Category: Featured

Volunteer Of The Year Craig DiCecco Makes Impact at New Tampa YMCA

Craig DiCecco volunteer — Tampa Palms resident Craig DiCecco is the New Tampa Family YMCA’s Volunteer of the Year.

Thanks to the efforts of volunteers like Tampa Palms resident Craig DiCecco, the New Tampa Family YMCA continues to help people in need in and around our community.

DiCecco was named the facility’s “Volunteer of the Year” at the annual Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA’s annual Community Impact Awards dinner on Feb. 25.

DiCecco, whose three kids have all participated in sports at the New Tampa YMCA over the past 10 years or so, is a real estate appraiser who is also a member of the New Tampa Rotary Club. He first became involved with the YMCA through the Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot, which is an event put on jointly each year by both organizations.

“Craig has really stepped up in many ways, especially with the Turkey Trot, ” says Tony Kimbrough, New Tampa Family YMCA executive director. “The event helps us raise funds to provide programs that impact our members and the community.”

Some of these programs include drowning prevention, teen leadership, the YMCA’s partnership with LIVESTRONG, adaptive programs for people with special needs, and providing financial assistance to kids who need it to attend summer camp.

“There are a lot of families in need,” says Kimbrough, “and we serve them. Summer camp can really help kids close the achievement gap. We see that there’s a lot less of a ‘summer learning loss’ for kids who come to our summer camps, versus those who don’t get that opportunity.”

Honored To Be Recognized

DiCecco says he is honored to have received the award. “The Y is a great organization with a lot of fantastic volunteers,” he says. “It’s tough for me to understand why I deserve this more than others whose faces I see at the Y every day.”

But, Kimbrough says DiCecco absolutely deserves to be recognized for his efforts.

“Craig also serves as vice chair of the New Tampa Family YMCA advisory board, and he’s been instrumental in helping us to raise both money and awareness,” says Kimbrough. “He’s always the first to raise his hand to volunteer when something needs to be done.”

For more information on the New Tampa Family YMCA, call 866-9622 or visit TampaYMCA.org/locations/new-tampa/.

‘Mayor Bob’ Visits Chiles Elementary

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn has faced some tough lines of questioning in his five years as the city’s head honcho, so taking a few softballs from the second graders at Lawton Chiles Elementary in Tampa Palms on March 8 was something of a welcome respite.

Not that a few fastballs weren’t sneaked in there, however.

After talking to the children about how much he loved his job and how important it was, Buckhorn fielded questions asking him about his favorite food, color and his favorite sports.

Oh yeah…and a few about the traffic in New Tampa.

“We do need a train that runs from New Tampa to downtown Tampa,” Buckhorn answered to one traffic question.

Another student wanted to know why the red light by his house stayed red for so long. The exact location of that light was never pinpointed (and let’s be honest, we all have one of those lights we love to hate in New Tampa, don’t we?), but Buckhorn gave a quick wink said he would check it out.

He also was asked what he thought of Donald Trump.

“Oh, I think I’ll stay away from that one,’’ Buckhorn said. “But, I do not think he is good for the country.”

The event was organized by Linda Rosen, who was teaching her second graders about local government when she came up with the idea to try and get Buckhorn to visit her class. She had all of the kids write letters inviting him to Chiles, and the mayor ended up accepting.

Leading the second grade classes of teachers Ashley Mitchell, Elizabeth Horton, Tari Baldwin, Elaine Wilkinson, Michael Rehfus, Chelsea Bowen, Ami Egeland, Felicia Sell and Rosen into school’s media center was Alejandro Rodriguez, a mayor himself — he was elected by his classmates in Rosen and Bowen’s classes, a mock vote designed to teach the children about democracy.

The 8-year-old, decked out in gray slacks, a light green plaid shirt and a gray tie with white stripes, fidgeted in his seat with his hand thrust as high as he could reach, eagerly awaiting his chance for a question, like 150 of his classmates.

Buckhorn, who was elected to his first term as mayor in 2011 and then re-elected in 2015 while running unopposed, told the classes he caught the government bug as a fourth-grader growing up near Washington, D.C., when in 1968, he was helping out on the late Senator Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

“I used to have my mom drive me down to Bobby Kennedy’s headquarters, and I’d seal envelopes and put stamps on them,’’ Buckhorn said.

However, the kids seemed more interested in answers to the bigger, more important questions facing Tampa — such as his favorite color (blue), his favorite food (Italian), and his favorite sports (he played lacrosse and soccer in high school).

When he wasn’t playing sports, Buckhorn said, he was reading books or having crab apple fights with his friends.

“We didn’t have cell phones,” he said, drawing perhaps the loudest reaction of the morning from the gasping second graders.

