessions as she “stalks” the feather wand toy.
    Many of us are sharing our homes — and hearts — with senior pets. In fact, one-third of all cats and dogs are at least 7 years old. Depending on the breed, that equates to senior citizenship status.
    Thanks to advances in veterinary medicine, improved commercial diets and a stronger people-pet connection, our dogs and cats are living longer. But as our beloved pets transition from seniors to geriatrics, they are also susceptible to age-related conditions, including cognitive dysfunction, similar to Alzheimer’s disease in people.
    “Cognitive dysfunction (also known as dementia or senility) is a neurological disorder of older dogs and cats characterized by a decline in cognitive ability due to brain aging,” explains Mark Dew, DVM, owner and medical director of the Animal HealthCare Center in Lake Worth. He also serves as the Palm Beach Veterinary Society liaison to the Florida Veterinary Medical Association.
    And, yes, he is the proud owner of Hootie, a black-and-white 17-year-old cat.
    “Hootie was a stray kitten we adopted when he was about 8 weeks old,” says Dr.  Dew. “Unfortunately, he does have some signs of cognitive dysfunction, but we manage it well.”
    Some cats and dogs start to exhibit certain telltale signs of cognitive dysfunction around age 12. Veterinary and behavioral experts use the acronym DISH to refer to the symptoms and signs associated with canine or feline senility.
    D is for disoriented. Pets who are disoriented often walk aimlessly, stare at walls or get stuck in corners.
    I is for interactions. Pets with impaired mental function often become less likely to greet people when they come home or to seek out a lap.
    S is for sleep. Dogs and cats who once slept soundly through the night may prowl or pace restlessly at night and may vocalize as they roam.
    H is for housetraining. Some cats suddenly forget to use the litter box and some dogs may forget to let you know they need to a potty break outside and piddle on the floor.  
    If your pet is exhibiting any of these signs, please have your veterinarian perform a thorough examination that will include blood and urine tests. Your golden oldie may have a physical condition that could be treated with medicine or at least slowed down.
    Sadly, there is no cure for cognitive dysfunction in our pets — yet. We can’t put the brakes on the rapidity in which our pets accumulate birthdays, but we can take purposeful steps to keep them feeling years younger. Veterinary researchers are learning ways to manage senility with memory-improving medications and specially formulated senior diets.
    At home, we can keep our senior pets mentally stimulated by playing a fun game of hide-and-seek with food treats stashed in different rooms of the house. We can engage in a toned-down game of fetch with our dogs by rolling the ball across the floor. We can provide orthopedic pet beds to ease their arthritic joints and provide low-level litter boxes to make it easier for our senior cats to enter and exit.
    One of my favorite pet advocates on the planet is actress Betty White, who turned 91 earlier this year. She was a guest on my Oh Behave show on Pet Life Radio and I will never forget her declaration, “Old age is not a disease; it is merely a stage of life.”
    Now that’s great advice from America’s ageless wonder for us and our pets.

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 Oh Behave! show on PetLifeRadio.com. Learn more by visiting www.fourleggedlife.com.

By Greg Stepanich

   The American painter Mary Cassatt is best-known for her paintings of women and children, but this month at the Norton Museum, patrons have the opportunity to see four of the Impressionist artist’s works on paper.
    The four works — three pastels and an aquatint etching — are being exhibited in the West Palm Beach museum through June 30 as part of its new Masterpiece of the Month series. In June, the focus is on the Norton’s American collection, and the museum’s American art curator, Ellen Roberts, said the drawings present another way to look at this important artist’s output.
    “The public is mostly familiar with her work in the way that they are with all the Impressionists. But I think what’s important when looking at those types of works that seem so familiar to us — they’re reproduced everywhere, on posters and placemats and coasters — that it’s actually hard for us to see them for what they are,” Roberts said last month from Chicago, at whose Art Institute she worked before coming to the Norton.
    “In the case of Cassatt, she was really a radical of her time. If you look at her pictures of women and children, like these four works, they don’t look particularly radical to us. But if you look at them in comparison to other types of works that were being made at the time that were much more sentimentalized, then you realize what she’s doing that’s so new,” she said.
    The drawings are on loan to the museum from a private collection but have been promised to the Norton as a gift, Roberts said. Created from 1891 to 1908, the four drawings show intimate scenes of domestic life in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras: Women nursing babies, washing up, and sewing, and a head study of a girl wearing a bonnet.        

