The Ballad of Wild Bill

Wild Bill Peterseim

The Trials & Tribulations of Wesley Chapel’s Karaoke Legend

When I first met the man I now know as “Wild Bill” Peterseim, he was singing a medley of Elvis tunes at what was then City Grill (it’s now O’Brien’s) in the Wesley Chapel Village Market on S.R. 54.

I was just minding my own business, waiting for my turn to sing, when this slim, 70+-year-old man dropped to the floor and banged out at least 40 pushups during a 45-second musical interlude.

From that point forward, Wild Bill and an impressed certain publisher and editor became friendly, as we are both part of a crowd of regulars who go to O’Brien’s as many Wednesday and Thursday nights as possible to get our regular karaoke fix.

Flash forward at least two years. Wild Bill sought me out to tell me that he had a similar experience as something he read about in the Neighborhood News.

“I read that story about the lifeguard who saved that girl’s life at the New Tampa YMCA,” he  said. “I saved someone’s life the same way last year.”

The girl Wild Bill was referring to was an experienced, but young synchronized swimmer who  swam so far underwater she lost consciousness. The New Tampa Y lifeguard noticed the girl’s leg twitching uncharacteristically, and just as she started to go down, jumped in and saved her life.

In Bill’s story, a large, 50-something man from India who was visiting a family member in Lexington Oaks — where Bill and his wife Linda (more on her below) have lived since 2011 — in the fall of 2016, also started having body spasms while swimming in one of the community clubhouse’s two conjoined pools.

“I don’t think either he or his wife really understood English, but I started calling out to him because I could see he was panicking and now, I could hear him choking,” Bill recalls. “He was in the deep end, but finally got close enough to the wall that I could reach him from behind and even though he outweighed me by at least 50 pounds, I was able to pull him out of the water in one motion.”

And, although one or two other people saw him accomplish this heroic feat, Bill attributes what he did to God. A man of great faith, he explained that he was planning to swim his usual at least one mile in the pool that day, but he decided instead to go for his personal record in chin-ups on the monkey bars in the children’s play area at the clubhouse.

“If I had gone swimming, I would have been done and out of there long before that man started drowning and he might have died that day,” Bill told me. “But,  because I set my personal best of 320 chin-ups (in an hour and six minutes) that day instead, it took me a lot longer and I just happened to be walking by as the man started flailing. God guided me to put me in just the right place at the right time.”

Heroic From The Start…

Wild Bill — who was nicknamed that by a friend during his early karaoke days, in the 2000s, not his years in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War (he enlisted in the Air Force in 1963) — has a 140+ IQ and was gifted in science at a young age. In fact, he was a 19-year-old civilian Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-certified radar operator who was working at a military base in rural Maryland in September 1961, shortly after Bill’s 20th birthday, a few months after the Bay of Pigs incident in Cuba (which happened April 17 of that year).

It was there that he became the radar operator who was the first to “witness” a Soviet nuclear launch that took place in Siberia — literally thousands of miles from that unnamed base. At that time, the range of military radar was known to only be about 250 miles.

The amazing thing was — as he says he once told a retired Air Force General — “We were using low-frequency radar, reflecting off multiple layers of the ionosphere, over the north pole and over the central Siberian area, ranging 10 or 11,000 miles. And, the retired general’s jaw just dropped. He had never even heard (that radar could do that).”

It was during his time at this base that he was given his Top Secret clearance by the government (very rare for a U.S. civilian) and was watching the radar, when all of a sudden, “I see all of these spikes coming up all at once on the scopes, a big anomaly I had never seen before,” Bill says. “Within a minute, my boss, the radar project manager, and I were on the phone with the President (John F. Kennedy). He said, ‘Mr. President, we have verified that the Russians have just violated the nuclear test moratorium.’ And the last big nuclear arms race was on, until the last major treaty — the new nuclear moratorium of 1963 — that Kennedy signed before he was assassinated.”

Bill then worked with one-megaton nuclear missiles during his time in the Air Force and was thankful they weren’t used during his stint.

