Joann Ortiz Ramos (center) is congratulated by Pasco Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning (left) and Cypress Creek Middle School principal Tim Light after being chosen as Pasco’s SRP of the Year.
When Pasco County Superintendent of Schools Kurt Browning walked into a mostly empty Cypress Creek Middle School cafeteria in November, Joann Ortiz Ramos stopped cleaning tables to jump up and down and exclaim, “Oh, you gotta be kidding!”
Ramos knew immediately that Browning was there to surprise her with the news that she was chosen as Pasco County’s School Related Personnel of the Year award winner.
The award recognizes one non-instructional employee in Pasco County Public Schools for his or her outstanding and significant contributions they make to their school and to the district.
The fact that Ramos was cleaning tables is fitting. She was chosen for the honor because she is constantly going above and beyond her job responsibilities and doing things that are completely outside of her role as a discipline instructional assistant at the school.
Cypress Creek Middle School principal Tim Light says Ramos’ job is to handle student discipline that does not require the intervention of an administrator.
“She does the minor stuff, and there’s a lot more of that than the major stuff,” Light said. Ramos reviews referrals, ensures that every student receives due process, and then assigns consequences if warranted. She also brings certain offenses to the administrative team and supervises both detentions and Saturday school.
Her job most definitely is not cleaning tables in the cafeteria, yet that’s where she was found when the superintendent came looking for her.
“We are so proud of you,” Browning said. “Thanks for what you do.”
Light said the superintendent couldn’t have chosen a better candidate to represent Pasco County Schools as a nominee for the state’s award.
SRP winners from every county in Florida — including Ramos — are nominated by their superintendents for the Florida Department of Education award program, which chooses one statewide winner and four finalists.
“It speaks volumes to the job she does that she was chosen,” Light said. “Joann is the epitome of who warrants this prestigious award. She lives and breathes her job, and she’s also at every after-school event, at every school dance and sporting event, always helping out. I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as she does. She’s very deserving.”
As a volunteer, Ramos serves as the unofficial leader of the school’s ABC program, which provides meals, clothing, school supplies and hygiene products to students in need. Light said Ramos never hesitates to assist a family at a moment’s notice, whether it’s providing them with these items or acting as a translator.
She has been in her current role for three years and started her career with Pasco County Schools five years ago.
“There is no mistaking Joann’s love for her students, peers, school and community,” Browning added in his nomination letter.
The State education award winners will be announced in March.
Members of the Board of Directors of the Wesley Chapel Theater Group.
Considering that New Tampa has had an acting troupe for 20 years and is awaiting the opening of the New Tampa Performing Arts Center early next year to call home, it seems only fitting that Wesley Chapel should have a theater troupe of its own.
So, it’s exciting to announce that the Wesley Chapel Theater Group (WCTG) Inc. is set to make its own debut, on Sunday, January 9, at 2 p.m., at the clubhouse at The Ridge at Wiregrass Ranch.
Wesley Chapel’s theater troupe will be performing three short plays written and directed by Marc Sanders and between each play, the Wesley Chapel Theater Singers will perform a variety of musical numbers, led by WCTG’s artistic director Rodney Bueno.
“All of us have backgrounds in theatre and performing,” Sanders told me when I both went to cover (and decided on the spot to audition for) the group in late October. “We all just felt the time was right for Wesley Chapel to have its own theater group.”
And, although I wasn’t selected to be a performer, I told the group members that I will support their efforts in much the same way I threw the support of the Neighborhood News behind the New Tampa Players theatre troupe two decades ago — and have promoted that group’s efforts ever since.
Performers with the Wesley Chapel Theater Group rehearse for their upcoming debut showcase on January 9 at The Ridge at Wiregrass Clubhouse.
The three plays to be performed on Jan. 9 include “Stick ‘Em Up!,” a send-up of a silent movie, the drama “Legos For Tim” and a comedy and all are short plays.
I unfortunately couldn’t attend a recent rehearsal (top photo) and performance at Avalon Park Wesley Chapel to find out what songs will be performed but according to the group’s post on Facebook, they will perform some “beautiful musical numbers.”
The singers include Jim Kendall, James Hernandez, Mike Dixon, Liz Loftus, Cheryl Sanchez, WCTG President Diana Dechichio, and artistic director Rodney Bueno, who also serves on the WCTG Board.
The other Board members include Vice President Colleen DeFelice, treasurer Dan Dechichio, secretary Kendall Bueno, fund-raising chair Meshalynn Olsen, publicity chair Rachael Naylor and Sanders.
WCTG is still seeking performers, volunteers, sponsors, stage hands and more.
Congratulations go out to my wife Jannah and her daughter Lauren Cione, who together put on a successful first charity golf fund raiser that raised about $7,000 for the new RADDSports Charity, Inc., a 501(c)(3) registered nonprofit charitable organization. The new charity will provide scholarships to young athletes who couldn’t otherwise afford to participate in the sports programs at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County.
The golf tournament was held at the recently revamped Lexington Oaks Golf Club on Dec. 6 and was blessed with more than 70 golfers, wonderful auction prizes, a bag lunch and a delicious Italian buffet dinner created and served by Lexington Oaks owner Anass El-Omari, his wife Susana Herrera and the golf club staff.