“It was a much better life, I think,’’ he added. The lack of cell phones apparently made at least one child think Buckhorn was far older than his 57 years, because he was later asked if he had town criers when he was growing up.

Mayor Shares Governmental Info, Too

Buckhorn provided some civics lessons for the kids as well, explaining that he and the seven-member Tampa City Council operate mostly independently. “I meet with them once a year to tell them how much money they have to spend,” he said, referring to his annual budget meeting.

Asked if he can change the City Council’s decisions, Buckhorn told the class “sometimes,” explaining that he can veto items but “the City Council can override my veto with a 5-2 vote margin.”

“He added, “But, so far, I haven’t had to veto anything.”

The mayor, in case you were wondering (like at least one of the kids was), does not have a butler and maids. He told them, however, he was “rich in blessings with a great job, a great wife and great kids, but not rich rich, like Donald Trump.”

He jokingly bragged about having so much power, he could turn rivers green (which he did, again, on St. Patrick’s Day).

Buckhorn, who has two young daughters, also told the assembly “and none of you are ever allowed to marry them.”

Buckhorn impressed the crowd by telling the children he has been to President Barack Obama’s Christmas parties, and has even been to his office.

“Was his chair comfortable?,’’ one boy asked the mayor.

“Oh, I don’t dare sit in the president’s chair,’’ Buckhorn replied, grinning widely.

Buckhorn, whose second term is scheduled to end in 2019, said leaving the mayor’s office won’t be easy. “You’re going to have to pry my fingers off the desk,” he said.

He did, though, drop a hint about his rumored future plans, asking the kids if they’d like it if he came back to visit as Florida’s governor.

As for who Buckhorn, a Democrat (although all municipal elections in Tampa are non-partisan), is supporting for president, no surprises there.

“I am supporting Hillary Clinton,’’ he said of the Democratic frontrunner (see page 8) he introduced at her pep rally in Ybor City the following day. “Because I want my two little girls to grow up knowing there are no barriers. I want them to know that they can grow up to be president, too.”

Mayor Bob Buckhorn Visits Chiles Elementary

bob buckhorn chiles elementary mayor tampa mayor

Local Historian Publishes The Definitive History Of Wesley Chapel!

DanielSmithWesleyChapelCrackerHouse — This house was built for Daniel H. Smith and Elizabeth Geiger, who were engaged, in 1894. It was donated in 1979 by the Smiths’ grandson, Willie Smith, to the hands-on exhibit at the Florida State Fairgrounds known as “Cracker Country.” Photo courtesy of Ernest Wise.

As Wesley Chapel grows and adds shiny new housing development after shiny new housing development, businesses as far as the eye can see and all the comforts of modern living, it’s hard to imagine our area as a hardscrabble agricultural and rural town with a long, rich history.

Author Madonna Jervis Wise, however, brings that unique history into focus with her latest book, Images of America: Wesley Chapel, a fresh glimpse of Wesley Chapel’s history through extensive research and hundreds of old photos and maps being officially released on Monday, March 21, by Arcadia Publishing/History Press. A launch event for the book will be held on Thursday, March 31, at the first annual History Fair at the Pasco Hernando State College (PHSC)-Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch off S.R. 56, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., in the conference room.

The president of the Pasco County Historical Society and a Pasco County resident for 43 years, Wise has written nine books — including Images of America: Dade City and Images of America: Zephyrhills — and was asked by her publisher to do a book about Wesley Chapel.

While her previous books on Dade City and Zephyrhills were written with a wealth of information in library and government archives, Wise says her Wesley Chapel book required more digging. But, with each layer she peeled away, new stories emerged.

“It really became a labor of love,’’ says Wise, who lists the Douglas family who ran the K-Bar Ranch (south of the Pasco line, in New Tampa) and many of the Porters, who developed the Wiregrass Ranch area, as her friends.

Wise says she was shocked to learn that Wesley Chapel actually is older than Zephyrhills — it was settled in the 1840s, when land was granted to Edward Boyette, Sr., in the Florida Armed Occupation Act of 1842. It was so sparsely populated, however, there were few historical references for Wise to draw upon from that era.

She did, however, find the remaining turpentine foreman’s house on the Barnes Ranch, which is 150 years old, and Daniel Smith’s pioneer cracker home, which was donated to the Cracker Country Hands-on Museum (currently located at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa) in 1979.

Much of Wise’s research on Wesley Chapel’s beginnings in the 1840s took place in Brooksville. Because Pasco County didn’t exist until 1887, locals had to travel to Brooksville for marriage licenses and other official documents.

“I discovered a very rich history as I uncovered it,’’ Wise says. “I had to go back and do a lot of interviews.”

