Category: Featured

College Students Host ‘Zoomhall’ For New Tampa Study

New Tampa is at its best when it comes together to fight for important additions to the community, like the 2017 budget battle that led to an expansion of the New Tampa Rec Center.

Three Master of Social Work (MSW) students at Southeastern University in Lakeland hosted a New Tampa Town Hall meeting on Zoom, hoping to discuss the community’s potential for growth.

The final verdict? To grow, you need to connect.

During the 40-minute Zoom call on May 4, presenters Darlene Starrette, Kyrin Backlund and Melissa Rice (a 20-year resident of New Tampa and the only member of her group that lives here) discussed the opportunities that New Tampa could partake in to increase community engagement. In addition, they held an open forum to hear from the 17 attendees present, including District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera.

“While New Tampa can feel like a disconnected place, residents have voices that matter and we would like to hear your voices,” Starrette said.

The Zoom call was part of a final project in the course “Generalist Practice with Groups, Communities and Organizations.” The three students completed their first year in the Master’s program and are currently beginning their summer internships. Next year, the students will start their final clinical year to earn their MSW degrees.

Rice was the one who suggested focusing on New Tampa for their final project. She described herself not as a social butterfly, but as someone who was interested in hearing from the people of her community.

“New Tampa just isn’t talked about much at all,” Rice said. “Living here, I was very interested in other people’s perceptions of the community.”

One of the main issues discussed during the meeting was the lack of interaction between New Tampa neighborhoods. Viera, who has long argued the same thing, said that New Tampa needed a better collective community identity.

“We see ourselves as Tampa Palms, Hunter’s Green, Richmond Place, Cory Lake Isles, K-Bar Ranch, Grand Hampton, etc. and we don’t see ourselves as New Tampa collectively,” Viera said.

During the Zoom call, a link was shared to a 42-page community engagement tool kit that covers the demographics of New Tampa, benefits of community engagement and survey results posted on the app Nextdoor. From the responses of 21 residents who took the survey, the lack of social and cultural events in New Tampa was highlighted as a priority.

“In terms of its cohesiveness and community spirit, it’s not a town — it’s just a zip code,” said Priscilla Stephenson, a Tampa resident who participated in the meeting.

The New Tampa Performing Arts Center (PAC), which has been 17 years in the making, also was a hot topic during the meeting. The team encouraged the Zoom call participants to email and voice their support for the vote occurring the next day. On May 5, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners approved the construction contract of the PAC.

“In our research, we found that there are a lot of benefits to engaging the community,” Backlund said, “including overall health, sense of belonging and social connectedness.”

Rice talked about how some members of the community wanted better transportation and more affordable housing. From her notes, she recorded that New Tampa residents also wanted to fill some of the open store fronts, build cultural bridges and have more restaurants in the area.

Although two of the three MSW students aren’t residents of New Tampa, each member has worked towards a common goal of establishing New Tampa’s sense of community. Backlund suggested creating a Facebook page for the New Tampa area to keep the community discussion going.

While nearby Wesley Chapel has three robust community Facebook pages with nearly 60,000 total combined members, New Tampa’s busiest Facebook page, New Tampa Online Yardsale!, is mostly for selling household items.

“I’m just hoping that this isn’t the end,” Backlund said. “Our goal is to get people on board and start to actually make some significant changes.”

The three MSW students want the residents of New Tampa to take pride in their community and to keep engaging through community events.

“It’s really up to the community to decide that this is a good thing for them and it’s something that they really want to do,” Starrette said.

New Tampa Townhall

Wharton Valedictorian Manages To Make It Look Easy

*Siya Patel, foreground, worked hard to graduate with the highest GPA for a female in Wharton history, utilizing advice from brother Yash (background), last year’s salutatorian.* ***(Photo: Charmaine George).***

Siya Patel knew when she entered Wharton High that she could become her class valedictorian, but she didn’t really give it much thought.

Instead, Siya decided to focus on her grade-point-average. While the two things — a high GPA and becoming a valedictorian — go hand in hand, she decided she wanted to post the highest GPA ever, so instead of chasing another student for valedictorian, she decided to chase a number: 9.0.

When Siya officially graduates, it will be with a 9.09 weighted GPA, the highest ever for a Wharton High female. Tori Bell had a 9.01 in 2019.

“I wanted my GPA to be well over 9, because that’s the highest in Wharton’s history,” Siya says. “Due to Covid, I thought I wouldn’t make it because some of the classes I wanted to take were only being taught in school. But, I was able to work around it and accomplish my goal.”