“Middle- and upper-class women spent most of their lives in the domestic space. Her close friend (painter Edgar) Degas would go out and paint a new kind of urban life of the streets, but Cassatt, as a well-bred woman, did not live in that world,” Roberts said.
    Born in 1844 in Pittsburgh in comfortable circumstances, Cassatt studied in Philadelphia before departing for France after the Civil War to pursue her artistic vocation, and lived there for the rest of her long life (she died in 1926). She was a member of the Impressionist circle, exhibiting and socializing with them, and in her later years became an inspirational figure to younger American and Canadian artists.
    Among her greatest achievements are her prints, Roberts said, which are inspired by Japanese art as well as the work of her fellow Impressionists. One of those works, Woman Bathing (La Toilette), is part of the exhibit, and demonstrates Cassatt’s formidable skill at draftsmanship.
    “She was a great artist. Her ability to capture the human form, and to capture the way people look when they’re living, she was a master at that, and that’s something you can really see in her works on paper,” said Roberts, who is writing a book about museum founder Ralph Norton that is expected to be out in time for the Norton’s 75th anniversary in 2016. “There’s something about the way she’s using that chalk on the paper that has an immediacy that doesn’t come across when you’re looking at a photograph of it. That’s something I hope people will appreciate about seeing the actual work.”
    The Norton Museum of Art, at 1451 S. Olive Ave. in West Palm Beach, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, except for Thursday, when it is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday hours are from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $12. Palm Beach County residents get in free on the first Saturday of each month. Call 832-5196 or visit www.norton.org for more information.  
                                           ***
    Theater: The words summer and theater have long gone admirably together, and while that often means park district productions or youth programs for kids out of school for the warm months, there’s still quite a bit of professional activity going on this month.
    Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach closes its 2012-13 season this month with a production of Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel’s shattering study of frustrated lives in rural Ireland in 1936 (it was made into a movie with Meryl Streep in 1998). J. Barry Lewis directs a cast including Julie Rowe, Margery Lowe, Gretchen Porro, Erin Joy Schmidt, Meghan Moroney and Cliff Burgess. The play, which opened May 24, continues through June 16 at Dramaworks’ Don and Ann Brown Theatre on Clematis Street. Shows are Wednesdays through Sundays; check www.palmbeachdramaworks.org for times or call 514-4042, Ext. 2. Tickets range from $47-$55.
    Boca Raton’s Slow Burn Theatre has proven to be a nervy, inventive company in its relatively brief time hereabouts, and for its June production founders Patrick Fitzwater and Matthew Korinko have chosen The Wedding Singer, Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin’s musical version of the popular Adam Sandler movie from 1998 about a rock star wannabe in the 1980s who falls in love with a waitress. The show runs from June 21-30 at the West Boca Performing Arts Theater on the campus of West Boca High School. Tickets range from $20-$35; call 866-811-4111 or visit slowburntheatre.org.
    Alan Jacobson’s Plaza Theatre in Manalapan focuses on the era of platform shoes and disco balls in Rick Seeber’s jukebox revue, 8-Track: The Sounds of the ’70s. The revue will feature four singers in the music of the Carpenters, the Bee Gees, Barry Manilow, Helen Reddy, Marvin Gaye, and a host of others. (Shag rug, apparently, is optional.) The show opens June 14 at the theater, 262 S. Ocean Blvd., and runs through July 7. Tickets are $45; see www.theplazatheatre.net or call 588-1820 for showtimes.
    Finally, Florida Atlantic University’s Festival Repertory Theatre summer programs have a decidedly Stephen Sondheim bent as they open this month. The revue Side by Side by Sondheim, which collects many of the composer-lyricist’s most popular songs, opens June 22 and runs through July 7 at the University Theater on FAU’s Boca Raton campus.
    A week later, the school presents Stephen Sondheim’s 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a racy farce set in ancient Rome that features a sparkling score including the standard Comedy Tonight. The show opens June 28 and runs through July 21. This is the 15th year of Festival Repertory Theatre, in which FAU students perform alongside professional Equity actors. Tickets are $12-$20; call 800-564-9539 or visit www.fauevents.com.
 

Ron Standerfer, of Gulf Stream, looks over memorabilia and photos from his days as a fighter pilot for the U.S. Air Force.  His adventures — and misadventures — were all fodder for his first novel, The Eagle’s Last Flight. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Ron Hayes

On the west wall of Ron Standerfer’s sunny Gulf Stream study, you’ll find an impressive collection of music CDs — classical, big band, show tunes, jazz, even some Beatles.
On the east wall, above his desk, you’ll find an array of black-and white-photos, including one of a handsome young man in a flight suit, smiling like he’s just been plucked from the jungles of Laos.
The Eagle’s Last Flight is Standerfer’s first novel.
It’s not about music.
“I played sax and clarinet, but I was a music major dropout from Southern Illinois University when I joined the Air Force at 19,” he says. “By 20, I’d made second lieutenant, but I couldn’t buy a beer in a Texas bar.”
Twenty-seven years later, the college dropout from Belleville, Ill., retired from the Air Force as a full colonel. In between, he’d sweated out the Cold War in F100 fighter jets, flown 232 and a “half’’ combat missions in Southeast Asia, and worked for the Pentagon as a liaison between the Air National Guard and active military.
Along the way, he’d been hit by a nuclear blast at Yucca Flats, Nev.  
In 1998, Standerfer and his wife, Marzenna, moved to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She went to work. He went to a friendly neighborhood bar called Il Violino and sipped his afternoons away with the singers and stagehands from Lincoln Center. They called him “the colonel.”
“I saw myself as another Hemingway, with a comfortable pension,” he says now with a laugh.
One afternoon, weaving home from a long lunch at Il Violino, he found Marzenna waiting.
“You have to get a life,” she told him, “or you’re going to become an alcoholic.”
The next day, he decided that being a writer was cheaper than being an alcoholic, and The Eagle’s Last Flight took off.
“It was thinking about that nuclear test that made the book click for me,” he says.
In 1957, Standerfer was stationed in northern Maine when he was asked to volunteer for a nuclear test in Nevada. The morning was chilly. The nuclear device, capable of a detonation double the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, was on a tower eight miles across the desert. Standerfer stood on a platform with a dosimeter, which measures exposure to radiation, on his chest.
As the final countdown began, he put his hands over his eyes and faced the tower.
“There was a flash of light so bright and blinding the bones of my hands were visible as if by X-ray,” he recalled.
A mushroom cloud rose in the sky, and a shock wave rolled across the desert.
“They collected the dosimeter I was wearing, brushed me off with brooms to remove any radioactive fallout … and sent me back to my squadron.”
Twenty years later, he received a letter from the government reporting that test participants were developing leukemia at two to three times the normal rate.
Standerfer is 78 now, and he doesn’t have leukemia.
“The book describes the dangers of flying, the bailing out, the getting shot down — all that’s me,” he says. “But people were also dying of leukemia, and I don’t happen to have leukemia.”
    The Eagle’s Last Flight is a novel, not a memoir. The hero is Skip O’Neill, not Ron Standerfer. But they both “sat nuclear alerts,” waiting in the cockpit of a fighter jet in northern Japan, flying missions in Vietnam and, yes, getting shot down over Laos.
“I spent a year in Vietnam, flying one or two missions a day, supplying close air support, and on April 1, 1969, I got shot down over Laos,” he says.
    That’s the “half” of his 232 and a half missions.
“It’s embarrassing,” he says, “but I just got too full of myself, and I got shot down by a little guy on a bicycle with an antiaircraft gun.”
In 2003, Ron and Marzenna Standerfer were perusing The New York Times in search of a summer rental in Florida and came across a place in Gulf Stream. They’ve been at Gulf Stream Manor ever since.
“We just said, ‘This is for us,’ ” he says. “It’s a lovely place, with a lovely atmosphere.”
In 2007, he finished his book, and published a small edition for his military buddies.
“This is pretty good,” they said. “You should promote it on the Web.”
    So far, he’s sold perhaps a thousand copies. Standerfer doesn’t expect to become a millionaire, or Ernest Hemingway.
    “But here’s what I believe,” he says. “All veterans have two needs: to remember, and to be remembered. My great-grandfather fought with Grant in the Civil War, and I know nothing about it. He was in an Illinois regiment. But for those of us who were there, the Cold War wasn’t so cold, and this is my tiny contribution to the memory.”                      