There’s Always A Girl…

Bill and Linda Peterseim. (Photo provided by Bill Peterseim)

Bill freely admits that he was ten years older than Linda, his beloved wife of 46 years, and he was 30 and she was 20 when they got married. Bill says he was actually neighbors with Linda’s best friend Marilyn when Bill was 24 and Linda was only 14. They only met once at that age, when Bill worked in his family’s RCA TV store, but Linda told her mother and Marilyn later that day that, “I just met the man I’m going to marry someday.”

Bill and Linda shared their strong Christian faith (she read thousands of books by Christian authors), but he also admits he wasn’t sure if 20-year-old Linda was “the one”…“Until the first time I saw her in a bikini.”

But, with their shared faith, “and the fact she took the wedding vows so seriously — good times and bad — she was always there for me. I just love her to pieces…and look forward to seeing her again.”

Bill had multiple long-term careers — including owning and running one of the largest Century 21 real estate brokerage firms in the Cleveland area in the 1970s and selling insurance, mutual funds, stocks — that kept the blissful couple in their native Ohio until the early 2000s, when they moved to Orlando.

 

 

Karaoke…Meet Ponzi

Bill also became a Certified Financial Planner and a sometime Christian broadcaster when he and Linda lived in Orlando, and he started singing karaoke at the original Avalon Park development. That’s where he first met a very charismatic younger man named Chris Maguire, although the two weren’t involved in business together until years later, when Bill and Linda had moved to a rented home in Meadow Pointe.

Bill says that despite all of his experience, after the bottom dropped out of the real estate market here in Florida in 2007, he was having trouble finding work. Maguire offered him the opportunity to sell “proof of funds letters”  in 2012. “I looked it up on-line and asked friends in the corporate world who said it’s a legitimate thing,” he says. “It just wasn’t legitimate with this guy.”

He adds that Maguire, “came with all kinds of credentials, and everything worked great for about a year and a half. And, I encouraged people — many of whom sought me out when they heard I was involved — to take money out of the investment. But of course, if you’re going to be a con man…a Ponzi scheme guy, you’re not going to be somebody that people hate.”

It wasn’t long after Bill got involved with Maguire that we met at City Grill. Despite his outgoing nature, Bill never mentioned anything to me about being bilked in a Ponzi scheme, but now, years later, he is still fighting the after-effects of being taken in by the man who is now serving 10 years in federal prison.

“He’s no Bernie Madoff, but he’s the same kind of guy,” Bill says. “A few people who got out early made money, but dozens of people lost millions of dollars to this guy.”

And, after buying their home in Lexington Oaks in 2014, Bill found out just how much of a victim he had been.  After years of negotiating with the government, because Bill actually originally made money on Maguire’s scheme, he and Linda found out in mid-2017 that they would have to sell their $300,000 home in Lexington Oaks in order to pay back what the federal government told him that they owed.

And Then…Tragedy

It wasn’t long after the Peterseims found out that they could lose their home that Linda was diagnosed with a recurrence of the rare form of ocular melanoma that caused her to have her right eye removed three years ago.

Linda and Bill Peterseim less than a year before she passed away, after 46 years of marriage. (Photo provided by Bill Peterseim)

“But, it seemed like they got it, because she was fine for almost three more years,” Bill says, “when she started having pressure and soon, terrible pain in her other eye. She passed away on November 16, only three weeks later. 

I only met Linda once that I can recall — for Bill’s 75th birthday in 2016 — but even though Bill says she couldn’t handle how loud it is at most karaoke bars, including O’Brien’s, Jannah and I would see Bill, and our other O’Brien’s karaoke friends — Derrell, Jay W, Emil, PJ and John, to name a few — pretty much at least one day every week.

Bill and Derrell (the professional Elvis impersonator who also works at Costco) both sing a lot of Elvis and 1960s-era rock, while I skew more to 1970s icons like Billy Joel, Springsteen and the late, great Tom Petty. But, Bill always attracts attention from people of all ages, not only when he drops and gives everyone on hand anywhere from 30-55 pushups during any lengthy musical interlude, but also for his voice, his personality and his showmanship.

