The victorious Unity School Mustangs pose during the school’s Junior Varsity Invitational Basketball Tournament on Feb. 4.  Back row, from left: Paul LaNoce, Coach Torres Young, Daniel Leathers, Erik Kretsinger, Gus O’Hare, Grant Navilio, Zach Petrolia and Coach Travis Schaffer.  Front row, from left:  Trent Nass, Diego Valant, Blake Fertel and Alex Petrolia. Photo provided

First-grader Nong Ex Dubose, of Ocean Ridge, takes a closer look at the ‘Mosaic of Life’ mural,  while second-grader Jason Falk, of Boca Raton, and sixth-grader Isabel Wheeler, of Delray Beach, look on. The mural is being created on the school campus by artist Kathy Donnelly (back right) of K Yenyo Design.  Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star

Playing off the Breakfast at Tiffany’s theme, a sales associate at the Linen Closet in Delray Beach,  describes a product to a customer during the Breakfast at Linen Closet event in February.
Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star

NOTE: Names were removed at the request of the individuals photographed.

The Coastal Star

Delray Beach Club member Greg Mirow (center) discusses his work ‘Community Garden, 1936’ with fellow member/artist Lucille Fannin (left) and new member Nancy Sherwood during the annual art show on Feb. 10 at the Delray Beach Club. All of the art on display was created by club members. Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star

Featured Artist Bill McCaffrey of Lake Worth works on his interpretation of a work by Jacques-Louis David titled The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis during the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival, which took place Feb. 25 and 26. Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star

Cindy Krebsbach (left) and Amy Kazma, members of the first-place-winning team Cendyn, celebrate their victory during the Boca Bacchanal Second Annual Iron Chef Competition at the Boca Raton Resort & Club on Feb. 10.  
Tim Stepien/
The Coastal Star

Hank Lenga shows off three trophies from the 15th Annual Chili Cook-off at the Delray Beach Green Market. With him is Lori Nolan, Green Market manager. Lenga’s chili winnings included third place for New Age, first place for Vegetarian and third place for People’s Choice Vegetarian. Photo provided

VIP guests of the 2012 Oscar Night American Palm Beach event pose for a photo on the red carpet at the Mizner Park Amphitheater in Boca Raton before the start of the Oscars telecast on Feb. 26. Pictured from left: John Oxendine, president of Blackstar Inc.; George Elmore, founder of Hardrives, Inc.; Denise Nieman, Palm Beach County Attorney; Randi Emerman, executive director of the Palm Beach international Film Festival; Cary Roman, CEO of LivingFLA.com; and Harvey Wachman, Oscar Night America Palm Beach committee member.

Judge Rodney S. Eielson (from left) and Barbara Messier join honorary chairs Janet and Jerry Soderberg at the Circle of Hope Gala: Carnivale of Caring at The Hamlet Country Club in Delray Beach on Feb. 20. The Mardi Gras-themed event raised $134,000 to benefit Women’s Circle Inc. in their efforts to help lower-income women achieve financial stability. Photo provided

