Grandma Claire’s Reading Room Dedicated At New Tampa Library

Grandma Claire’s Early Learning Hive, a space handcrafted to combine youth recreation & education into a single experience, has been unveiled at the New Tampa Regional Library (NTRL) on Cross Creek Blvd. About 50 people, including the family of the longtime educator and librarian the room was named for, attended the ceremony at NTRL on Sept. 22.

Claire Unnasch, whose plaque is proudly displayed in The Hive, was a special education teacher, school librarian and middle school math teacher at South End School in Cedar Grove, NJ. However, the nickname “Grandma Claire” wasn’t coined until her later career as a volunteer at local libraries, where she discovered her immense affection for preschool-age children. Grandma Claire passed away in 2016.

Thomas Unnasch, Grandma Claire’s son, spoke at the unveiling, as children raced around playing and grabbing books.

“She would be beyond herself if she could see what we’ve created here,” Thomas said.

District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera and Hillsborough County’s director of library services Andrew Breidenbaugh also spoke at the podium, sharing their vision of recreating Grandma Claire’s Early Learning Hive for libraries across the District in the years to come, to spread Claire’s love for children & education even further.

The New Tampa Regional Library (10001 Cross Creek Blvd.) is open every day.

 

Chess Champ Has All The Right Moves

Cannon Farragut, an 8-year-old Hunter’s Green resident, recently captured a Florida State Chess Championship. Is there a national championship on the horizon for this chess wunderkind?

Chess began with a key on a laptop keyboard being plucked loose and set aside.

Then another. And another.

By the time William Farragut discovered what was happening and could stop Cannon, his then-4-year-old son, every key on his laptop had been removed.

“I was furious,” William says. So, as a solution for his uber-curious son, William bought Cannon his own, cheaper laptop. He loaded it with math and science programs, and randomly ran across a chess app and installed that, too.

“I was being totally stereotypical, but chess is for smart kids, right?” William asks.

Within a month, it was the only thing Cannon was playing. By watching videos of matches, he learned not only how the pieces move, but how to “weaponize” those moves by stringing them together and outsmarting the opposition.

His father was stunned.

Four years later, Cannon, now 8, is the Arnold Denker Florida State Champion in the 1800-under division. High-level chess players don’t generally compete in age groups, they compete against others in the same ratings group. Cannon toppled adults 3-4 times his age on his way to the championship at the 1800-&-Under level (more on this below).

In November, he will represent the U.S. at the World Youth Championships in Spain.

Then, in December, he’ll travel to the National Scholastic Chess Championships in Orlando, where the very best players in the country will be on hand to prove their rankings. Cannon is currently ranked in the Top 20 in the U.S. in his age group, but is in the top 10 of everyone in the 1800-&-Under rating group in the entire U.S.

Can he win a national championship?

“I think I can win,” Cannon says.

On a typical Tuesday night. Cannon breezes through the meeting room at Compton Park, which is filled with dozens of young New Tampa chess players, members of the invite-only Champions Chess Club coached by Tampa Palms residents Mark Ritter and his wife Tania Kranich-Ritter, a former New York State champion.

Cannon is happy, polite, affable. Even during his matches, he looks around the room, smiling, rising from his seat to walk around and watch some of his clubmates. On occasion, he’ll also practice his jump shot form, as Cannon also is a skilled basketball player.

But Mark, an internationally rated chess master and one of only five Level 5-rated coaches in the country, and Tania, who coached teams at Tampa Palms Elementary and Liberty Middle School to national championships in 2005 and 2006, respectively, were skeptical when Cannon, then 5, showed up at the club hoping to join.

“When I first came in, they almost pushed me away,’’ William says, laughing.

Cannon hid behind his father’s legs. The club was mostly older kids, Tania told William, with players from 3rd grade to high school, with ratings ranging from 500 to 2100.

William tried to explain that he thought Cannon had something, and Mark told him every parent says that. But, since they had already made the trip, Mark agreed to sit down at the chess board with the youngster.

After five minutes, Mark looked at William, and said, “You know, there might be something here.”

Cannon then played one of the lower-rated players in the club, and lost. The tears flowed. When he and William left that day, Mark wasn’t sure he’d ever see them again.

Cannon did come back, however, and lost again, and cried again, a scenario that repeated itself several times the first few weeks. He was, however, getting better every visit. When he was six, he officially joined the club.

Mark says Cannon’s appetite for chess was voracious, and he devoured more and more instructional videos as his rating started climbing and the wins began piling up.

Even more pleasing was that Cannon slowly transformed from a shy kid into a social butterfly, making friends easily and becoming one of the club’s most popular members.

“Cannon’s growing social skills emphasize a much-overlooked benefit of chess,” says Mark. “While most of the focus remains on improving one’s game and rating — too much in my opinion — important social behaviors, such as sportsmanship, communication and interaction, are part of the package, too.”