So, he’s been an American hero, a successful real estate guy, a broadcaster, a Ponzi scheme victim, a widower and a proud, faithful Christian who unsuccessfully hoped his savior could save his beloved wife. I’m hoping he’ll be able to negotiate a deal where he gets to stay in the home that he and Linda bought together, but he could be forced to sell it shortly after this issue sees print.

Either way, Wild Bill, it’s been a wild ride so far and the final chapter won’t be written until you and your beloved Linda meet again. In the meantime, keep singing and doing those pushups.

If anyone can help keep Bill in his home or wants to hire a truly great guy, please email me at GaryN44@yahoo.com.  

Wesley Chapel 2017 Year in review: Top business

Center Ice Transforms Wesley Chapel

There are many businesses that excite, fill a need in and make an impact on a community.  Very few, however, could be called “transformational.”

In 2017, Florida Hospital Center Ice was truly transformational.

“I think that’s the right word,’’ said Hope Allen, the CEO of the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce. “It has made such an important impact on our community. It has really changed the landscape.”

After officially opening on January 25, FHCI’s impact was felt immediately. The first night attracted 300 skaters, the weekend drew more than 600, and nearly 400 signed up for Learn To Skate classes.

That was just the beginning. From hockey tournaments and leagues to figure skating to corporate outings, the $28-million, 150,500-sq.-ft. FHCI made nearly every weekend in 2017 a big one.

By the end of the year, roughly a million visitors had passed through the doors of FHCI, located just northeast of the S.R. 56 and I-75 interchange.

“Definitely the demographics are good, the population is ripe for what we do,” says Gordie Zimmerman, managing partner of FHCI developer ZMitch, LLC. “The community is just totally excited about the facility. We have been blown away by the response and turnout. It’s been great.”

FHCI is the largest ice skating and hockey facility south of New York. Zimmerman estimates that more than 1,500 local kids have enrolled in various hockey and ice skating programs at FHCI, including a youth travel hockey program that was expected to start with four or five teams, but instead has nine.

There is curling on Saturday nights, and FHCI’s adult hockey league has 46 teams, and grows every 12 weeks when the next new season begins. In July, a roller hockey tournament attracted 120 teams, and is already scheduled for a return. There have been figure skating competitions and exhibitions as well, and FHCI hosted the Statewide Amateur Hockey of Florida (SAHOF) high school championships, where Wiregrass Ranch High, coached by Zimmerman, finished as the runner-up.

But FHCI, which is expected to deliver an economic impact of roughly $20 million a year, is more than just an ice rink, “which is kind of our slogan,” Zimmerman says.

To that end, it hosted events like the Taste of New Tampa & Wesley Chapel (which returns March 25), “American Idol” auditions and dozens and dozens of corporate events and things like holiday parties in 2017.

“It has become a facility for many in terms of sports and corporate, and the two blend very nicely together,’’ Zimmerman says, adding that 71 corporate outings and meetings are already on the books for 2018.

Zimmerman says that to pick his 2017 highlight is a difficult task.

“There have been a bunch of them,” he says. “Every weekend, there was something happening.”

But, while FHCI has already scored a number of coups leading to national exposure, the biggest “get” for the new facility was landing the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey team.

Since September, the team has trained at FHCI in preparation for the 2018 Winter Games next month in Pyeongchang County, South Korea. Wesley Chapel is mentioned prominently in practically every article written about the team, and their presence has helped ignite an interest in developing women’s hockey in Florida.

The U.S. beat Canada 4-1 at FHCI in a Four Nations Cup exhibition in November, and tickets sold out.

Wesley Chapel 2017 Year in Review: People

(l.-r.) Zezura, son Jordyn, daughter Aryanna and Patrick Ruddell have made their Mini Doughnut Factory in South Tampa one of Tampa Bay’s hottest spots, and hope to bring one to Wesley Chapel one day. (Photo courtesy of Lindsey Meyer)

It Was A Busy Year For Locals Making Their Mark

From online stars to booming business, from reality competition shows to good old-fashioned game shows, Wesley Chapel saw its share of residents get their 15 minutes of fame in 2017.

Back in August, Florida Hospital Center Ice was home to “Tampa Bay Idol,” an audition for the new incarnation of “American Idol,” which will now air on ABC-TV. The local tryout was hosted by Channel 28-WFTS-TV’s “ABC Action News,” and more than 400 people showed up to audition.