RADDSports president and CEO Richard Blalock told the golfers about the reason why he and the management of RADDSports wanted to start the nonprofit and Anass gave some pre-tournament instructions.
Several of the tournament’s sponsors, including the Champion Sponsor, the Residence Inn Tampa-Wesley Chapel, Heineken and JJ Taylor provided on-course adult beverages.
What a great day! — Gary Nager; photos by Charmaine George & Morgan Conlin
In 2019, Pasco County hit new records for tourism, but Covid delivered a hit in 2020 that Florida’s Sports Coast director Adam Thomas figured might be tough to overcome.
Turns out that it wasn’t. Not only did the county bounce back from its Covid-plagued 2020 by exceeding last year’s tourism numbers, but it even passed its pre-Covid 2019 numbers as well.
“It was definitely a revival year for tourism for Pasco County,” says Thomas. “We beat our record-breaking historic year of 2019 by 10.6%. It was amazing,”
In Fiscal Year 2021 (which ran from Sept. 2020 to Oct. 2021), visitor spending in Pasco County generated $721.7 million in economic impact to the county, according to Downs & St. Germain Research. That is an increase of 30.7% above FY 2020, and 10.6% above the 2019 numbers. Direct spending in the county was $511.8 million of that total.
Thomas said an increase in marketing, as well as the state’s openness, allowed tourism to flourish here this year.
“Many other states were still not fully operational,” Thomas says of FY 2021. “That allowed our destinations to attract events throughout the year.”
Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore (left) and Tourism Director Adam Thomas pose with the Florida Sports Foundation trophy won by the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus for Florida’s Best Small Market Venue.
With the doors to Pasco County wide open this year, people didn’t hesitate to rush through. The numbers don’t lie:
• Florida’s Sports Coast attracted 1,358,200 visitors (41.5% higher than last year, and 30.8% higher than FY 2019)
• Visitors generated 1,419,000 room nights in paid accommodations (32.6% higher than last year, and 16.6% higher than FY 2019)
• Spending by visitors supported 9,254 local jobs (36.3% higher than last year, and 17.6% higher than FY 2019)
• Tourism generated $231.6 million in wages and salaries for local jobs (55% higher than FY 2020, and 37.8% higher than FY 2019).
• Every 147 visitors to the county created an additional job.
• Visitors staying locally generated $3.6 million in Tourist Development Tax collections (36.3% higher than last year, and 18.4% higher than FY 2019).
• Visitors in FY 2021 saved every household in Pasco County $385 in state and federal taxes.
And, Thomas says that amateur sports drove those record-setting numbers; primarily, amateur sports played in Wesley Chapel at its trifecta of sports tourism — AdventHealth Center Ice, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County and Saddlebrook Resort. As far as the county goes, the nearby Sarah Vande Berg (SVB) Tennis Center in Zephyrhills also contributed to Pasco’s big numbers.
“All these record-breaking numbers that we had are basically from our sporting events,” Thomas says.
Following the heightened 2020 Covid concerns, 2021 may have started with a whimper, but is ending with a bang — for example, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus will host 128 of the best high school girls basketball teams in the state and beyond, as well as 32 boys high school teams, at the Tampa Bay Christmas Invitational beginning tomorrow and running through Jan. 1.
The tournament expects to bring 1,500 coaches and players and 3,000 total spectators for the event, meaning the Sports Campus will be capping its first full year of operation with the equivalent of a slam dunk. “It’s been an awesome year,” says Richard Blalock, the CEO of RADDSports, which operates the Sports Campus in a public-private partnership with the county. “Considering all of the (Covid-related) social issues we encountered, I think it was very successful.”
Crowds at many of the tournaments at Center Ice were the norm in 2021.
Blalock says 2021 has been a challenging year, but one that came with great exposure. In fact, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus was named Small Market Venue of the Year by the Florida Sports Foundation in November.
“We were fortunate that we’re in a quasi-conservative area where we got support from the local government to be able to operate,” he says. “We just had to figure out what the rules were, come up with protocols and then follow those protocols to be able to operate.”
The Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus hosted a number of large events in 2021. Whether it was current Philadelphia Eagle and Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith preparing for the NFL Draft by working out at the campus, or USA volleyball and USA Gymnastics events, or a myriad of AAU and youth basketball, cheerleading and volleyball tournaments taking place monthly, the new facility was always bustling.
The same goes for Center Ice, which saw more than a million people pass through its doors in FY 2021.
General manager Gordie Zimmermann said his business was up more than 30 percent from 2019. Center Ice hosted an NHL Prospects tournament, burgeoning local adult and youth recreational leagues and a series of hotel-filling tournaments in ice, sled and roller hockey, as well as figure skating.
“It was pretty amazing,” Zimmermann says. “I think Florida handled (Covid) better than anybody, and we have had a lot of people coming here. Plus, hockey is on a growth spurt, and the (back-to-back Stanley Cup champion) Tampa Bay Lightning have certainly helped with that.”