Wise did more than 30 original interviews and reviewed hundreds of photos from family collections. She connected with Marco Stanley, who had been researching his own family’s Wesley Chapel beginnings, on Ancestry.com. She met David Brown from the Barnes family, who had a wealth of information and connections. The First Baptist Church of Wesley Chapel, located on S.R. 54, east of Saddlebrook Resort, let her examine its records, which dated back to 1878.

Wise’s book is 128 pages and six chapters of family histories with more than 300 photos, including of families whose names are still familiar still to us: Boyette, Gillette, Godwin, Kersey and Wells, and others.

“There was a cohesiveness to these settlers,’’ Wise says.

The Double Branch Baptist Church (which is what is now called the First Baptist Church of Wesley Chapel) was the focus for community life, and Wise was told by dozens of people that the Fifth Sunday Sing, called the “Grand Ole Opry of Wesley Chapel” by one of the people she interviewed, captured the spirit of frontier Wesley Chapel, which was highly regarded for its singing.

Wesley Chapel also was known for its lumber harvesting — much of it under the control of Standard Oil Company founder and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and others – as well as for turpentine production. The area was known by various names over the years, like Gatorville, Double Branch (for the twin creeks that flowed through Edward Boyette’s property) and Godwin.

The plucky community also had a reputation for its moonshine production. During prohibition (in the 1920s), Wesley Chapel was the only town in Pasco county that was opposed to it. The community was accused of being home to 90 percent of the stills producing the liquor that was sold to Tampa.

And, the frontier women of Wesley Chapel were lauded for their hard work, as they ran many of the ranches, some even serving as the county’s supervisor of elections. “I’ve never seen such interesting women,’’ Wise says.

Wise, who developed her passion for historical research by compiling her own family’s history as a young adult, says she has received “overwhelming response” for her book, much of it from the families who are thrilled to have their history officially recorded.

Wise’s book is full of interesting nuggets, like the time the area once applied for a U.S. post office under the name Lemon, but was denied. Wesley Chapel did get a post office, located at the site of today’s Quail Hollow Country Club, from 1897-1902, although we do at least have a Contract Postal Unit on Boyette Rd. today.

S.R. 54 was originally Denham-Dade City Rd., an old dirt road used to transport lumber and turpentine, although Wise’s book says many referred to it as “2-2-20” after gravel replaced the dirt: 2 years to build, 2 years to wear out, 20 years to pay for it.

And, James H. Porter was called “Wiregrass” because every Christmas, Dade City Buick dealer Ed Madill would send Porter a box of matches to burn the wiregrass on the ranch, so the ashes fertilized the grass for the cattle.

“It’s fun with these books, because once they are published, people will find more information,’’ Wise says.

The First Annual History Fair at Pasco Hernando State College-Porter Campus will host a book launch reception for Images of America: Wesley Chapel on Thursday, March 31. Wise also will do a book signing on Saturday, April 2, 9 a.m., at the Florida Old Time Music Championship & Spring Fest at the Pioneer Museum & Village in Dade City.

For more information, visit Wise’s author page at Amazon.com/Madonna-Jervis-Wise/e/B003RGSJB6. Images of America: Wesley Chapel can be purchased on Amazon, Google Books or at Barnes & Noble bookstores.

Wharton’s Terrific Trio Eyeing A State Girls Track Championship

By Andy Warrener

Following an offseason fueled by disappointment, Wharton junior hurdler Aria Tate is ready to shine.

The budding star, already off to a great start in the track and field season, is looking ahead to a breakout season. She came close last year, almost capturing a state title in the 200 meters as a sophomore. But, in the time it practically takes Tate to blink her eyes, her shot at gold slipped away, as she finished second by .08 seconds.

This year, Tate will focus on her specialty — the 100- and 300-meter hurdles, an event she routinely wins in Hillsborough County and one in which her father, Heanon, thinks she can be a star when she gets to college.

Heanon, after all, would know. A pastor at Force of Life International in Tampa Palms, Heanon was a star running back at Gaffney High School in South Carolina before running the sprints and hurdles at South Carolina State.

Heanon’s son, Auden, was a star wide receiver for Wharton, and is now at Florida State.

He sees his daughter as having the same athletic potential.

“I think she could excel at the next level in the 400m hurdles,” Heanon said.

Tate will be one to watch today at the third annual Wharton Wildcat Invitational. Field events begin at 8:20 a.m., and the running finals start at 4:30 p.m. (or 45 minutes after the completion of prelims).

Heanon, who has volunteered with the track team since his family moved here from South Carolina four years ago, is a first-year full-time assistant coach under Wharton track coach Anthony Triana. The former college star helps out with all of the sprinters and hurdlers — his specialty — but he will keep a close eye on Aria.