Siya achieved her goal with a busy schedule of classes, taking as many as she was allowed. In her time at Wharton, she took 15 dual enrollment course online — three classes each semester her last two years — through Hillsborough Community College, as well as 13 AP classes for Wharton.

While that may sound like a grind, for Siya, it wasn’t. She managed to fit in time playing the violin in the school orchestra, she was in a number of Honors clubs and volunteered 200 hours.

Like almost every valedictorian at every school, she was masterful in not taking too much and using enhanced time management skills to get it all done.

“I didn’t ever think it was too hard,” she says. “I always just did what I could do.”

The key was not letting the schedule get the best of her. She was attending school during normal hours, and would do her homework before starting on her HCC assignments. She says she split up everything evenly during the week so her weekends wouldn’t be filled with stressful deadlines.

She did not try for an AA degree, saying that it would have involved too many unnecessary classes that she wouldn’t normally be taking. So instead, she took extra math classes. Her favorite was AP Statistics.

She’ll attend USF in the fall and major in finance. Sometimes, she sits with her father, Dr. Prakashkumar Patel, a neurologist, and her mother, Aarti Patel, and helps do the billing for her father’s practice.

Siya will join brother Yash, a biomedical science major, at USF. Last year, Yash was the salutatorian at Wharton, and used his experience to help guide his sister to the top of the academic standings this year.

“He always helped me whenever I needed help, and was one of the biggest reasons I was able to become valedictorian at Wharton,” she says.

Yash says he is proud of his sister. He advised her about what classes to take, and which ones to avoid, and was happy to see her finish No. 1.

Yash says the best piece of advice he gave his sister was to not rest on her laurels. No one ever asks if he was salutatorian in high school, and next year, no one will probably ask Siya if she was valedictorian. It is one of those nice but fleeting distinctions, and something he says she will discover quickly fades into the past.

“This is just one step in the journey,” he says. “When you go to college you still have to show that same rigor and effort and still be motivated, even if you’re not first every time.”

That won’t be a problem for Siya. When she reunited with the senior class of 2021, which has been scattered due to Covid— some learning in school, others learning at home — due to Covid, she shared that same advice with her classmates at graduation.

“Take everything they’ve learned the last 13 years,” she says, “and put it to good use.”

valedictorian Wharton

Commissioners Vote To Build The PAC

The New Tampa Players (NTP), a local acting troupe looking for a permanent home, recently finished a run of shows with a cast of just a handful of performers in a 2,000-sq.-ft. black box theater at the old University Mall.

It’s not exactly what the group may have envisioned when it started nearly 20 years ago with the hope of a cultural center they could call home in the heart of New Tampa, but now, they can see a spotlight at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks in part to a public outpouring of support from many NTP and New Tampa community members, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners voted 5-2 to approve a $7.3-million construction contract to build the long-awaited New Tampa Performing Arts Center (NTPAC).

“We weren’t 100 percent it would go through, but we are super happy it did,” said Nora Paine, a long-time member and current president of the NTP.

The vote is the biggest step yet for the project, which dates back to 2001, and was initially approved in 2014. Commissioner Ken Hagan, whose District 2 includes New Tampa, says a groundbreaking for the state-of-the-art, 20,000-sq.-ft. (expandable to 30,000 square feet) NTPAC should be scheduled in the next month or two.

Hagan would like to see the project, which is located in the Village at Hunter’s Lake development across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the entrance to the Hunter’s Green community, completed by September of 2022.

“I’m ecstatic over the results,” Hagan says. “Good things come to those who wait. It only took 17 years, but we finally got over the finish line. The end result is that next year, New Tampa is going to have a first-class facility that’s going to be a wonderful centerpiece for the entire community to enjoy.”

Hagan told the Neighborhood News that the construction contract has been awarded to Dunedin-based Bandes Construction, but that the Request for Proposals to operate the PAC hasn’t yet happened.

Hagan told the Board he had received more than 140 emails in support of the NTPAC project. The handful of emails Hagan said he received in opposition to building it primarily dealt with traffic concerns.

Prior to the vote, more than a dozen speakers, including many NTP members, asked the commissioners to keep the PAC dream alive.

“A lot of us had concerns of (the project just being) small stores and another apartment complex,” said Hunter’s Green resident Rob Larsen. “Well, to our surprise, the Performing Arts Center was going to be the heart of this new center. And without it, it basically dies.”

District 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell sent an email of support, and Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents New (and North) Tampa in District 7, weighed in as well, promising a commitment from the city to help pay some of the PAC’s operating costs.