Cannon has rapidly evolved from a kid plucking the keys off his father’s computer keyboard to Florida’s best player among those with 1800-&-Under ratings, according to the U.S. Chess Federation ratings. As such, he rarely plays anyone who is not much older than he is, a fact that Cannon admits has created some awkward situations.

“I think they are more nervous than I am,” Cannon says. “I don’t think they want to lose to a kid.”

But, his recent Florida State title is certainly the biggest win of his career, at least so far.

“It is a big deal,” Cannon says. “This is like my first major tournament I won and that inspires me to keep going, so I can become a Grandmaster and beat Magnus Carlsen.”

Both are lofty goals — Cannon is currently rated at 1771; when you reach 2200, you become a Master, and at 2500 you are a Grandmaster. But,  Carlsen, the current World Champion, is a true chess prodigy with a rating greater than 2800.

Chess is a hard game that very few master. So, how has an 8-year-old managed to do it?

Tough to say, says Mark.

“Nobody’s answered that question,” he says. “His ability to see tactics and combinations that most players can’t is phenomenal. He has a natural ability for spatial relationships, pattern recognition, things like that. How do you define that? It’s just wiring.”

Well, there’s wiring and then there’s hard work. Cannon is a dedicated student of the game. He describes the chessboard as a picture, or a puzzle. He says he sees what to do in his mind, “which is telling me what to do, like connecting the dots. Where the line starts is my first move.”

Cannon’s tendency to move too quickly at times is one of his few weaknesses. When he sees a dot to connect, he does so, with supreme confidence, even if it only took him a few minutes to notice. Sometimes, he admits that there was a better move out there.

That didn’t stop him in Jacksonville, however, when he won his State title. That victory netted Cannon $800 and a trophy (photo) almost as tall as he is. He loves his trophy. The money, he says, “I’m giving to my mom and dad so they can have some of it.”

That should at least cover the cost of that laptop, new keys and all.

School Security A Call To Duty For New Guards

Eugene Figueroa was sitting in the living room of his Spring Hill home when he first saw the reports of another school shooting, this time on Feb. 14 of this year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, FL.

Figueroa’s heart dropped. He felt sick. He could not believe that once again, helpless and unsuspecting children had been gunned down in their classrooms.

In the aftermath, the debate raged for days and months — how can we stop this from happening again?

Figueroa, a 51-year-old retired correctional officer, had his own ideas, and they didn’t involve arming teachers or running schools like a military base.

His idea involved people like him, retired law enforcement, retired military, retired security.

“I’m right here,” he yelled one night at his television as pundits argued over the best course of action.

As it turned out, Figueroa wasn’t alone. The idea of requiring an armed security officer at every school in Florida’s 67 countywide districts was almost immediately passed into law following the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas, with $67 million set aside to fund it. While that wasn’t enough to pay for actual police officers, counties like Pasco had opted to hire 55 full-time “guardians” for its 49 elementary schools.

“We had 200 people apply in the first two days,” says Pasco County assistant superintendant for support services Elizabeth Kuhn. “We had to shut the ad down.”

Among the first to apply were Figueroa, now stationed at Seven Oaks, Roy Wright, who is at Veterans, and Fred Jackson at Quail Hollow elementary schools.

When the county launched the school security program, it was looking for very specific people. Previous experience in law enforcement, security or the military was a must, and the ability to relate to children and thrive in a school environment was just as important.

“A lot of the job would be interacting with kids, not just standing up against a wall,” Kuhn said. “This was not just a law enforcement job, it was not just a school job, it was both.”

That made it perfect for Jackson, a soft-spoken, 52-year-old retired police officer from Fort Myers.

So, Who Are These Guys?

Jackson had worked with children his entire adult life. He was a D.A.R.E. officer, helping to keep kids from getting involved in drugs and gangs, and was a school resource officer for 10 years.


“My whole life was trying to make life better for people in predominantly poor areas,” Jackson says.

That included time working the streets in some of Fort Myers’ most drug-infested areas, and watching the crack epidemic take off and, unfortunately, flourish.

Quail Hollow’s security guard sees himself as a mentor, much in the way he viewed his middle school football coach, who was also a police officer and often wore his uniform to practices.

“That really appealed to me,” he says.

Football was Jackson’s plan B. He was a standout safety for Florida A&M High in Tallahassee, and earned a scholarship to Florida A&M University (also in Tallahassee) before his playing days were scuttled by a neck injury.

He was working a security job in Atlanta when his wife Eugenia, a third-grade teacher at Woodland Elementary in Zephyrhills, told him about the opportunity.

“I was saddened by the Parkland shooting, thinking about all the innocent kids who didn’t have a chance to mature and grow up to be whatever they wanted to be,” Jackson says. “So, the chance to reach kids and protect kids, this was the best thing for me. I really saw this as a calling.”

Like every school security officer, Jackson underwent 132 intensive hours of training this summer in preparation, a good many of those hours dedicated to the gun range and live shooter simulations.