For more information, visit www.eagleslastflight.com.

Standerfer, shown in the cockpit, was shot down over Laos in 1969.
Photo provided

By Tim O’Meilia

Crosswalks and pedestrian signals will be installed at A1A and Woolbright Road despite the objection of neighborhood residents and the Ocean Ridge Town Commission.

Five days after commissioners voted 3-1 to oppose the state-funded project, the Florida Department of Transportation notified the town by letter May 7 that the work would begin May 28, the day after Memorial Day.

The letter cited safety concerns because of increased pedestrian traffic at the intersection which leads to a beach access point.

 “The intersection has experienced three pedestrian-related crashes since 2009, more than any other signalized intersection on A1A between Atlantic Avenue and Lake Avenue,” the letter said.

The $44,500 project was scheduled to begin April 22 but state road officials agreed to postpone the work until the town held a special meeting May 2.

More than 20 nearby residents argued that the crosswalk would disrupt their neighborhood, attract more visitors and pose more danger to pedestrians than leaving it unmarked.

DOT assistant traffic operations engineer, Jonathan Overton, said the DOT has no plans to pursue the installation of sidewalks along Beachway Drive because it is not in its jurisdiction.

In 2011 the town commission urged the DOT to consider installing crosswalks at the intersection because of safety concerns. That request led to the project.

Crosswalks and pedestrian signals will be installed on the north, east and south sides of the intersection. The west side already has a signal. The signals include a countdown clock for pedestrians.

By Tim O’Meilia

Bowing to the pleas of two dozen nearby residents, Ocean Ridge town commissioners took a stand against the installation of crosswalks at the Woolbright Road and A1A intersection but that opposition may not be enough to stop the project.

The Florida Department of Transportation will wait until next week to receive a letter from the town before a decision on the $44,500 project is made. But a DOT official who attended the May 2 meeting said afterward that the work is likely to resume.

Construction on the three crosswalks was set to begin April 22 but was temporarily halted at the town’s request until after the hastily-called meeting. The DOT has jurisdiction over the intersection and the project can be done despite the town’s objections.

Residents from neighborhoods near the intersection told commissioners that the crosswalk would disrupt their neighborhood, attract more visitors and cause more danger than leaving it unmarked.

“I was voted in to represent the citizens of Ocean Ridge and not the citizens of Boynton Beach,” said Mayor Geoff Pugh. “The safety of the citizens of Ocean Ridge is what I’m concerned with first.”

Pugh and Commissioners Lynn Allison and Gail Adams Aaskov were unhappy with the traffic statistics provided by the DOT and said more in depth examination was needed.

The DOT tallied three crashes involving pedestrians or bicyclists at the intersection from 2009-2011, more than any other intersection in the area. But the numbers did not specify whether the injuries were to walkers or bicyclists.

“This intersection is more dangerous than the intersections north and south of it. We know it’s a dangerous situation. I have to vote for safety,” said Commissioner Ed Brookes, the only commissioner to support the project. Commissioner Zoanne Hennigan was absent.

“My gut reaction is you’re funneling people onto a public road, which isn’t safe either,” said nearby resident Penny Kosinski. Beachway Drive, on the east of the intersection, has no sidewalks and pedestrians headed to the beach must walk in the street.

“We are attempting to put a major league walkway on a T-ball street,” agreed 37-year resident Lisa Allerton. 

Hennigan first proposed asking DOT to study safety issues at the intersection in August 2011, resulting in the crosswalk project.

The DOT has ramped up its efforts in the last three years to protect pedestrians and bicyclists. “This project definitely will make the intersection safer,” said Jonathan Overton, DOT assistant traffic operations engineer, who attended the meeting.

He said safety concerns are paramount. “How many people have to get hurt or killed before we act?” he told the commission. “If the signals don’t go in and someone is hurt or killed, then the question will be ‘Why isn’t there one here.’”

Former mayor Ken Kaleel said signs should be erected directing pedestrians and bicyclists to crosswalks north and south of the intersection. “If it’s so dangerous, why possibly would you promote it?” he said.

Overton said that pedestrians would still try to cross at the intersection rather than try to walk four-tenths of a mile to a crosswalk. “It’s not possible to guide and influence human behavior correctly,” he said. 

Residents Richard DiPietro and Steve Coz said the crosswalks would create a false sense of security.

 “DOT is not interested in waiting much longer on this project,” Overton said.  “There’s a side of the coin not being heard here because they’re not here in the town.”

The vote against the crosswalks came despite the advice of Police Chief Chris Yannuzzi, who said in a memo that pedestrians would be crossing the Woolbright bridge to reach the beach whether town residents liked it or not and that government was obliged to protect them.

“Regardless of how an individual might feel, the concept of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) cannot govern decisions made in this situation. The benefit to the safety of the public at large should be the primary concern,” he read to the commission.

“I am not interested in creating a memorial crosswalk,” he said.

Resident Julia Walker had another perspective: “If there’s anything you can do to curtail the invasion of Beachway, please do so.”

The Coquimbo stands grounded on a reef in this 1909 image.