Joining Hagan in voting to award the construction contract were commissioners Harry Cohen, Stacy White, Kimberly Overman and Gwen Myers.

They all cited the promises made to New Tampa residents over the years and, as Hagan pointed out, the money to build the PAC was approved back in 2019 and has been waiting to be spent.

“Promises made, promises kept,” said Comm. Myers. “I hope no other community would go through 17 years waiting on a decision from our county.”

The New Tampa Players, performing “Little Mermaid”, may soon have a permanent home to put on its productions. (Photo: James Cass of Picture This of Palma Ceia)

Commissioners Mariella Smith and BCC chair Pat Kemp voted against awarding the construction contract.

Smith said she didn’t believe the rights to operate the PAC once it was built should be awarded to the Manatee County-based Florida Cultural Group (FCG).

Kemp was critical of the PAC’s location. She said it was a “little teeny place carved out of a massive parking lot” and jammed between a strip mall and an apartment complex, both which financially benefited the developers and left the PAC’s actual location as an afterthought.

“It would just be a boondoggle for me to put an iconic building that you put up a lot of money for behind a strip mall and in front of a four-story apartment building,” Kemp said.

Following the construction vote, the commissioners addressed the concerns about FCG by voting unanimously for a Request for Proposals (RFP) to reopen the bidding process in order to find a group to handle the PAC operations.

Hagan says the county staff felt that FCG was the best organization to run the facility to get it to a net-zero operation, and that its extensive experience at fund raising and luring national acts would be an ideal fit.

“Unless there’s another organization that we’re unaware of, our staff feels that at the end, after going through the RFP, it will likely be FCG again,” Hagan says. “Whoever it is, I just want them to be able to be effective and able to fund raise and bring in national acts.”

Hagan said he also will champion the creation of an additional local board, comprised of New Tampa residents, to support the facility and help with any other issues.

For more information about the New Tampa Players, visit NewTampaPlayers.org. The troupe’s latest project, “Motherhood Out Loud.” runs June 11-12 at 7:30 p.m., June 13 at 3 p.m., June 18-19 at 7:30 p.m. and June 20 at 3 p.m. at the Uptown Stage at the University Mall (2200 E. Fowler Ave.).

Ken Hagan New Tampa Performing Arts Center new tampa players

Notes: Ehrhard Named Tops In County

Wharton High shortstop Zach Ehrhard received the Wade Boggs Athletic Achievement Award May 19 in a ceremony at the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners meeting.

It is the second time in four years the award has been given to a Wharton player, with Zach’s brother Drew winning it in 2017. Drew went on to win a Division II national championship with the University of Tampa in 2019, and currently stars for the No. 14-ranked Spartans.

Zach, who will attend 21st-ranked (in Div. I) Oklahoma State University in Stillwater in the fall, led the Wildcats to a 21-5 record and a District 7A-7 title this season, batting .438 with 29 runs scored, 12 doubles, 3 home runs and 21 RBI. He finished his Wharton career with a .417 average.

The Wade Boggs Athletic Achievement Award, which was started in 2006, is named for Boggs, a Hall of Famer who also assists coach Scott Hoffman with the Wharton baseball team. The most notable winner of it is New York Met and last year’s National League Rookie of the Year Pete Alonso, who received the award in 2013 after playing at Plant High.

DOUBLE BRONZE: The spring sports season is officially over, and Wharton cross country and track standout Brooke Reif made sure it ended with a couple of school records.

Running at the Florida High School Athletics Association Class 4A State championships on May 8, the junior set the Wharton High mark in the mile and 2-mile races. finishing third in both.

Reif ran the mile (1600 meters) race in a sterling time of 4 minutes, 57.58 seconds, becoming the first Wildcat girl to run a sub-5:00 mile. While she was seven seconds off the winning time, she was less than one second from finishing second.

In the 2-mile (3200-meter) race, Reif finished in 10:49.47. While eight seconds off the winning pace, she again bettered her school record, which she broke for the third time this season.

Reif also ran on Wharton’s 4×800 relay at state. The team finished 10th in the state by running 9:37.38.

Other top finishers:

• Sophomore Serenity Brazell took 11th in the girls 400m in 58.32 seconds.

• Senior Jared Hammill, who has signed with the University of Tampa, took 5th in the boys mile in 4:16.97, missing breaking Wharton’s school record by less than half a second.

