These are more than words to non-partisan judicial candidate Ashley Willis Ivanov, who is running to become the next Group 19 judge of Floridaâs 13th Circuit Court.
To her, they hold value when they are lived out. Professionally and personally, Ivanov says she lives out these ideals.
Ivanov, an attorney who lives in Lithia, has handled a diverse range of cases, including litigated and non-litigated matters, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. She presently focuses her practice on probate and estate planning.
âIntegrity in the practice of law is important for the rule of law to be effectively carried out,â she says.
Born in Charleston, SC, Ivanov graduated magna cum laude with honors from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and cum laude from Vermont Law School in South Royalton.
She previously clerked for the federal government, interned at the U.S. Department of Justice and later worked for large, mid-size and small law firms in Washington D.C., Maryland and Hillsborough County, where she started her own law firm in early 2018.
A member of the Hillsborough County Bar Association, Ivanov zealously advocates for her clients, giving them straightforward feedback. Sometimes, this may mean informing a prospective client that he or she does not have much of a case or that the legal fees in the matter could be higher than what the client may have initially anticipated. âTransparency is part of being ethical,â she says.
The public testimonies of Ivanovâs clients attest to her professionalism.
Reading to children in the Head Start Program with her fellow Rotarians (above) is one of the ways Ashley Ivanov, a candidate for Circuit Court judge, gives back. (Photo: Ashley Ivanov campaign)
âMy clientsâ matters are more than pieces of paper filed in court with case numbers,â she says. âThese are real people with real stories that matter.â
In her personal life, Ivanov says she stays busy volunteering with her church and taking her daughter to Girl Scout events.
âI try to lead by example and integrity is at the center of this,â she says, adding that impartiality is a cornerstone of a judgeâs responsibilities in administering justice.
âWe need more people to run for public office who are going to do what is fair and right and, for the judiciary, uphold impartiality,â Ivanov says. âIt is not the judgeâs role to legislate from the bench, but to apply the law as it is, as created by the legislature.â
Service also is a regular part of Ivanovâs life, and she would not have it any other way. She serves with the FishHawk-Riverview Rotary and says she enjoys reading to children in the HeadStart Program with her fellow Rotarians.
As a member of the Hillsborough County Bar Associationâs Community Services Committee, Ivanov has participated in Wills for Heroes, where she prepared complimentary estate planning documents for First Responders.
For more information about Ashley Ivanovâs campaign for District 13 Circuit Court Judge, Group 19, visit VoteAshleyIvanov.com.
AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, along with AdventHealth physicians, nurses and other team members across West Florida â spanning Hardee, Highlands, Hillsborough, Marion, Pasco, and Pinellas counties âtook a bended knee today in silent reflection as part of the White Coats for Black Lives campaign.
The show of solidarity with medical professionals all over the world took place from 1-1:09 p.m. this afternoon, the 8 minutes and 46 seconds in remembrance of 46-year-old George Floyd, who died in police custody on May 25, and countless others.
Those who participated maintained social distance, wore masks and were encouraged to share photos as an expression of support online with #WhiteCoatsForBlackLives.
The #WhiteCoatsForBlackLives movement is centered on combatting :
higher rates of disease among Black communities,
higher barriers of entry to the health care industry for Black individuals,
lower rates of Black medical students, and
the fear among Black individuals to seek medical care.
Doug Greseth is the all-time winningest coach at Wesley Chapel, with a 300-164 record leading the boys basketball team.
He removed the poster of the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls team that won 72 games. He packed up boxes of trinkets and papers accumulated over 36 years of teaching physical education and 34 years of coaching.
After 17 years at Wesley Chapel High (WCH), a tenure that included a 300-164 record â the most wins of any coach at the school in any sport â Wwildcatsâ boys basketball coach Doug Greseth has officially hung up his coaching whistle.
Heâs certainly earned it. Greseth has played and coached basketball for more than 50 years and, including his previous tenure at Tampa Jefferson (1999-2002) and Okeechobee (1983-96) high schools, his coaching record was 533-325 overall
Greseth and the Wildcats finished the shortened 2019-20 season with a 16-9 record. It was the 14th year his Wildcats finished with a winning record. His run also included nine playoff appearances.
âI think kids really like discipline,â Greseth said about the secret to his success. âI think they like leadership. I think they like organization. I donât think thereâs anything wrong with being demanding with kids.â
His best seasons at Wesley Chapel were back-to-back 24-5 records in 2011-12 and 2012-13, including a District championship and two Sunshine Athletic Conference Coach of the Year awards.
Forward Erik Thomas, the schoolâs all-time leading scorer (2,138 points) and rebounder (1,203) and the 2013 Class 4A Player of the Year, starred on both of those teams. Greseth, who also spent time as an assistant coach at the University of Tampa, said Thomas was the best he ever coached, and the two still stay in touch.