By Christine Davis
Richard Fichman, enraptured by Florida’s lifestyle and good weather, led his entire family from Farmington, Conn., to Hypoluxo Island.
“My wife, Lynn, doesn’t like to travel that much and we still have kids in school,” he explained. And then there were the dogs to consider.
“But Lynn finally gave me permission.”
So, he came down here looking for a condo and went jogging on Hypoluxo Island, and had that eureka moment. “This neighborhood along North Atlantic feels like Old Florida. There were people walking their dogs and kids riding their bikes. No hoopla. And there’s a nice beach and the Ritz.”
So he bought a 1970s-era home at 110 N. Atlantic. But then his whole family showed up for vacations and he ran out of room.
“I was going to put a second floor on that house, but I’d been keeping my eye on an old derelict A-frame at 1013 N. Atlantic that nobody wanted to buy,” he said.
It was almost twice the size of his home, which was a good thing, but …
It was pea-green, overgrown, and had awful tile in the kitchen. The refrigerator actually sat in a wooden enclosure. The house was an eyesore.
“In the back yard, there was a tiki hut. You could have pushed it over. And somebody had tried to fix a leak in the pool by pouring cement in the main drain,” he added.
Everything had to be redone and updated: kitchen, bathrooms, floors, windows.
But that didn’t deter Fichman. He had built his home in Connecticut. Also, he believes that real estate is a good investment, and he’s got a good eye for houses.
“I intuitively knew what the problems in that house were — except for the pool, I wasn’t expecting that.
“And I’m an eye surgeon. My philosophy on renovating is the same as it is in medicine. When something is wrong, you have to make it function the way it functioned in the beginning.
“When a house is built, the owners loved it. They didn’t say: ‘Let’s make a derelict house.’ In the beginning everybody was happy, so how sad this house was.”
County tax rolls say the house was built in 1957, but who were the original owners? Nobody knows. Richard Saunders of Elite Home Builders, who did the renovation for the Fichmans, said that a set of plans he found called it a “three-and-a-half breadbox that underwent several renovations.”
Here was Fichman’s mission, as he saw it: He had to bring back that house’s “original spirit” and into the 21st century.
Now, that eyesore of a house is a sight for sore eyes.
“We painted the outside yellow and added some stacked-stone to the façade,” he said.  “All the bathrooms have nice subway tile, onyx, travertine and frameless shower doors.
“We repaired the original glass doors and repainted the frames and we added french doors inside.”
Old carpeting has been pulled up; oak flooring has been laid. Crown moldings have been added, as well as a coffered ceiling in the den, applied molding in the foyer and a dome in the dining room.
The kitchen is a gourmet cook’s delight — which is a good thing, because Lynn, Richard said, is a “magnificent cook.” It features custom cabinetry, granite countertops with a waterfall edge, travertine backsplash with a mosaic over the stove, and now there’s bar seating and a pass-through at the windows, which means easy service to the outdoor kitchen.
The pool, which was a disaster, is beautiful. The tiki hut set in the new landscaping is paradise and begging to be enjoyed.
“My wife will love this house,” he enthused. As will the rest of his family. Son Ben with his wife, Jen, will take over the first-floor master suite. There’s room for daughter Meryl when she comes down from college, and a room for Todd who is about to go away to college.
Eventually, he hopes he and Lynn will stay through the winter.
For this eye surgeon, beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder.     

                
About Hypoluxo Island
Diana Reed of Illustrated Properties sold the house to the Fichmans. She jokingly calls herself Hypoluxo Island’s preservationist. “Whenever you can retain the original charm of an area, you are preserving its history,” she said. “There are lots of cool homes from different eras on Hypoluxo Island. That’s why I live here.”

About the products used in the house
Flooring: Floor & Decor Outlet, Pompano Beach. 954-317-0081
Lighting and Fans: Lighting Universe. 888-404-2744 or www.lightinguniverse.com.
Canvas Work: Wayne’s Custom Upholstery, West Palm Beach. 503-3020.
Landscaping: Anthony Fatone, Lantana. 727-5494.
Garage Door: Broten Garage Doors, Pompano Beach. 954-946-5555
Pool Refurbishment: Atlantic Pool Maintenance, Lantana. 582-1830.