Over the past 12 months, we have introduced you to Wesley Chapel residents and “Idol” hopefuls Brittany Collins, 28, who is a third-grade teacher at Heritage Elementary in New Tampa, and Caloi Koelndorfer, a 16-year-old junior at Wiregrass Ranch High.

“It was awesome,’’ Caloi said of her audition. “I just let it go and tried to have fun.”

Those who got the thumbs-up – including both Brittany and Caloi – were awarded a “front-of-the-line” certificate to the next round of tryouts, held in Orlando. Unfortunately, both of their “American Idol” journeys ended there.

We’ve heard that one Wesley Chapel resident and two “Tampa Bay Idol” contestants may have made it to the next round of auditions. But, that’s still all we know at this time. The show doesn’t air until March, so we’ll keep you posted if a Wesley Chapel resident appears on it.

Then, in October, we watched NBC-TV’s “The Voice,” catching glimpses of 16-year-old Wiregrass Ranch High junior Alexandra Joyce. Her audition and subsequent battle round were reduced to montages on the show, so the hit show’s audience didn’t get to really appreciate the full extent of the teen’s talents.

After three chairs turned around for Alexandra –— those of Academy- and Grammy-award winner Jennifer Hudson, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine and country crooner Blake Shelton — she joined Jennifer’s team. But, Alexandra’s journey on the show ended in her first battle round.

“I think it’s definitely been kind of a stepping stone for me,” she says. “I have a single on iTunes; I never in a million years thought I would have a single on iTunes.” Alexandra’s two audition songs, Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” and Charlie Puth’s “One Call Away” are both still available.

In November, Wesley Chapel resident Christopher Moody’s stint on the CBS-TV daytime game show “Let’s Make A Deal” aired.

Which was more memorable — that he won $18,000 worth of prizes, including a new dining room set and a 7-day trip for two to Greece, or Moody’s spot-on hot dog costume?

Moody was offered $1,000 for a box with unknown contents — then $1,400, then $2,000.

“I turned it down,” Moody says. “It was just a gut feel. Right from the beginning, I was hoping I’d win a trip, I had a good hunch that is what was going to be in the box.”

Turns out he’s glad he followed that hunch.

And, we don’t want to forget to mention Zammy, the 100-pound “sheepadoodle” whose picture at the Shops at Wiregrass mall (right) went viral on the social media site reddit.

Zammy had about 600 followers on his Instagram account, @ZammyPup, before his photo hit reddit. After that, his owner, New Tampa resident Todd Pitner, says, “It went from 600 to 1,000 overnight, then 2,000 in a week, then 9,000.”

This pic of Zammy went viral after it was posted on reddit, and Todd Pitner (top right) says it has been viewed more than a million times.

Zammy continues to gain fans. As of the end of 2017, the lovable Sheepadoodle has more than 71,000 followers.

“Zammy’s just a really special dog, with a special personality,” says Todd, “and he brings joy to people.”

Something else that brings joy to people is – let’s be honest – doughnuts. Another Wesley Chapel resident we featured in 2017 was Patrick Ruddell who has made his Mini Doughnut Factory in South Tampa one of Tampa Bay’s hottest spots, with a crowd almost always out the door.

Ridell’s second Mini Doughnut Factory just opened in St. Petersburg.

At one point this year, Patrick and his wife, Zezura, were on the verge of a deal to open a store in Wesley Chapel on S.R. 56. What they thought was a done deal, however, wasn’t, as they say the leasing company reneged on an agreement.

As for opening a store in the community where they live, Patrick says, “We want it more than anything.” Here’s hoping 2018 is the year that brings Wesley Chapel its own Mini Doughnut Factory.

Wesley Chapel 2017 Year in Review: Sports

Hockey, Tennis & Lots Of Firsts For Area High School Teams

Wesley Chapel has had the occasional high school team break through. Saddlebrook Resort trains world-renowned tennis players. But, to call our community a sports “mecca” would be an overstatement.

That may, however, be changing.