Photo courtesy of the Boynton Beach City Library

See more photos from the wreck | Watch video from Coquimbo

By Cheryl Blackerby

Steven Dennison walked out of his home in Briny Breezes on a clear day in January, slipped on his wetsuit and flippers, jumped into the cold Atlantic, and snorkeled north along the coast.
    He had no destination in mind, just checking out what Hurricane Sandy’s surge had turned up when it hit Palm Beach County’s east coast in late October.
    He was about 350 yards offshore in Ocean Ridge when he saw some debris on the ocean floor and had this thought: “Wouldn’t it be really cool if I found a shipwreck?”
    No more than 30 seconds later, he saw a big black object on the sand. “Holy cow, this is huge!” he thought. He stopped swimming, trying to comprehend what was in front of him.
    Curiosity compelled him to free-dive down 15 feet to investigate.
    His heart pounded when he saw it: The huge bow of a ghostly ship jutting from the sand as if rising from its watery grave.
 The hull that had looked black from the surface was reddish-brown close up, covered with marine organisms. He went down and grabbed the bow, and felt the cold metal underneath the barnacles.   
    He then saw a metal mast, then another mast, and about 200 feet from the bow he could see the stern and the steering mechanism. The hull was still buried underneath the sand.
    “I was in the water for a week after that just looking at it,” he said.
    As far as anyone can tell, Dennison, 29, may be the first person in modern times to see the Coquimbo, a Norwegian iron-hulled sailing ship that wrecked on the reef Jan. 31, 1909.
    “I have been snorkeling in front of Briny Breezes just about all my life and not once did I see this ship until now. At first, I was startled and very hesitant before approaching any closer. It was one of those moments that you know you stumbled upon something amazing, but you aren’t quite sure what to make of it all.  I was so excited yet almost scared because I didn’t know what I had found,” Dennison said.

Ship’s first sighting
    Historians have known the Coquimbo was out there, and they knew the vicinity. A photo was even taken of it on the reef before it sank.
    “We all thought it was probably in pieces buried under the sand,” said Voncile Smith, Boynton Beach historian and vice president of the Boynton Beach Historical Society. Besides Dennison, no one has ever reported seeing the ship as far as she knows.
Roger Smith, state underwater archaeologist, also said there have been no reported sightings of the ship.
    The Coquimbo, a barque with two square-rigged masts forward and fore-and-aft sails on the mizzenmast, was carrying a full load of pine lumber from Gulfport, Miss., to Buenos Aires, according to historian and author Janet DeVries, who has researched the Coquimbo and who lived in Boynton Beach for 20 years.
After it struck the reef, the Coquimbo’s foghorn blasts woke up guests at Major Nathan Boynton’s oceanfront Boynton Beach hotel, and all 15 crewmembers, most from Norway, were rescued.
    “The hotel did not extend its accommodations to the crew, and they spent the next two months camped on the beach in makeshift tents created from the ship’s sails,” Smith wrote in an article for the Historian, the society’s publication.
The ship, built in 1876 in Glasgow, Scotland, was 204 feet by 33 feet by 21 feet, DeVries said. She found a news story in the Ocala Evening Star, published  few days after the wreck, that noted “the vessel is resting easy on the sand. The ocean is quiet and there is no danger yet.”
Several storms’ battering waves finally sank the ship in May of that year and lumber floated to shore, a boon for local builders. Dynamite was used to blow the top deck and liberate the rest of the lumber from the hold, and Dennison said he could see the flare in the metal from the explosion.
The ship’s Norwegian captain, I. Clausen, put an auction notice in the Miami Metropolis newspaper: “On March 30th, 1909, the wreck of the Norwegian bark Coquimbo, stranded off Boynton Beach, with her rigging and apparel, the cargo of lumber in her hold, sundry tackle, stores and provisions now brought ashore on the beach will be sold at public auction to the highest bidders. The auction will be held on the beach opposite to where the ship now lies.”        Many buildings in Boynton Beach were constructed of the lumber, which included 4-by-4s, 4-by-10s, and 6-by-12s, some nearly 30 feet long.
Nels Peterson, the cabin boy on the ship, brought the ship’s bell on shore, according to an account of the ship written by James Hartly Nichols, historian at the Boynton Beach City Library in the 1970s. The bell was transferred to the steeple of the original First Methodist Church, and after the building was demolished, the bell was given to St. Paul’s AME Church.

350 yards offshore
    The ship is due east of Corrine Street and the steps to the beach, about 350 yards from shore in 15 to 17 feet of water, when Dennison found it. The steps line up with the bow, which faces north.         After Dennison made his discovery, he contacted his friend Joe Masterson, who founded Marine Archaeological Research and Conservation group. Masterson has documented and filmed other Florida shipwrecks including the Loftus, submerged about a half-mile north of the Boynton Inlet, for the Florida Division of Historical Resources.    The Loftus is an iron-hulled barque very similar to the Coquimbo, and when Masterson saw the Coquimbo it looked eerily familiar.     “I spoke to another archeologist, and to his knowledge no one alive today has seen the Coquimbo wreckage,” said Masterson, who lives in Briny Breezes. “Sandy threw tremendous amount of sand around and uncovered it.”    Masterson measured the ship, videotaped it, then contacted the state and the local historical societies and Roger Smith, who recorded the ship’s discovery in the archaeology files in Tallahassee.
    “Much of the Coquimbo’s history is similar to that of the Loftus, which was also carrying lumber when it went down. There was only a 40-year window for that kind of ship, which disappeared once the steam engine was invented,” said Masterson.
    The ship’s structure is almost identical to the Loftus, he said. Both are about 225 feet long. “But we found only two of the three masts on the Coquimbo,” said Masterson.
    “It was really cool,” said Dennison. “We went with a 100-foot tape and measured. We just spent the whole day on it.”
    Dennison moved to Hobe Sound in April, but still found time to snorkel out to the ship. His parents, Bruce and Caryn Dennison, and grandparents, Chuck and Betty Foland, live in Briny Breezes in the winter. Dennison grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., but visited Briny Breezes frequently. He walked on Briny’s beach on his first birthday.
    He was laid off his job as a technology teacher at a Syracuse high school, and is now studying physical therapy at Broward College.
    Dennison has taken his wife, Elizabeth, to the Coquimbo so she could see what he was so excited about.
    He is still amazed by that day in January. “It was so eerie, just swimming along and it was kind of boring, then suddenly this huge, huge, enormous black thing. And I immediately had in mind it was a ship no one knew about. It was one of those days you dream about.”
    Dennison told a friend of his, a pilot, about the ship, and the pilot said he could see it from the air.
    But that might not be for long, Dennison thought at the time. Sand was already shifting over the ship.
    “It’s more than likely that in the near future the Coquimbo will be buried by sand again, Dennison said in mid-April.