By Liz Best
    
Being taken for granted is generally considered a bad thing, but for a residential property manager, being taken for granted is the whole point of getting up in the morning and going to work.
    Because South Florida has so many seasonal and absentee homeowners, as well as people who own sprawling ocean-front estates, finding someone who can take care of anything and everything that needs to be done to maintain a property is vital. It adds up to peace of mind for the homeowner.
    Some local property managers in southern Palm Beach County have figured out that it’s vital to their professional peace of mind to tailor services to individual clients.
    Bob Frangione, owner of Tricoastal Property Management, is a one-man show. His office is in South Palm Beach, and his clients are mostly absentee property owners who spend little time in their vacation homes, most of which are located in Delray Beach and Ocean Ridge.
    So Frangione takes care of everything, from letting housekeepers in, to setting up video surveillance systems, to visiting each property twice a week just to make sure the toilets flush and the air conditioner is operating properly.
    If he spots a problem he can’t solve, such as an electrical issue, he contracts with an electrician, oversees the project and reports progress to the homeowner.
    “It’s all about peace of mind for clients,” he said.
    For Frangione, 64, a retired Navy engineer who also worked in the securities industry in upstate New York, becoming a property manager satisfied two goals. He escaped the cold New York winters and he’s able to integrate some of his hobbies into the job.
    “Because I enjoy technology, let’s say someone’s wi-fi breaks down, I can usually find out what’s wrong and take care of it,” he said. “I really like troubleshooting.”
    Frangione prefers to keep it small, no more than five clients at once. He has no staff and likes being able to give homeowners hands-on service.
    On the other end of the property management spectrum are Tom Flint and Paul Crage, 45-year-old entrepreneurs who decided two years ago to establish Andover Property Management, based in Boca Raton.
    Andover limits its clientele to only high-end coastal estate property owners, and Flint and Crage are experts at thinking outside the box.
Both have business experience and used to co-own a home inspection company. Two years ago, they decided to create a “one call for it all” property management business and they haven’t looked back.
    They’re too busy.
    Their clients are wealthy and some of them are well-known celebrities but they still have to deal with the day-to-day chores of maintaining a home.
    “I like to think of us as quality of life enablers,” said Flint.
    They have a list of trusted vendors, from construction companies to party planners, and have completed thorough background checks on each.
Any job they contract to a vendor is videotaped and the client receives a copy of the tape. “Whether they watch it or not, I don’t know. But it’s there. Full disclosure,” Flint said.
    Andover has a staff of six, and someone is always on the property with any vendor hired to do a job. And they don’t limit themselves to the property, either.
Once, a client was expecting an important document in another state. A member of the Andover staff flew to the location, received the document and hand-delivered it to the client.
    When something like that happens, Flint and Crage know they are doing their jobs because it all boils down to developing trust.
    “It’s very fulfilling to have a company where we can provide the types of services we provide and get that sense of gratification,” said Crage.
    Flint adds, “The trust our clients put in us, you just can’t put a value on that trust.” 

Gerardo Aponte, a ground maintenance worker for the town of Lantana, stops traffic on Ocean Avenue as a donated ponytail palm is moved from Hypoluxo Island to the Lantana Public Library. Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star

By Mary Thurwachter

    A week after a large ponytail palm tree was uprooted and moved from Hypoluxo Island to the Lantana Library, Kathy Dunn went to take a look.
    “It looks like it’s always been there,” said Dunn. “It brought a smile to my face.”  
    She and her husband, Pat Dunn, who are about to begin construction on their new home on Hypoluxo Island, donated the 70-year-old tree to the town of Lantana.
    It’s not that the couple didn’t like the palm, with its ribbon-like leaves unfolding like a fountain and curling downward like a ponytail. The palm had to go because of the long, thin configuration of the property and the town’s new zoning requirements for new homes. The 1956 house that had occupied the property was torn down last year after having been vacant for five years.
    Simply cutting down the ponytail palm, about 22 feet tall, was not an option for the Dunns, who currently live in a Boca Raton condo.
    “It’s an astounding palm,” she said. “We wanted it to go where somebody would love it as it had been loved in the past.”
    So when the old house was demolished last fall, the couple called in tree experts, including Lantana’s arborist Mike Greenstein, to plot a future for the decades-old palm.  
    Town Manager Mike Bornstein said the library was chosen since its landscape needed a signature feature.  
“It has been said the tree looks as if it were drawn by Dr. Seuss, which makes it great in front of the library,” Bornstein said.  “The library is going through landscape beautification with irrigation, trees, fencing, plantings and energy efficiency upgrades. The tree just happened to fit into that effort.”
    The town spent $2,600 from money set aside for library beautification.
    “It’s a champion tree (the largest specimen of that species) as defined by our code,” Bornstein said. “The tree should survive nicely since it is indigenous to an arid climate and has a hearty root system.”
    Moving day (Feb. 1) proved to be quite a show, Dunn said. The tree movers arrived at 9 a.m. and it took until 11:30 a.m. before the palm was loaded.
    Because of the way the tree was positioned on the truck, the driver had to drive backward from the site on North Atlantic Drive and over the Ocean Avenue bridge to the library at 205 W. Ocean Ave.
    Workers had to use long sticks to lift the power lines on Atlantic so the truck and tree could pass, Dunn said.       