âPlaying for Greseth in high school is what helped me grow into the player I am today,â says Thomas, who is currently playing professionally in Argentina. âHe was an awesome coach that really cared about his players and it showed in our performance. The fact that he is always willing to welcome me with open arms says a lot about his character and, to this day, we still remain connected.â
Greseth, who remembers high school basketball when the 3-point line was taped on the court because it was experimental prior to 1987, also fondly recalled guard Chase Bussey, the leading scorer from his first Wildcats team, forward Greg Jenkins (who went on to play football for the Oakland Raiders) and forward Isaiah Ramsey, the leading scorer on his last four WCH teams.
Peter Livingston, 36, has coached the girls basketball team at Wesley Chapel for the past six seasons, and he says the school has big basketball shoes to fill, not only for Gresethâs on-court successes, but because of the intangible benefits the coach brought to WCH.
âThe administration will be sad to see him go because you could always go to coach Greseth and he straightened things out,â Livingston says. âOne of the kids got caught doing something and the administration said they werenât going to give him a referral, but they were going to go tell coach Greseth, and the kid said, âNo, no, please, give me the referral!ââ
Known as a defensive-minded disciplinarian, the 63-year old son of an Air Force officer used his man-to-man defense to turn young boys into successful men.
More than 40 players Greseth coached went on to play basketball or football in college, including one in the NBA and three in the NFL.
Whatâs next?
âIâm not sure,â he said. âIâm going to take a vacation.â
Ciara Cotey is a Wesley Chapel native and University of South Florida graduate and the daughter of Neighborhood News managing editor John C. Cotey. She has lived and worked in Seoul, South Korea, since 2012, and has been living through the coronavirus outbreak since January.
South Korea sends out detailed emergency messages when someone is identified as having COVID-19, and includes a list of all the places they had been while infected.
I first heard about COVID-19 (which Koreans just call âcoronaâ) around the end of January, when it was becoming more widespread in China. It was the weekend of the Lunar New Year, so lots of people were traveling abroad and gathering with their families.Â
I wasnât too worried about it, and it didnât stop any of my Korean friends or coworkers from taking a weekend trip to Hong Kong or Shanghai over the vacation. I took a short trip to Daegu, which would become the epicenter of the spread in Korea, and we casually chatted about how we hoped the coronavirus would stay in China.
I teach English to some of the board members of the Central Bank of Korea, and one day when I arrived, they had a thermal camera set up outside the elevators. They informed me that I couldnât get into the building without wearing a mask. Luckily, I had a few at home to deal with the fine dust, but when I went to buy some later, I learned that masks were sold out everywhere â both in stores and online.
No one here was taking it too seriously until the last week of February, when infections quadrupled in a matter of days, due to one patient who refused a test and attended several âchurchâ events while she was sick. This led to the entire city of Daegu shutting down, and the rapid spread of the virus north into the South Korean capital of Seoul caused people to take it more seriously.
Soon, masks and hand sanitizers were quickly bought up, and the government started the warning system.
The Korean government sends out detailed national warning messages every time a new patient is discovered, and you can see the list of all the places they had been while infected.
If anyone receiving the messages had been near any of those places, there is a hotline phone number and the health department will tell you to self-quarantine. And, if you show symptoms, they will come to your house to test you.
Korea did a really good job of containing the virus when it was only China that had most of the cases. Daegu got pretty much shut down. After that, cases started popping up all over Seoul, but most of the cases still remain related to this âchurch.â
All of the registered members were tested and, after that, coronavirus testing became mandatory for people who might have come in contact with infected people.
Iâm not really scared of catching the virus, because Iâm healthy and the healthcare system in Korea is excellent, so I know I would recover. The testing and treatment of covid-19 is paid for by the government, so I also didnât have any fear of going broke if I caught it. However, I would be worried about spreading it to other people, like my adult students and their families, or my boyfriend and his parents.
Lots of working moms have had to take unpaid leave to take care of their children, as the school year continues to be postponed, currently until mid-April.
Itâs surprising to me that Americans are treating this as a vacation when the health system and response to the virus has been so abysmal. On Facebook, I see my friends back home going to the beach, going to concerts and taking advantage of the cheap flights to take a trip, and I canât imagine that happening here.
Social distancing is so important when thereâs no way to even follow the trail of infections. Americans here are all glad we stayed because if we had gone home out of fear, we wouldnât have had the same access to the health care and testing we have here.
As for the whole toilet paper thing, Koreans are literally laughing at Americans because they donât understand why toilet paper is sold out.
The only shortages I have seen have been hand sanitizer, thermometers and face masks, which are rationed by National Health Insurance. You can get 2 masks on the designated days. On Thursdays, for example, if your birth year ends with 5 or 9, you can stand in line at the pharmacy to get your masks. Luckily, my boyfriend had the foresight to order 200 masks in January, just in case.
If anything, this pandemic has created a huge demand for ordering groceries online, and people arenât stocking up or going to the grocery store because they can get whatever they want delivered whenever they want.
In general, people are still pretty worried, but some people are still living their lives the way they did before. My friends still go out and drink with their friends on the weekends, I still see restaurants packed with people.
But, everyone wears a mask in the subway and if you cough, all heads turn towards you. At the start of the issue, several foreigners here just up and left on the soonest flight to get away from the virus, I guess not knowing that it would eventually spread to their home countries as well. My close friends in Daegu are all confined to their homes because the situation in Daegu is much more stressful than it is here in Seoul.