Vanishing act
On April 25, Dennison happened to be driving by Briny Beezes and on the spur of the moment stopped his car near the wreck, and swam out to see the ship — his ship.
And the Coquimbo was gone.
There was no trace of it. He had GPS’ed the site and there was no mistake. The ship was again buried by sand with not even a bump on the flat ocean floor.
The Coquimbo had made a three-month appearance after 104 years and had vanished again.
Looking at the stretch of drifting sand, which suddenly looked like an endless desert, he thought, “I may never see it again.”
The Coquimbo won’t make another appearance unless there’s a storm with Sandy’s unique “giant swells that sucked the sand out like a vacuum,” he said.
“It’s a reminder that the ocean patterns are changing constantly and if you see something once you may not see it again.” He’s glad he spent so much time on the ship, swimming out at least 30 times.
But shifting sand could mean  another possibility, he said: “Now I wonder what else lies several feet beneath the sand. Only a good storm will tell.” 

The Broadway Entertainers perform at Flossy Keesely’s Pathway to the Stars show April 21 at Mizner Park in Boca Raton.

Keesely marked her 99th birthday April 18 with a reception at her Highland Beach condominium.  Among the visitors was Henrietta, Countess de Hoernle, who turned 100 last September.  The Countess and Flossy have been friends since both lived in New York before moving to South Florida. Also in the crowd was Jan McArt, director of theater arts development at Lynn University and Boca Raton sculptor Yaacov Heller. The birthday celebration preceded by three days the fifth annual Flossy Keesely Pathway to the Stars program, a free variety show held at Mizner Park Amphitheater. McArt was emcee. The show was produced by Flossy Keesely’s Dream Foundation. Courtesy photos by Dale King

A high-rise would fill the former Bank of America land at Federal Highway and Ocean Avenue. Rendering provided

By Thomas R. Collins

    Towers of offices, rental apartments, shops, restaurants and a hotel would further fill in the Boynton Beach downtown if a proposal enthusiastically supported by the Community Redevelopment Agency and its board — over the objections of some residents — becomes a reality.
    A project in one of the most prominent spots in the city — the former Bank of America land at the northeast corner of Federal Highway and Ocean Avenue — would include the new headquarters of Kanner and Pintaluga, a fast-growing personal-injury law firm that’s looking to move from Delray Beach into a larger space. The rest of the project would be developed by One Boynton LLC, a subsidiary of Washington Real Estate Partners, which has developed projects of all kinds in South Florida and Washington, D.C.
    CRA officials praise the proposal’s Class A office space — it would be the first such building in the downtown — and they like that portions of the site would be publicly accessible.
    They are so eager to see the project built that they’ve offered a CRA-owned, half acre of land, free of charge, to the developers. They say that the narrow strip of land isn’t practical for development on its own, anyway. It would be joined with Washington Real Estate’s three acres to the south.
    Residents at April’s CRA meeting said they felt blind-sided by the project — one said the high-rises are an unfortunate addition to “The Great Wall of Boynton.” But board members pointed out that it was the first publicly held meeting on the proposal and that more public meetings would be held.
    “We’re not doing it the last minute,” Mayor Jerry Taylor said. “Tonight is the first time we’re hearing about it. It’s being proposed to us this evening …. There are going to be many more meetings about it.”
    The project’s site plan will have to come back to the City Commission for approval, but the project, as presented, does not require any changes to zoning and has no obvious barriers to getting a green light under city development rules — several other projects as tall, or taller, are already built.
    Still, residents seemed taken aback by the level of detail already fleshed out about the proposal — such as its 50,000 square feet of office space, its 282 residential units and its calculation of a $562,004.93 boost in property taxes — and by the CRA board’s apparent support for the proposal before any public input had been given.
    “This time of year when everybody on the condo association is heading home, you bring up this stuff,” said James Lynch, who lives in a condo about half a mile from the site. “Why do we always have to see big, big buildings going up?”
    CRA officials reminded residents that the city’s master plan would already allow a similar project to be built, even without the offer of the narrow strip of CRA property.

Timeline questions
    What city officials have been saying about the project includes some inconsistencies.
    CRA executive director Vivian Brooks told The Coastal Star that Kanner and Pintaluga came to the CRA in January, asking about the CRA land.
“They were looking for our little piece” of land, she said. The land “wasn’t feasible” for their project, so “I said, ‘You need to get in touch with this guy,’ ” F. Davis Camalier, the chairman of Washington Real Estate.
    And CRA documents describing the request for proposals — the way government land is offered to potential buyers — say, “They have identified 222 N. Federal Highway as one of the sites they are interested in purchasing.”
    But Howard Kanner, the law firm’s founder, said it was the CRA that got the ball rolling. He said Brooks approached him about the possibility of building on the land.
    “She came over and spoke to me about Boynton Beach,” Kanner said. “I had never heard about it until I heard from Vivian.” She sold him on the city’s vision for the downtown, Kanner said.
    Now, he said, “Boynton Beach is our No. 1 option.”
    At the April meeting, representatives of Washington Real Estate told the CRA board that the law firm would bring about 200 employees to the downtown upon move-in, and will have room to add more. In an interview, Taylor said he’s excited to have “a couple hundred attorneys” coming to the downtown to work.
    Kanner, though, said in an interview that the firm has only about 125 employees — including about 25 attorneys, 25 paralegals and 75 other staff members including receptionists and researchers — working in Delray Beach. The firm would probably start with 150 employees in the Boynton Beach location, but has plans to grow quickly, Kanner said.
    “I would envision in five years it could be 300 to 400” employees, he said.
    The language of the request for proposals was geared all along toward a union between Kanner and Pintaluga and Washington Real Estate.
    It was ostensibly open to anyone who wanted to respond, but one of the criteria for judging the responses was “opportunities to incorporate the RFP site into a larger overall site plan and redevelopment of one or more adjacent parcels for larger scale development.” The only empty piece of land next to the CRA land belongs to Washington Real Estate.
    “The obvious responder would be the adjacent landowner,” Brooks said. “We don’t want to leave our little piece of land standing there. That wouldn’t make sense from a planning perspective.”
    The CRA bought the land for $900,000 in 2002 for the extension of Boynton Beach Boulevard and access to Marina Village. Until recently it had been used for a weekly Green Market.  According to the Palm Beach County property appraiser, the CRA land now has a market value of $425,000.