Coastal towns take varying approaches to deal with whitefly

By Antigone Barton
Every October, for each of the last 20 years, Gail Brown has surrounded her white-pillared, white-trimmed gray house with 2,000 white impatiens, creating a vista that stops passing drivers, sparks countless conversations, and earned her the informal title of “the White Impatiens Lady.”
Then in early February this year, her plants began to droop one day. A few leaves turned yellow, a few green stalks lost their flowers. Within three days, they had all collapsed. Brown’s garden was indistinguishable from any other hit by a plague exclusive to impatiens that has swept the state this season, taking out hundreds of thousands of the popular plants countywide.
The flowers were felled by downy mildew, a fungus that had recently appeared in Europe and then in other states in this country, but has not been seen in Florida since the mid-1960s. Its path has been swift and devastating here, leaving gardens and community entrances barren, nurseries bereft and landscapers scrambling for replacements.
Bob Glynn of Delray Garden Center replenished Brown’s garden with 1,400 New Guinea impatiens, which are not affected by downy mildew. The substitute, with darker, richer, waxy green leaves and slightly larger flowers, won’t get as voluminous as her former garden, and the sight of them is “not as dramatic,” she says. “But I will say, they are lovely and gracious bedding.”
She and the many others who rely on impatiens to infuse the Florida winter months with color will have time to grow accustomed to the new look; landscapers say it will be about five years before impatiens can thrive again here.
In the meantime, however, Glynn has seen about 50,000 plants felled by the disease.
“And I’m just a little guy,” he added. There is no stopping the disease, which he first saw in the beginning of this year, and which is airborne.
“People need to be educated on this,” Glynn said. He has continued to see the plants sold, he said. “It’s a shame. The plants are all going to be diseased and die in a few weeks.”
As impatiens vanish from landscapes, some homeowners are planning a head start on summer, with pentas and vincas, which some growers have started supplying earlier than usual, said Joe Mignano of the Boynton Beach-based Mignano Tree Care.
“We’re putting color back,” he said.
Mignano, whose clients include homeowner associations and estates running the length of State Road A1A, has pulled more than 100,000 impatiens since first spotting diseased impatiens in a west Boca Raton community in early January.
Mignano is advising clients to get rid of their impatiens quickly.
“People are telling us they look fine,” he said. “They’re not fine.”
Vincas, which usually aren’t available until early May, should be ready for planting in the next few weeks, Mignano said.      

Designer Nikki Poulos, who lives in the county pocket, will appear on NBC’s Fashion Star.

Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

See a slideshow of Nikki Poulos' designs

By Mary Jane Fine

Nikki Poulos has enjoyed what she considers modest success in the fashion world. Shoppers can find her label in Anthropologie shops. Her bathing suits have made a splash in the swimsuit edition — inside pages, she notes, not the cover — of Sports Illustrated.
And while many clothing designers would kill for such up-market exposure, Poulos wants more. To that end, she has hooked her wagon to NBC’s coming Fashion Star.
Fashion Star is a reality show. As in Project Runway. As in Top Chef. It promises celebrity and fame and fortune and … well, here’s what the show’s website has to say:
“It’s going to take vision, determination and guts. From a self-taught former engineer to a recent design school grad to a stay-at-home mom, one of these 14 designers will become the next big fashion brand! Check back often — bio pages will be updated each week with new photos, videos and more, as each contestant strives to become America’s Fashion Star.”
Learning about the show was pure serendipity: Poulos opened the newspaper one day and there it was, a one-line notice inviting applications. She whisked off an email. The show whisked off a response. Done deal.
“I think the timing is right for me right now,” she says. “I’ve been doing the business for three years, starting to build my customer base. I feel like everything’s meant to happen.”
Whether it will happen for Poulos is a closely guarded secret, of course. Fashion Star was taped in Los Angeles last summer — it premieres on March 13 — and on a recent morning, Traci Saulsberry, a press manager for NBC, is eavesdropping, via speaker phone from L.A., just to ensure that no clues about outcome are given away or even hinted at.
But no worries, there’s plenty to talk about without spoiling the suspense. The dining area of Poulos’ just-south-of-Ocean Ridge bungalow — friends lived nearby and she loved the funky, half-hidden neighborhood, just steps from the ocean — shares space with her work area: tracing-paper patterns pinned to a now-naked dress dummy, swatches of fabric bearing her own Deco-inspired graphic prints, a mobile clothes rack hung with bathing suits and maxi-dresses in orange and hot pink, turquoise and lavender and sunny yellow and minty green. She aims for the Jean Harlow-esque style of  ’30s and ’40s Hollywood.
“People ask me, ‘Who do you cater to?’ and I say, ‘the American woman,’ ” Poulos, 43, answers. “She needs to look glamorous, to feel glamorous, to walk out the door and feel like a million bucks.”