The five-rink facility is one of a kind in the Southeast, and you won’t find many like it in the U.S., Zimmermann says, making it a popular destination for big tournaments.
The biggest sporting event held in Pasco County this year was at Center Ice, according to Thomas — the TORHS (Tournament of Roller Hockey Series) Nationals in June. The tournament runs 8-10 days, had more than 150 teams and generated 2,300 room nights. Thomas says the economic impact to the county of the event was roughly $3 million.
As we head into 2022, could another record-breaking year be in store? Thomas doesn’t see why not.
With the impact created by sports as great as it has been, Thomas and others see only growth.
Wesley Chapel has facilities, like the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus (above), that can host more than 1,000 people over the course of a weekend, providing a boost to the tourism dollars generated in Pasco County. (Photos courtesy of Florida’s Sports Coast)
A recent study commissioned by Florida’s Sports Coast, which was intended to find the gaps in the amateur sports arena, showed that adaptive sports, or sports that are accessible to those who are disabled, is a possible growth area. An aquatics facility is on the radar as well, and private developers have inquired about things like BMX and surf parks, as well as a track & field facility.
Adaptive basketball could be headed to the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, says Blalock. Thomas says the county also is working on the bringing the U.S. Fencing championships to the Sports Campus, in addition to a large Can-Am competition between first responders from Canada and the U.S.
Saddlebrook Resort may host the 2022 American FootGolf League national championships in 2022. The relatively new sport is like golf but is played with feet and a soccer ball instead of clubs and a golf ball.
“We are thinking outside the norm,” Thomas says.
Center Ice will launch the Sunshine Cup this summer, a week-long tournament that will feature teams from the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Europe. The mid-July event is expecting more than 3,000 visitors and would eclipse the TORHS event as the largest tournament hosted by the facility.
“We’ve always considered ourselves to be a player in the sports tourism industry,” says Thomas. “People are starting to notice our success, and they want to be a part of it. We’re excited. We’re an amateur sports hot spot, and we have some great opportunities for growth.”
JoLynn Warner, the faculty advisor for the Wiregrass Ranch High Key Club, delivers gifts for families to the Lacoochee Elementary student services team this holiday season. (Far left is Mrs. David, school social worker, then Nancy Montoya, guidance counselor, and far right is Dr. Mazzone, school psychologist.
As a long-time member of Kiwanis International, Martha Vaguener knows the value the organization can bring to a community.
That’s why she has helped start the Kiwanis Club of Wesley Chapel and serves as its treasurer, after serving as the president at the Zephyrhills Kiwanis Club for nine years, before it closed several years ago.
She says the Wesley Chapel club officially chartered in April 2020 and has the support of a sponsoring club in Carrollwood, but says that making a go of a service organization during a pandemic — where opportunities for service have looked very different — has been challenging.
However, it is happening.
“The whole point of Kiwanis is to change the world one child and one community at a time,” says Martha.
Kiwanis International is a service organization with more than 550,000 members in 80 countries and geographic areas, including members of all ages, from K-Kids Clubs to high school Key Clubs to Kiwanis Clubs. It was founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan, as the Supreme Lodge Benevolent Order of Brothers, and changed its name to Kiwanis a year later. The name “Kiwanis” comes from an American Indian expression, “Nunc Kee-wanis,” which means, “We trade.” While it originally focused on business networking, it became focused on service in 1919.
Kiwanis clubs globally host nearly 150,000 service projects each year.
Kiwanis has clubs for kids of all ages, including Key Clubs for high school students. Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) has a Key Club with more than 100 members.
For the holidays, both the Wesley Chapel Kiwanis Club and WRH Key Club adopted families from the underprivileged Lacoochee Elementary in Dade City.
Key Club sponsor JoLynn Warner says her students were inspired by Martha’s stories of how the Zephyrhills Kiwanis Club’s past charitable efforts have helped the school, such as how attendance increased drastically in winter months one year because the club provided shoes for the children, allowing them to get to school in colder weather.
“My students can’t even imagine not being able to go to school because they don’t have shoes to wear,” JoLynn explains, “so they’re excited to help.”
While JoLynn oversaw the collection of toys, clothes and other items from students to benefit the families the WRH Key Club adopted, Martha, who serves as a Key Club advisor, took a group of Key Club members shopping to help her choose the items that would go to the families the Kiwanis Club adopted.
“It helps to develop community awareness, develop citizenship and do good in the community,” Martha explains.
The partnership benefits both groups, as adults in Kiwanis Club support the students’ efforts — such as in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life, which will be coming up in early 2022 — and the students support the causes of the adult club as they grow into people who value giving back to their community.
“When we improve the lives of kids,” Martha explains, “we improve the lives of families, as well.” Martha says the Wesley Chapel Kiwanis Club currently has about 10 members and wants to grow. The Kiwanis Club of Wesley Chapel meets the second and fourth Tuesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the Seven Oaks clubhouse, although the club will not meet on Dec. 28.
To learn more about getting involved in Wesley Chapel Kiwanis Club, email Martha Vaguener at mvaguener@aol.com or call her at (813) 362-5799.