âMy whole family communicates by calling and video chatting now,â my friend Eunyoung Kim tells me. âNone of the restaurants in the neighborhood are open except for delivery, and they just leave it outside your door after you pay electronically so thereâs no physical contact. Itâs hard not being able to share a meal with your family members for fear of getting sick.â
In a family-oriented culture like Korea, people are feeling very isolated compared to before.
At the moment, Korea is only showing about 75 or so new cases per day, with recovery rates surpassing the new cases, so it looks like itâs slowing down so far. People coming in from Europe are now forced into quarantine, so if this method works, Korea should have it fully contained within the next few months.
Stay safe, everyone. Hopefully, the U.S. response to the pandemic will continue to get better over time.
Ms. Wheelchair Florida Samantha Lebron is a New Tampa resident who now has a unique title that can help her advocate for others with disabilities, something she has been doing since 2018
Samantha Lebron knows itâs going to be a conversation starter.
The 33-year-old, wheelchair-bound New Tampa resident is, after all, wearing a crown and sash in public. It all comes with the territory when you are the reigning Ms. Wheelchair Florida.
âA couple days after I got crowned,â Samantha says, âI was actually asked about it and they asked me to sit with them at their table in a restaurant and tell them every detail. I thought, âThatâs what I went into this for.ââ
Ms. Wheelchair Florida, Inc., hosted the 47th annual âBe the ChangeâŠBe Empoweredâ Conference & Gala at the Rosen Centre in Orlando from Feb 27-March 1, and Lebron, who was born with cerebral palsy but has only been wheelchair-bound since 2018, was crowned this yearâs recipient.
And, while many think Lebronâs title is more for the pageantry or because the winner scored the best with âtalentâ judges, nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the mission of Ms. Wheelchair Florida, Inc., is to provide an opportunity for wheelchair-bound women to educate and advocate for all individuals with disabilities. In essence, it now gives Lebron a platform to advocate for causes near to her heart.
Lebron entered the contest with just that goal in mind. She says that when she was on stage, the words flowed out perfectly, leading to her being crowned the winner and setting off a flurry of photos and interviews.
âAnd, it wasnât about the glitz and glam for me,â she says. âItâs about my message and my platform being heard. I wanted to do this year right with my crown, and have the right ears listening to me, to really hit home what my platform will be.â
Lebronâs platform is to make transportation safer and more reliable for disabled individuals across the state since it is not a standardized practice throughout Florida. Each area, city or county has different methods, some better than others.
âAnd I was living it,â Lebron says. âLike a lot of other people in this county or many other places. I wanted to be a spokesperson to make this better, sure, not only for myself, but for others, as well.â
Overcoming Obstacles
Lebron says she faced many difficulties while trying to find transportation to work.
HARTPlus Paratransit has a service that offers van transportation that will pick up and drop off people at their destinations, or takes them to an accessible bus stop. But, Samantha wasnât within Ÿ of a mile of the closest bus stop, and wasnât eligible for the service. With the closest bus stop an 8-min car drive from her New Tampa apartment, she had to utilize Uber rides to the HART bus station on E. Fletcher Ave.
That led sometimes to waits of an hour for HARTPlus, which was then another hour-long ride to her previous job on E. Hillsborough Ave.
Those Uber rides were costing her $500-600 a month alone.
âThere are so many opportunities out there for jobs for people in my position,â Lebron says, âbut there are not enough options for transportation to those opportunities. This was something I felt very strongly about because…well, I was living it.â
As noted earlier, Lebron hasnât always been wheelchair bound. Up until 2018, she relied on using a walker to move around, until she sustained a neck injury that was causing nerve issues. Her doctors recommended she start using a wheelchair part time, but the pain became too great. She was told one fall could render her a paraplegic, so she is now 100-percent chair-bound.
She does still attend physical therapy and has a healthcare provider with her most of the time. In fact, she also plans to add the importance of physical therapy to her advocacy campaign.
âPeople just donât get enough of it (physical therapy),â she says.
Lebron has never let the wheelchair slow her down.
She was recently certified to be a Work Incentives Practitioner, which is a position that works with other disabled individuals, helping them get their benefits and compensation in the workforce.
She also in an ambassador and spokesperson for ABLE United, a volunteer with Best Buddies, just accepted an offer to be on the Board of Directors for Self Reliance, Inc. She also participates in wheelchair-adaptable sports like golf, tennis and kayaking.
She says that one of her goals is to be selected to the National Paralympic Table Tennis team.
Lebron also is ready to take on the duties that come with her title as Ms. Wheelchair Florida.
She has several events and speaking engagements already planned, and even if those are postponed by the coronavirus, she says she will make sure her message is heard, either by video conference, or other telecommunications or social media.
â(I will use) this position, which is an honor I am humbled to have, to talk to businesses and policymakers to break the barriers that exist in the disability community,â Lebron says. âThere were and still are a lot of barriers. Yes, (the last two years) have been great for inclusion and awareness, but we still have a long way to go.â