From outback to on camera
All of this is so different from her earlier life, her earlier career as a marine biologist.  Poulos and her brother and two sisters grew up on a 54,000-acre cattle ranch in the Australian outback — “the middle of nowhere,” she calls it, an Aussie accent hinting at her homeland — about 550 miles west of Sydney. An isolated place with no electricity, the nearest neighbors 20 to 30 miles away. Her parents flew a small plane to get most places.
She and her siblings rode horses and motorbikes. “You sort of made your own fun,” she remembers. Her fun included pattern-making and sewing — and imagining a life somewhere else.
In the 1990s, she designed and marketed a line of natural, chemical-free children’s wear called eco-baby. The proceeds paid her way through college, which led her into coral reef conservation and, in 2001, to Florida for further study. Then back into fashion design. An equation, almost: coral reefs = ocean = swimsuits.
Right now, she’s working on her Fall 2012 line, which she describes as “a little more structured … city clothing, maybe work wear,” and which she’ll show later this month in South Carolina, during Charleston Fashion Week. “It’s going to be a show-stopper,” she predicts and then, perhaps fearing she sounds immodest, explains, “Every time I do a new collection, I think it’s so much better than the last one.”
Each new collection — pattern, hastily stitched mock-up, fabric choice, sometimes graphic print — is designed at home by Poulos but produced in Broward County by others. “I don’t sew a thing,” she says, “but nothing goes out of my space unless I’ve signed off on it.”  
What remains now is the reality check: the reality-show check. How will America greet her work? The Fashion Star website promises contestants “real-time consumer feedback” and “interactivity” that allows “viewers at home to buy the winning designs each week” and, if that’s not enough, “a multimillion-dollar prize” to launch their design line in top retail venues.
But whether Nikki Poulos becomes the last designer standing is all but moot. For her, the show is really about exposure.  
“It’s really about pushing my brand out there,” she says. “I don’t plan on being a reality star. It’s more about my business than about me.”               

By Christine Davis

Yes, it is possible to buy a home on the water and near the beach for around $40,000.
That’s if you are over 55 years old, don’t have a pet, can get through the screening, have cash, don’t mind small spaces and don’t need to rent.  
For those who can and do, they reap the rewards. They end up sitting poolside watching boats go by on the Intracoastal. Or they are at the beach taking a breather, because, well, the beach is just there.
Tropicana Gardens, at 4001 S. Ocean Blvd., a co-op with 65 units ranging in size from 350 to 700 square feet, does have a few units for sale. Studio No. 106 is priced at $34,000 through Diane Duffy of Illustrated Properties. Studio No. 209 and one-bedroom unit. No. 210 are offered for sale together for $80,000 through Victoria Corsel, a Realtor with Lenson Realty Inc. And there are others in South Palm Beach.
“We do have a lot of restrictions, which won’t meet people’s needs,” said Peggy Beutel, president of the Tropicana Gardens Homeowners Association. “But having restrictions makes living here so nice. Because we don’t allow renting, for example, we know everyone.
“On the positive side, we have no assessments and aren’t planning any, our maintenance is caught up, and they just gave us a $22,000 reduction on our insurance because our building is so sound.”
 This really is home sweet home, not an investment, she added. “My husband, Al, and I bought our unit 10 years ago.
“We have a one-bedroom, about 550 square feet, but that’s big enough for us. We paid $40,000 back then and it’s probably worth around that much today.”
To clarify, there are differences between condos and co-ops. Often co-ops are land leases and things might change when the lease comes up. So, ask about that. 
Maintenance fees vary, and also, do ask about past, present and future assessments.
For example, unit  No. 109 at the Dune Deck, 3610 S. Ocean, is a short sale, with an asking price of $99,000. There are issues, says listing agent Roger Basso with Jeffrey Ray & Associates. A $1.5 million loan to make repairs — some of them structural — is in the process of being paid off, costing each unit’s owner around $18,000 to $25,000 depending on square footage. An additional $1.6 million assessment needed for more structural repairs is, as of this writing, under discussion.  
“Some owners are walking away and there are foreclosures in that building,” he said.
On the other hand, “the majority has made repairs since the hurricanes, so they are in better shape than they were before and that’s making them more desirable,” said Courtney Fallon of Scott Gordon Realty Associates, Inc.
Now, here’s information for those with a pet, younger than 55, or want the option of renting: On the strip from The Ritz-Carlton north to Sloan’s Curve, 235 units sold in the past year and 46 percent of them were less $200,000 according to the Regional MLS, Fallon reported.
“There are some nice deals out there,” noted Jennifer Spitznagel, broker of Manatee Cove Realty Inc. “We are at historic lows for this area. Prices have rolled back to 2001-2002 prices.”
Another thing, distressed properties are hard to find on the strip, she added, noting a short sale at Southgate, 3605 S. Ocean Blvd,  No. 439, which is listed for $89,900 by Anthony Petrollia Jr., a Realtor with Re/Max Services. Another Southgate property, bank-owned unit  No. 139, where mold remediation has just been completed, is listed for sale for $79,100 by Realtor Barbara Lilley of True Blue Realty Inc.
Realtor Satu Barish of Coastline Realty agrees. “Foreclosures and short sales? I’ve been looking. You can’t buy them.  
“Foreclosures get multiple offers; one of my clients offered $10,000 more than the asking price and didn’t get it.”
To compare with other coastal areas, there’s nothing for sale under $100,000 on the ocean in Highland Beach, and there’s only one unit for sale in Briny Breezes under $100,000 — K-27 Juniper, for $64,900. 