Consider in 2017 alone: Wesley Chapel hosted the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey team training camp, some of the best professional women’s tennis players in the world competed in the Federation Cup semifinals at Saddlebrook, a new indoor sports facility received approval (and will break ground next year) and even the local kids made a little history at Wiregrass Ranch, Wesley Chapel and Cypress Creek high schools.

Not bad for one year.

As for ranking what we feel were the top stories, where do we start?

* The U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey team training for the 2018 Winter Olympics was huge news. We wrote about it on page 11.

* The RADD Sports indoor sports complex will break ground in 2018, and could be open by spring of 2019. While we’re still not sure how much use Wesley Chapel residents will get out of the complex, its overall local economic impact is likely to be significant.

* The Fed Cup semifinal pitting the U.S. against the defending champion Czech Republic at Saddlebrook Resort in February put a buzz in the area’s significant tennis population.

Saddlebrook constructed a temporary 3,500-seat stadium around one of the resort’s Har-Tru Classic Green Clay Courts, and it was nearly full on both days of the event, despite temperatures that were blazing.

The Fed Cup, started in 1963 as the women’s version of the men’s Davis Cup, is the world’s largest annual international team competition in women’s sports, with roughly 100 teams competing.

The semifinals were a good get for Wesley Chapel, and the U.S. delivered an exciting down-to-the-wire 3-2 win as Coco Vandeweghe and Bethanie Mattek-Sands won the final doubles match to clinch it.

Many of those who watched from the stands in Saddlebrook that weekend were also watching from their couches in November on The Tennis Channel as Vandeweghe (this time with Shelby Rogers) again clinched a 3-2 win in Minsk, Belarus, ending a 17-year Fed Cup championship drought for the Americans.

* Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) became the first team from Wesley Chapel to win a Florida High School Athletic Association football playoff game, despite a few 10-0 seasons back in the early-2000s by Wesley Chapel High (WCH).

The Mark Kantor-coached Bulls, led by 1,000-yard rusher Adrian Thomas, managed a school best-ever 9-3 record, and a 17-10 win over Lake Nona in the first round of the Class 7A playoffs (before a loss to state powerhouse Lakeland ended their season).

The Wesley Chapel softball team won almost as many games this season (19) as it had in 10 previous seasons (22), setting a school record.
(Photo courtesy of Steve Mumaw)

* At WCH, the softball team made some of its own history. Losers of 27 straight games and 43 of 44 over a three-year span at one point, coach Steve Mumaw and freshman pitcher Jordan Almasy led the Wildcats to their first playoff appearance ever. WCH won a school record 19 games, beat Robinson 4-0 for their first postseason win, and had eventual Class 6A champ Land O’Lakes on the ropes before losing 4-2 in the Regional semifinals.

* And, the new kids on the block at Cypress Creek Middle High (CCH) hit the ground running — on August 25, the Coyotes, coached by Mike Johnson, won the first football game they ever played, beating Gulf 12-0.

The closest anyone came to winning a state title in 2017?

* The WRH boys tennis team, which already won state titles in 2014 and 2015, fell short in their bid for No. 3 in four years, in April. The Bulls lost to Parkland Stoneman Douglas High 4-1 in the State Class 4A championship match, just the third time in their last 114 matches the Bulls boys have lost a head-to-head battle.

New Tampa 2017 Year in Review: MAN OF ACTION

New Tampa Resident Luis Viera Has Stayed Busy Since Being Elected To The Tampa City Council

Thanks to Town Hall meetings organized by New Tampa resident and Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, City of Tampa officials are paying more attention to the people of New Tampa.

In December of 2016, New Tampa resident Luis Viera won a special run-off election for the Tampa City Council District 7 seat by only 65 votes.

He spent 2017 proving he was the right man for the job.

“I didn’t vote for him,” said Tampa Palms lawyer Tracy Falkowitz, a lifelong Republican who voted instead for Viera’s opponent (and fellow Hunter’s Green resident) Jim Davison). “But I’ve already told Luis I’ll be first in line to campaign for him next time.”

Her reasons are simple, and explain how Viera helped shape a productive year for New Tampa (while also fighting for changes in other parts of District 7, like Forest Hills, Terrace Park and the University of South Florida area).