Tate is fast becoming a top-flight hurdler. She was sixth at the state meet in the 100m hurdles last season as a sophomore, and just ran the 55-meter hurdles in 8.37 seconds at the Jimmy Carnes Invitational indoor meet in Gainesville in March. That was good enough for third-place in the 17-19 age group, behind Dunedin’s Olivia Welsh, who was third last year at the Class 2A State Championship, and Royal Palm Beach’s Faith Lee.

For Tate, who usually starts slow and relies on her strong finishes to win races, her 8.37 was an encouraging number for a shorter event, evidence she improved last offseason on her initial burst out of the blocks. Her best time in the 100 hurdles is 14.49, but that won’t be enough to win states.

What will help, however, will be Triana’s plan to give her some more rest in between events. Highly versatile and able to run 5-6 different races, last year’s meet schedule during the postseason could be grueling. Last season, Tate focused on the 100 hurdles and the 100 dash. Those events are practically back-to-back at a track meet, with only a brief respite, thanks to the boys 110-meter hurdles in between.

“I think my times would have been better if I would have had more time to rest (in between events),” Tate said. “You try to rest (in between the 100m hurdles and the 100m dash) but there’s just not that much time, you have to get back to the line for the race.”

The 100 and 330 hurdles, however, are separated by enough events that Tate will be fresh for both.

Tate’s excellence in the hurdles will make the Wharton girls track & field team even more dangerous this season. Along with fellow juniors Avonti Holt and Searra Woods, the trio have many of the sprinting events covered, and they also run on a 4×400 relay (seventh at state last year) together that should challenge the school record. Holt and Woods were both also on the 4x800m relay that took third at the state meet.

“Those three have been leaders on this team for the last three years and they each excel in their own way,” Triana says. “If we didn’t have any one of the three of them, it’d be a different team.”

The Wildcats opened their track season at the Wharton Quad Meet, running against Freedom, Wiregrass Ranch and Bloomingdale. Tate only competed in the 400-meter dash (which is expected to help her build endurance for the hurdles races in the bigger, more important meets) and finished a few seconds behind her teammate Woods. Wharton won 10 of the 16 events.

“The biggest key with our team is the versatility of those three,” Triana said. “These three can go up and cover eight events between them.”

Boys Not Too Shabby, Either

The Wharton boys may not have the star power the girls do, but they had a solid quad meet as well.

Sophomore Noah Damjanovic won the 1600- and 3200-meter runs (in 4:51.33 and 10:19.97, respectively), sophomores Sahil Deschenes and Dennarius Murphy finished 1-2 in the 800, and junior Desmond Williams ran a 45.71 to win the 300m hurdles.

The Freedom track and field program is re-building in 2016, with head coach Lyn Gross taking over both the boys and girls squads. Gross has been the boys coach for the last five years and takes over the full team with assistant Miranda Calloway. Gross, a two-time state champion as a member of the 4×100 relay team for Suwannee High School, says he has between 50 and 60 athletes out for the start of track season.

Returners Isiah Smith, Christian Simmons, Trent Burnett and Richard Lush will be looked to help try and keep pace with their New Tampa rivals at Wharton.

Smith captured the 200 at the Wharton Quad Meet, winning in 23.21 seconds, and Xaiver Hardy (with a jump of 5 feet, 10 inches) and Demetrius Jones (5’-6”) finished 1-2 in the high jump for the top individual Patriot finishes, while the 4×100 and 4×400 relays teams also posted wins.

The Patriot boys could see some reinforcements now that the basketball team’s season ended with a loss to Bartow in the regional semifinals on Feb. 16. Gross said that he will most likely get Freedom hoops star Nasir Core out for the track team, particularly in the jumps, to help bolster the lineup.

On the girls side, Rachel Chapper will handle the jumps, and she specializes in the high jump. The junior was the only Patriot girl to win an event at the quad meet, jumping 4’-10” to win the high jump.

Sophomore middle distance runner Dana Elkalazani, who was part of Freedom’s state-qualifying 4×400 relay last season, was second in the 1600 (in a time of 5:43.58) and third in the 800 (2:32.46) at the Wharton quad meet.

WRH Cross Country Program ‘Wins’ $700 From ‘Wobble’

Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot officials recently presented a $700 check to the Wiregrass Ranch High (WRH) cross country teams, winners in the newly established team school competition at the yearly event.

At the third annual Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot 5K, held on Thanksgiving Day at the Shops of Wiregrass mall, the Bulls runners logged the fastest average time of any high school in the boys category (19 minutes, 11 seconds) for the 3.1-mile race.

WRH also won with the most number of participants with 38 runners. For winning both categories, the cross country program, coached by Don Howard, won the $700.

The check was presented to Coach Howard and his runners by Rotary Club of New Tampa (RCNT) president Lesley Zajac, RCNT secretary Craig DiCecco and FITniche (the running and fitness store in the mall) general manager Brian Brink, who all helped organize the yearly event.