Beach Property Owners Association members and event organizers (l-r) Robert Currie, Mary Renaud, Susan Hurlburt and Jack Harris pose with a rendering of the proposed new beach pavilion. Held at 7 pm on March 7 at the Crest Theatre at Old School Square, the event features the finest classical, jazz, country, blues and rock ‘n’ roll performers in the area with a reception catered by local restaurants. Proceeds benefit Delray Beach’s Beach Area Master Plan. Tickets: $100 at Old School Square box office. 243-7922, Ext.1. Photo provided

The 11th Annual Delray Beach Home Tour Benefiting Achievement Centers for Children & Families features distinctive homes in the Lake Ida area of Delray Beach from 10 am-4 pm on March 15. Admission is $100 and includes complimentary trolley service and luncheon catered by Ciao Sidewalk Café.  RSVP by March 12 to 266-0003 or www.delrayhometour.com. Proceeds benefit the Achievement Centers.  ABOVE: Achievement Centers Board Directors and Home Tour committee members Anne Bright, Kari Shipley and Nancy Swaney. Photo provided

Wayside House 2012 Spring Boutique Committee (back l-r): Lydia Coyle, Susan Duane, Judy Wheatley, Robin Weiss, Karen Sywolski; (front l-r): Laila Young, Doli Rodriguez, Nancy Wibblesman, Event Co-Chairs Barbara Backer and Pat McElroy, Marie Dering, Sandra Powell and Ellen Rubel. The three-day shopping extravaganza with 35 vendors runs March 6-8 at the Colony Hotel in downtown Delray Beach. Admission is free and complimetary valet parking is provided daily from 10 am-5 pm. Preview party held 6-8 pm, March 5. $65 admission. Reservations required. The annual fundraiser benefits the women and programs of Wayside House, a non-profit treatment center for women seeking recovery from substance abuse. 278-0055, ext. 126.  Photo provided

Officer Christine Braswell and Detective John Young of the Delray Beach Police Department demonstrate self-defense moves taught to women in the department’s free Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) class. Sgt. Nicole Guerriero and Officer Andy Mintus round out the department’s self-defense education team. Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star