•Senior Tavis Wilson took 9th in the boys 100m in 11.07 seconds

• Senior Illya Jackson took 11th in the boys pole vault, clearing 12’- 9.5”.

SLOW AND STEADY: When coach Tripp Merrell took over the Freedom High baseball team in 2019, he knew a hard job awaited. But after a 6-15 record his first season, the Patriots wrapped up 2021 with a respectable 12-13 record, the most wins since the team went 15-10 in 2012.

Junior infielder Raul Olivera batted .430 and led the team in almost every category, including hits with 34, the most since Dane Moore had 35 in 2010.

The entire pitching staff was underclassmen, as well as the team’s top five hitters. So Merrell’s rebuilding job appears to be headed in the right direction.

wharton high school zach ehrhard

Cypress Creek Valedictorian: Ashleigh Lacey

Ashleigh Lacey had a lofty goal when she entered Cypress Creek High as part of its first freshman class — she didn’t want to get anything lower than an “A’’ in any class she took. Ever.

It wasn’t that far-fetched of an idea. The only “B’’ she had ever received was in third grade at Denham Oaks Elementary. The subject was reading, which is actually something she loves to do. Like any good student, she analyzed why she didn’t get an A and made sure she never made that mistake again.

“Back then, I thought you could only get As if you were a nice person,’’ Ashleigh says. “I just thought I needed to be nicer. But, that isn’t how it works.’’

It helps to be nice, and Ashleigh certainly is. But, the hard work is the most important thing.

After four years of budgeting her time between classes, extracurricular activities and a part-time job, Ashleigh has accomplished her goal.

She will finish her high school career with a weighted grade point average of 4.6. She earned only As in every class she took, which included her favorite classes (history and psychology) and her not so favorite classes (anything to do with math).

On June 2, Ashleigh will graduate as Cypress Creek’s valedictorian. She will be the first valedictorian to attend all four years at the school, which opened in 2017.

“I guess I’m in the school history books,’’ Ashleigh (photo) says.

She already has taken enough college-level classes to earn her Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree, which means she will enter college needing only two years to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree. She will attend the University of South Florida in Tampa on an academic scholarship.

“I’m kind of a perfectionist, so when I entered high school I told myself that I want to get all As,’’ Ashleigh says. “I didn’t even know what a valedictorian was.’’

*Ashleigh Lacey (in front) competed in track for Cypress Creek, winning a district championship in the long jump this season. She plans to try to walk onto the track team at USF.*

It was certainly not an easy path to graduation for any student over the past year and a half. Covid-19 restrictions reduced half of the 2020 school year to on-line learning only. Students were given a choice of on-line or in-person learning this school year. Ashleigh did both.

What’s also impressive is that Ashleigh didn’t just spend her high school days in classrooms and libraries or behind a computer screen. She has been part of the school’s art club for three years. And, she is an important member of the Coyotes’ track team. She won the District long jump championship last month and advanced to the Regional meet. She also competes in the 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles and is part of the school’s 4x100m relay team.

In short, she is one of those student athletes who excels at whatever she decides to try.

“I would say that’s right,’’ her father Robert says. “You could see signs of it as a child, just in the way she organized and lined up certain toys in a perfect row. She always did very well in school. She’s just always done well in everything she’s done. She’s competed in speech contests and done well. She played the flute for a while and became an All-County flute player. She’s a very talented artist. She excels at anything she picks up.’’

The next step is college. Ashleigh’s goal is to attend medical school at USF and eventually become a psychiatrist. Early on, she thought maybe she might like to be a lawyer, but after taking advanced classes in biology and psychology, she decided to change her goals.

“I would read books on those subjects just for fun,’’ she says. “Sometimes I’m kind of a nerd.’’

Just because she is off to college doesn’t Ashleigh’s goals will change. She still doesn’t want to get a B. And, she says she would like the chance to walk on to USF’s track team.

She won’t be far away from the Wesley Chapel home where she grew up. She’ll be able to visit her younger brother Luke and parents, Robert and mom Michelle, often. As expected, Ashleigh credits her parents as having been a key to her success.

“They’ve been very encouraging,’’ Ashleigh says. “They’ve never pressured me. They put a lot of trust in me.’’

Well-earned trust.

“We’re lucky that she’s been so driven,’’ Robert says. “We haven’t had to push her. She’s taken care of her academics. She’s really taken control of her life. She’s made our jobs as parents a lot easier.’’

The Cypress Creek High graduation is scheduled for Wednesday, June 2, 7 p.m. at the school’s football stadium.

Ashleigh Lacey Cypress Creek High valedictorian