Campaign contributions
    Camalier, who owns a villa in Manalapan, donated $500 — through one of his corporate entities — to Taylor’s political campaign on Feb. 7, five days before the request for proposals was approved by the CRA board. And, through three more corporations, he donated an additional $1,500 to Taylor on March 1.
    Taylor, who said publicly that he met with Camalier three times about the project before it was formally unveiled, said the donations were not geared toward generating support for the project proposal.
    “No, I don’t think so at all — he’s been around for a long time,” Taylor said. Instead, he thought Camalier was hoping for Taylor to get re-elected to bring more stability to the City Commission.
“That does not entice developers when commissioners are at odds,” he said.
    Taylor, after lengthy discussion at the April meeting, saved the last word for himself and asked the developers to get the whole project built twice as fast as their six-year timeline.
    “I’ve been trying to develop this downtown for more than 10 years,” he said. “Be aware that we want to move on this
thing.”                                       


About the project
The 222 N. Federal Highway project being proposed by the Washington Real Estate Partners and the Kanner and Pintaluga law firm. All are estimates and the details are subject to change:
* 282 residential units
* 18,505 square feet of retail
* 67,452 square feet of office
* 120 hotel rooms
* 1,168 parking spaces
* Public areas: public walkways and a plaza
* Tax boost if fully developed as proposed: $562,000
* Total cost to build as proposed: $128.7 million

Phase 1: A nine-story, 50,000-square-foot office building, with 300 parking spaces, to be paid for and occupied by the Kanner and Pintaluga personal-injury law firm. This would be the first Class A office space in downtown Boynton. Proposed completion: Feb. 2015

Phase 2: A 14-story, high-density residential tower on the property’s north side, to be developed in partnership with a high-rise residential developer. Proposed completion: April 2017

Phase 3: A 13-story residential tower on the south side. Proposed completion: June 2018

Phase 4: A 12-story, 120-room hotel. Proposed completion: Jan. 2019

I sprayed and soaked and bleached, but nothing would remove the big, green blob from the front of my favorite white, rip-stop cotton Bermuda shorts. Wouldn’t you know it? Right when the temperatures are inching upward and the snowbirds are gone. This is shorts season, darn it, and I hope this isn’t an indicator of the summer to come.
    We don’t hit hurricane season until June, but already I’m watching weather patterns and fretting about evacuations. Water spouts in Briny Breezes and tornados at the Lowe’s in Boynton Beach are not good indicators by my calculation. But until we begin to see Bahamas swallows and hordes of dragonflies in the dunes, it’s much too early to tell in my — completely unscientific — book.
    By all of my other unscientific indicators it was an excellent season along the coast: the number of sunburns seen in the crowds along Atlantic Avenue, the nonstop parade of well-attended, successful fundraisers and the frequent visits from friendly Coastal Star readers on their way into (or out of) Colby’s Barbershop next door to the office.
    As much as I love the “open the house wide” winter weather and my dear, snowbird friends, May is the month I celebrate the promise of the coming summer. Just recently as the brilliant sunset brushed the ocean clouds with fading peach, there was not another person to be seen along the sand. Paradise. For those of us who stay here braving the summers, this is one of our secret treats — along with a lack of lines at the movie theater and the ability to walk into a restaurant without reservations.
    So, as much as I’m dreading the first named storm of hurricane season, I’m ready for summer.
    I just need to find another pair of white, rip-stop cotton Bermuda shorts.

— Mary Kate Leming, executive editor

May is one of my favorite months. It marks the end of the busy season here. Even though we have to say goodbye to friends for a few months while they travel north, or to the islands, or maybe overseas, there are some perks for those of us who stay put. The highways, restaurants, shops and beaches are a little less crowded and the pace is a little less hectic.
    My mom was fan of the less hectic, but so much of her life was just the opposite. She tended to the needs of eight children and a husband who worked three jobs to keep the brood in tip-top shape. For many years of her life, there simply wasn’t time for her to kick back and relax.
    It’s funny, I don’t remember her ever complaining. She always talked about how blessed she was, how grateful.
    The other day, while sorting through some old files, I came across a Mother’s Day card I had made for Mom when I was in fourth grade. I had written a limerick on it that read, in part:
    There once was a mudder named Kate.
    To Ivan she made a fine mate.
    Eight children had she — four he and four she.
    Dull moments were not in her fate.
    I wonder how many nights, after a long day of housework, she sat patiently beside one of us to help with a long night of homework. She couldn’t have had a lot of time, but somehow she always found it.
    Mothers do things like that and don’t even think twice about it. Linda Kaplan, our Coastal Star this month (see story to the right), is a good example. She was just 26 with three babies of her own when her own mother died leaving two young children (Linda’s sister and brother) behind. Linda didn’t think twice about what to do. She and her husband, Steve, adopted both and never looked back.
    It was, for them, the right thing to do.
    I’m always in awe of people who make so many right decisions. My mom and Linda are among so many mothers who fall into this category. They are blessings for whom we all can be grateful. I know I am.    Happy Mother’s Day!
— Mary Thurwachter, managing editor

Tom Lynch and Marc De Baptiste started the Delray Beach chapter of the Boys and Girls Club in 1997 and have helped it grow ever since.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Emily J. Minor