By Paula Detwiller

A Gulf Stream woman was having trouble with her physically abusive ex-husband, who would rough her up when he came over to get the kids. The woman decided to enroll in a free self-defense class offered by the Delray Beach Police Department.
“She took our class, and the next time her ex came over, she confronted him,” says Detective John Young, one of the instructors. “She could sense he was going to do something physical to her, like he had so many times in the past. So she used some of the physical techniques she learned in class against him. And it was effective.”
Young likes to hear student feedback like that. He and four other Delray Beach police officers are certified trainers of the R.A.D. (Rape Aggression Defense) system, developed in 1989 by a former U.S. Marine and now taught by police and safety officers across the country. The classes are designed exclusively for women. They emphasize awareness and avoidance first, physical contact second.
“The objective is to get away,” Young says. “We tell students constantly throughout the course, if your technique is effective — if you distracted or temporarily disabled your attacker — we don’t want you to stand there and try to pulverize the guy, because you may have had a lucky shot that was your chance to escape. And that might be your only lucky shot.”
Young says women of all ages should learn how to defend themselves, even those who live behind gates.
“There are crimes of opportunity. You have a nice house, somebody breaks in to steal your valuables, and there you are. They think to themselves, I can get money for this jewelry later, but I can also have a good time with this woman right now. She’s home all alone.”
While this type of attack is rare on the barrier island, it has happened.
And sometimes living with a gate or an alarm system can give a woman a false sense of security when she’s away from the neighborhood, says R.A.D. instructor and Delray Police Public Information Officer Nicole Guerriero. Learning how to spot potential trouble in public places and take protective measures is a key part of the training.
Despite common assumptions, you don’t have to be in good physical shape — or deny your femininity — to effectively defend yourself.
“We deal with reality,” says Guerriero. “The reality is, some women have arthritis, some are not very fit, and some have very long nails that they’re proud of. So we teach different techniques. You don’t have to throw a punch, you can do a palm strike, you can aim for the eyes with your long fingernails. You can even use your cane or your walker as a defensive weapon. We teach women to use what they have.”
The next R.A.D. course in Delray Beach starts March 13 and continues on March 20, 27 and April 3. It is free (a pleasant surprise in this era of municipal budget cutting). And if you complete the course, you may return to any future class at no cost. For location information and registration, call Detective John Young at (561) 243-7826.
Boca Raton Police Services and Florida Atlantic University campus police also offers free women’s self-defense classes.
FAU teaches the R.A.D. system in three four-hour sessions; the next class is scheduled for April 4, 11, and 18 from 6 to 10 p.m. Boca Raton teaches a two-hour Self-Defense Awareness and Familiarization Exchange (S.A.F.E.) course monthly; the next class is set for March 10 at 10 a.m. Register online with both organizations.

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

 By Allen Whittemore
    
Roger Ashcroft has three passions in his life: his faith, his wife of 16 years, Heidi, and his tennis.
    Sports and church came early to Ashcroft (Heidi was a little later), and by 17, he had chosen tennis as his main athletic endeavor.
    The church has always been a source of strength, Ashcroft, 62, said. “I know someone is looking out for me.”
    The couple live in coastal Delray Beach and attend Spanish River Church in Boca Raton. Ashcroft also participates in weekly Bible study programs with other local tennis pros.
    He met Heidi on a court in New Jersey and is grateful for her constant support, whether at work as a pro shop manager or in life as they make their way together.
    Growing up, “The biggest difference in my tennis was when my father joined the Westside Tennis Club in Forest Hills, N.Y., where the U.S. Open was played.”  It was an hour commute by train, so Ashcroft showed up early and stayed late.  
    “My friends and I formed the 100-game club, and we had a competition to play that many games during a typical day,” said Ashcroft about his summers there.  “One of the guys was Vitas Gerulaitis and we played a lot. He was so quick!”
    He attended Illinois Wesleyan University where in 1972, he and partner Tom Kaszynski won the CCIW Championship as the No. 1 doubles team.
    Florida satellite tournaments figured next.
    “I won my first paycheck at a tournament for $25.”  This may have been what prompted his father to suggest a different line of work. “I’m not sure anyone is going to pay you for looking good, wearing shorts and playing tennis with your friends,” Ashcroft recalled his father saying.
    Ashcroft set out to prove him wrong. His first teaching position was under Warren Woodcock, former Australian Davis Cup star, at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. “Warren was a really good coach, teacher and a great influence professionally. He really taught me how to teach,” Ashcroft  said.
    Woodcock later helped Ashcroft get the head pro job at the Englewood Field Club in New Jersey. “That was a big job; I had seven assistants and 12 courts. It was all day every day, but it was a lot of really great people and families.”
    About 20 years ago, Ashcroft became the tennis director at the Gulf Stream Bath & Tennis Club. It has been a great fit. Ashcroft gives about five to six hours of lessons per day and runs up to 12 tournaments a year — a calmer pace than in New Jersey.
    He looks at his job as a sort-of Minister of Tennis.  “I have a passion for tennis and I like to share it. It’s great, too, that I have been here long enough to see the wonderful kids I have taught become the wonderful young adults that they are now. “
    His job has many perks, too. “I have met so many interesting people over the years, even played with the Presidents Bush in Kennebunkport.”
    But Ashcroft said the best perk is getting paid to wear shorts to work and play tennis with friends all day.