In 2017, he mobilized hundreds of New Tampa residents in an effort to ensure the city budgeted money for Fiscal 2018 for the expansion of the New Tampa Recreation Center (NTRC). He also spearheaded the effort to build a sensory-friendly park in Tampa Palms — in part because he has a brother who is autistic — and was a strong proponent for a new fire station (Tampa Fire Rescue Station No. 23) that will be built on County Line Rd.

Viera founded the New Tampa Council, and filled its Board with leaders from as many different local communities as he could. He also started the North Tampa Veterans Council and has attended countless Home Owners Association (HOA) meetings.

Viera held town halls. Instead of telling New Tampa residents they needed to go downtown to argue and fight for what they thought they deserved — as so many city and county officials have told them before — he brought government officials from South Tampa here.

Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera hosted a town hall meeting at the New Tampa Recreation Center in Tampa Palms in June that attracted roughly 75 local residents who came to discuss a number of issues., especially those related to the traffic in our area.

It was at one of Viera’s first town halls, in June at the NTRC, that Falkowitz first met the guy she didn’t vote for. She was there to tell Mayor Bob Buckhorn’s Chief of Staff Dennis Rogero that it was ludicrous that the city wouldn’t expand the rec center, which had a waiting list of thousands hoping to get into the NTRC’s popular gymnastics and dance programs.

Falkowitz was angry and vocal. Afterwards, Viera spoke with her and they ended up forging a partnership that extended to the New Tampa Council and included the efforts of Tampa Palms’ Maggie Wilson and Warren Dixon, Cory Lake Isles’ Bob Parker, West Meadows’ Brad Van Rooyen,  K-Bar Ranch’s Craig Margelowsky and David Burman of Cory Lake Isles, as well as others.

During the decisive and harrowing all-night City Council budget meeting in September, New Tampa had nearly 50 residents in attendance, many speaking in support of the NTRC expansion after years of failed attempts.

The budget passed — and the NTRC expansion, sensory park and Fire Station No. 23 will all begin to take shape in 2018.

Everyone involved says that without Viera, it wouldn’t have happened.

“I think that’s accurate,’’ says Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. “Luis, through a variety of means, has made sure New Tampa’s voices are being heard, either with him advocating or facilitating those conversations between our staff and the people that live here. In both cases, it was a very, very effective means of communicating.”

Ultimately, that was Viera’s primary goal — to bring New Tampa together as one community, instead of a collection of fragmented neighborhoods. A Tampa Palms resident from 2006-12 and a Hunter’s Green resident since then, Viera says he felt New Tampa lacked an effectiveness cohesiveness.

A large contingent of New Tampa residents showed up in red shirts at both budget workshops to speak to the Tampa City Council about the importance of the New Tampa Recreation Center.

Hoping to stitch those communities together to help advocate for the area with one voice, Viera tried to be omnipresent.

“I tried showing up to as many New Tampa events as I could,’’ said Viera. “Ribbon cuttings, openings…I wanted people feeling like their elected official is accountable, and accessible.”

His efforts, which he balanced with being a father to 10-year-old son Luis and working as a trial lawyer, have been lauded.

“He invigorated a whole lot of residents,” says Wilson, a community consultant for Tampa Palms. “I’ve lived here since 1989, and never has anyone in government service been as boots-on-the-ground and as active and caring across a wide variety of issues as Luis.”

Viera also has taken up the fight to connect Kinnan St. in K-Bar Ranch to Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe, which the city and counties have so far failed to do. He has met with Pasco County officials, and discussed the matter with Hillsborough County commissioners.

Viera is quick to decline all the credit for his 2017 accomplishments, however, instead deferring to the community he is helping to spark. By connecting them to the right people, he knows he can continue to make a difference and produce results for New Tampa.

“I think he’s had a superb year,’’ Buckhorn says. “Since the day he was elected, he hit the ground running and has not stopped
he was a forceful advocate for New Tampa, and the results speak for themselves. He made sure in our budget process that the expansion of the New Tampa Rec Center was in the mix, the sensory park was very near and dear to his heart, and until the very end, he was up there fighting make sure New Tampa voices were heard.”