    Every community has people like Tom Lynch and Marc De Baptiste. Funny. Kind. Civic-minded.
    But not every community has people who put their time and talent where their mouth is, like Tom Lynch and Marc De Baptiste.
    Consider: Twenty years ago, De Baptiste, a longtime Delray Beach commercial real estate guy, was, shall we say, lassoed into volunteering with the Boys & Girls Club of Broward County.
    “I was asked by a dear friend to participate in their meetings in Fort Lauderdale,” De Baptiste remembers.
    The meetings, he says, were at night — which meant he’d get off the freeway at Atlantic Avenue and drive east, toward his home. “One night it just dawned on me that if there was a need for a Boys and Girls Club in any community, it was right here in Delray Beach.”
    So, he called someone he knew who had just the right combination of being politically well-placed and community-minded: Tom Lynch.
“I think I had just come on as mayor,” says Lynch, the former Delray Beach mayor who owns one of South Florida’s largest insurance companies. “I didn’t know much about the Boys & Girls Club.”
    Today, it’s a whole different story.
    The Boys & Girls Club has been helping America’s youth get through imperfect family, social and economical situations since the late 1800s — when it was started in Hartford, Conn., for just boys. It wasn’t until 1990 that the club changed its name to include girls, and they’ve grown in leaps and bounds ever since. Today, there are an estimated 4,000 chapters across America, 14 of them in Palm Beach County.
    In Delray Beach, the club started small, of course, at first making its home at the old Carver Middle School. In 1998, the program moved to the former Catherine Strong Center. But that space was also small, and very bare bones. For a while, the club had to turn away kids.
    De Baptiste knew this would never do, so he and Lynch started a fund-raising effort to build the club a place all its own. The Naoma Donnelley Haggin Boys & Girls Club opened as a new multimillion-dollar facility in 2006. (Haggin donated $1.5 million when she died.)
    Last month, club leaders gave Lynch and De Baptiste the Service to the Youth Award.
    For the most part, the club offers young residents a place to go when their home isn’t an option. Maybe it’s after school. Maybe it’s on weekends. Perhaps it’s first thing in the morning.
    De Baptiste says he’s loved watching the program grow. He’s also loved watching all the young people grow into amazing adults — everything from attorneys and teachers to business leaders and club volunteers.
    “Quite simply, these children would go home to an empty house if they couldn’t go here and, frankly, knowing that the club wants them is a wonderful opportunity for us all,” he says.
“Children want to be wanted.”                                    

By Tim Pallesen

    The waterfront restaurant chosen for downtown Boca Raton must compete in a popularity contest.
    The city will ask restaurant developers this month to submit proposals to build on two acres of city-owned land immediately north of the Palmetto Park Road Bridge.
    “It will be very exciting to have a waterfront restaurant, like all the other cities along the Intracoastal Waterway do,” Mayor Susan Whelchel said.
    Boaters will have access to both the restaurant and Boca Raton’s redeveloping downtown.
    “Not only can people eat in a wonderful restaurant, but they would be only a few steps from shops on Palmetto Park Road,” Whelchel said. “A waterfront restaurant will have a huge impact on creating our new pedestrian-friendly downtown.”
    City officials say they want an affordable family restaurant.
    “We’re looking for a restaurant that’s not low end and not high end,” Assistant City Manager George Brown said. “It’s to be a waterfront experience where boats can pull up and drop off. Dockage is possible.”
    The competition to select a restaurant began April 2 when Marine Advisory Board chairman Gene Folden appeared before the Federation of Homeowner Associations to urge their support for the tropical outdoor dining concept created by Guanabanas, a popular Jupiter restaurant.
    “Guanabanas has taken outdoor dining to the next level. Their concept is totally different,” Folden said. “They’ve captured the experience of being in the Bahamas or the Florida Keys.”
    Guanabanas and two other restaurants responded in 2011 when the city requested informal ideas from anyone interested in building on the two-acre site of the former Wildflower restaurant that the city bought for $7.5 million in 2009.
    “I like the location,” Guanabanas president Chad Van Boven repeated again last month. “We’re always looking for something on the water.”
    Van Boven proposed in 2011 to build outdoor dining under Key West-style chickee huts for an experience that he described as Old Florida on the water. The proposal included clothing sales and a vendor providing kayak and paddleboard tours.
    Guanabanas offered to pay the city $450,000 a year plus 7 percent of gross sales to lease the property.
    But chickee huts lack air conditioning. “I want a restaurant that will be sustainable in the dead of summer,” Whelchel said.
    Two restaurant developers connected to Houston’s steakhouse also expressed interest in 2011, proposing enclosed dining with smaller outdoor patios.
    Folden scoffs at those proposals.
“If you want to have a good steak, there are plenty of other restaurants where you can go,” he said.
    The city’s formal Request for Proposals this month is expected to attract many more restaurants before the City Council chooses a winner.
    City officials are exploring whether to buy properties adjacent to the Wildflower site to create a larger waterfront promenade with boat dockage.
    A waterfront residential property to the north, listed for $5.9 million, would allow space for docks. Two properties along Northeast Fifth Avenue would allow more vehicle parking.
The city already has a boat ramp on the south side of the bridge, at Silver Palm Park.
    The mayor encouraged residents to investigate what West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and other cities have done to open public access to their waterfronts and bring people downtown.
“We can look north and south to see what other cities have been able to accomplish,” Whelchel said.
    Folden also urged members of the Federation of Homeowner Associations to check out the Deck 84 waterfront restaurant at the Atlantic Avenue Bridge in Delray Beach.
    “Go up there to get an idea of what we could have,” he
said.                                           

Guanabanas (above) is a popular waterfront nightspot in Jupiter. Deck 84 opened a couple of years ago at Atlantic Avenue and the Intracoastal Waterway in Delray Beach.
Courtesy photos

ABOVE: Fifteen entrepreneurs ages 12-18 wait their turn to present to the judges.

By Emily J. Minor
    
If you think kids today are lazy — holed up in their rooms, Googling cheat codes for video games, making new friends only on the Web — then you need to call up the good folks at the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce and make arrangements to sit in on the Young Entrepreneur Academy.
    Yeah, it’s called YEA for short.
    These young people are going places.
    “We have everything from nonprofits to a business that’s a fundraiser for schools,” says Beth Johnston, the chamber’s vice president of government and community affairs who helps run the program. “These kids are amazing.”
    A hair bow business. A teen photography business. A young lady who sells hip lacrosse sports gear. (She started it after she couldn’t find anything cute already out there.)
    In partnership with Florida Atlantic University’s Adam Center for Entrepreneurship, the chamber collects a small sampling of local inventors (who want investors), and then puts them to the real-life test.
    It works like this: The program’s sponsors and mentors, many of them local business executives and entrepreneurs, select about two dozen students in grades 7-12 who have demonstrated what the program calls “creativity, innovative ideas, academic effort, determination, enthusiasm, the ability to communicate, and a commitment to the community.”
    Then, with instructors helping them along, the students come up with their ideas, write a business plan, learn to pitch that plan, and eventually learn to make it happen and sell it to the community.
    Competition is fierce.
    Last month, 15 of the program’s top students appeared before a tough panel of judges at FAU’s Boca campus — each one of them trying to convince judges that their project deserved to be sent along to the University of Rochester for competition at the national level.
The Rochester competition is big because it’s a chance to present before some of the nation’s top CEOs.
    “This is incredible real-world application,” says Sam Zietz, a Boca Raton resident who had a daughter in the program and who eight years ago created software for a point-of-sale small business system called ToucheSuite. (It can do everything from keep track of appointments in a hair salon to distribute marketing mailers.)
    “These kids get it. They get it,” said Zietz, who says he “bleeds entrepreneurship.”
    “They know what it’s like to stand up before a crowd and try to sell something.”
    Like the young baseball player who got tired of pine tar all over his gear — his uniform, his bag, his hands, the fresh set of clothes in his gym bag — so he invented a nifty baseball glove (with a container) for pine-tarring his bat.
    YEA member Julia Galang helped in the pitch for Bow Boutique, a business that makes and sells cute hair bows.
“It was nerve-wracking, to have all those people staring,” she said.
    But she made it through, and she’s only 12 years old.

Bronsen Bloom answers questions from the judges about his 501(c)(3) charity, Musical Cares. Bloom, a senior at Pine Crest School, collects musical instruments for schools with underfunded music programs, then helps create music programs in those schools. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

    After last month’s presentation, Bronsen Bloom  won judges’ hearts with his nonprofit, Musical Cares.
    Bloom, a senior at Pine Crest School, collects new and used musical instruments for schools with underfunded music programs — which is pretty much public schools everywhere — then works on those school campuses to help create music programs. He started the program in Boca Raton about three years ago, and is takinng it national.
    In Rochester at the end of April, Bloom ended up in the top nine and was the only not for profit to get to that point. His business was featured on a Rochester television station as he was giving instuments to students in a Rochester school.  
The application for next year’s class is available at www.bocaratonchamber.com/yea.

By Ron Hayes
    
A gay teenager appointed to the Boca Raton Community Relations Board after he made an impassioned plea for the city to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy has resigned.
In an April 3 letter to the board, Tyler Morrison acknowledges that, while he attended both elementary and middle school in the city and considers it his hometown, he is not a current resident, and therefore ineligible to serve.
    Morrison said that he moved out of the house where he lived with his parents, forcing him to live with foster-care providers.
    “When I ‘aged out’ of the system upon turning 18 earlier this year, I became homeless,” he wrote.
    Morrison said he had “reached out” to the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, a gay rights organization, which has found him a safe place to stay until he leaves for college in Illinois later this month.
A music student at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Morrison drew media attention when he stood up at the City Council’s Nov. 14 meeting.
    “Let’s value our diversity,” he told the council members. “Let’s include sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in our city’s anti-discrimination policy and protect everyone equally. It’s simply the right thing to do.”
    The City Council has yet to address his request.                

Linda Kaplan and her husband, Steve, below, adopted Linda’s younger sister and brother when the two were 26 and had three children of their own.

By Mary Thurwachter

    Weekend barbecues at Linda and Steve Kaplan’s house are filled with laughter, love and Linda’s famous noodle pudding. Mother’s Day will be like that, too. The couple’s children and grandchildren will deliver greeting cards and hugs and Linda will cook for everyone.
    “It makes my heart smile to think of it,” Kaplan said.
    Family is everything to the Highland Beach mother who has dedicated her life to keeping family ties strong.
    It hasn’t been easy.
    The Kaplans were 26 with three children when she lost her mother to cancer and the couple adopted Linda’s 15-year-old sister, Ilene, and 8-year-old brother, Alan.
    “I didn’t even get to finish asking my husband (about adopting), “ Linda said. “We knew it was what we wanted to do. That was the way it was supposed to be.”
    The siblings kept their last names, Linda said. “They had already lost so much and we didn’t want to take that away from them, too.”
    Linda’s father died when she was 6 and her brother, Howard, was 5, leaving their mother a widow. Her mother remarried, but that husband, Linda’s stepfather, also met an early death. But when Linda’s mother, at age 49, lost her life to cancer, it was especially tough.
    “We weren’t just mother and daughter,” Linda said. “We were best friends. We went to the pediatrician together.”
    But Linda couldn’t allow grief to sweep her away.  She had a mission. She had a family to raise. Her three children — Wendy, 15, Scott, 4, and Jamie, who was only 3 weeks old at the time — made room for their new siblings.
    Steve had a job on Wall Street. Linda was a stay-at-home mom kept busy cooking, cleaning and carting the kids to school and activities. Five years after her mother died, Linda’s brother Howard died, too.
    More loss. More coping. But Linda pressed on, with Steve at her side all the way. They were high school sweethearts and will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary this year.
    Eventually, Linda went to college to get a degree in interior design. Steve climbed the corporate ladder and has his own securities company on Wall Street.
They split heir time between their Highland Beach condo and their home in Old Bridge, N.J.  All five of their children and 13 grandchildren are doing well.
    “Life has repaid us twice over,” Linda, 64, said.
    “I am not a religious person but extremely spiritual and I truly believe things happen for a reason,” she said. “We must not allow our darkest moments to cloud our future. Take those moments and find the light.”

An old family photo of four of the Kaplan kids, from left, Alan, Wendy, Scott and Jamie. Tim Stepien/
The Coastal Star