In Pasco, school security officers wear a ballistic vest, and carry a gun on one hip and a Taser on the other. “And we have ample amounts of ammunition,” Jackson says.

Jackson loves his interactions with the kids at Quail Hollow, describing it as a family.

And, while he understands why some parents may have initially been leery of an armed guard around their children, just the other day a father there to pick up his son walked up to him to thank him for what he is doing.

“I pray for you guys every night,” he told Jackson, who has a job he wishes wasn’t necessary. But, it is one he feels it is one of the most important he has ever had.

“The only reason we are here is to protect your babies,” Jackson says, “and the teachers, so they can teach your babies.”

  At the end of the day, the No. 1 job for a school security officer is to run towards a threat and try and eliminate it. It is not for the feint of heart, but then again, neither is Rikers Island, New York City’s notorious jail complex.

Because he spent 20 years working on the island, it may be hard to imagine Figueroa, a Puerto Rico-born, Bronx-raised retired corrections officer, being afraid of much.

A graduate of Norman Thomas High in Manahattan, Figueroa and his best friend both were attracted to being New York City cops. While his friend became a police officer, however, Figueroa decided to go the correctional officer route.

His first real job was at Rikers. He started at the Otis Bantum Center (OBC), and spent time working in some of the island’s other nine jails before transitioning to a transportation officer, hauling the bad guys back and forth.

Only six months into his job in 1990, Rikers Island erupted into a riot after an inmate assaulted an officer. That year, there were 2,500 violent incidents on the island.

“Pretty hair raising,” says Figueroa. “I was only one year in, and that was an eye opening experience. Luckily, God’s grace stood with me for 20 years.”

He and his wife Yvonne moved to Spring Hill in 2015, and since then, Eugene has spent most of his time fishing. But, the father of two grown children and grandfather to 1-, 7- and 8-year-olds, he, too, was sickened, and driven to apply to be a school security officer, by what happened in Parkland.

Like Jackson, Figueroa sees himself as a mentor to the students, and the first line of defense against any outside danger.

He is a presence during drop off and pick up times, and during the day, walks around campus, eyes always open, the route always varying.

“I’m like a junkyard dog, roaming the property,” he says.

When he peeks in on classrooms at Seven Oaks, he’ll flash a big smile or a thumbs up, with teachers and students often replying in kind. The school, he says, as have most of the parents, has warmed up to his presence. “Some are receptive, some aren’t and that’s okay,” Figueroa says. “They’re going to love me at the end of the day when I’m the one taking a bullet for one of their kids, God forbid.”

Wright also hopes that never has to happen for any of his fellow security officers, but he has spent his whole life preparing for it.

He joined the military in 1986 after graduating from high school. He was Military Police, and was stationed in Germany from 1986-94, and when he returned to Augusta, GA, he joined a Special Reaction (or SWAT) team.

After leaving the military in 2000, Wright became a high-threat diplomat security contractor, working in Bosnia and Kuwait, and, for 16 years, in Iraq.

In 2016, he traded in that stressful career for a local security job in the hopes of settling down with his fiancée.

When the Parkland shootings took place, his first reaction was to think of a way to help. The school security job allows him to do that.

“I can tell you that every person in my class, and we started with 58, everyone either had grandchildren or children and all felt as strongly as I did about being here and taking care of our younger generation,” Wright says.

After his training. Wright chose to be stationed at Veterans Elementary, because he is a veteran who wanted to settle down in Wesley Chapel.

He says the transition to spending his days around the kids he is responsible for protecting is “wonderful.”

On his first day, he arrived to find “Welcome to the team, Roy” written on a dry erase board on the wall behind his desk, which is in a hallway. He has no plans to wipe it off.

“From day one, everyone has been so supportive,” he says.

The kids call him Mr. Roy, or Mr. Security, which makes him laugh.

He is always on the move, checking gates and doors, and keeping a close eye on the school playground, which faces S.R. 54.

“There were some parents who were skeptical,” Wright says. “I had a father tell me, ‘Mr. Roy, initially I wasn’t very fond of the program, but I travel (S.R. 54) here periodically and to see you standing outside the playground like you do, taking care of our children….well, I want to apologize and say thank you.’”

The kids at the school have taken notice as well. One little boy, Wright says, came up to him a few weeks ago and asked why he hadn’t seen the security officer that day during recess. Wright had been in a meeting, and the boy had noticed that the footprints Wright usually left near the playground weren’t there.

“I missed you out there,” the boy said.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Wright replied.

The moment cemented what he had hoped going in — that his presence would be felt, and would make everyone feel safer.

That feeling is likely pervasive across not only Wesley Chapel, but also across Pasco County and the state. While Figueroa, Jackson and Wright wish the jobs they have and love weren’t necessary, they feel strongly that they are.

“I’m wholeheartedly into this program and feel strongly about it, but it is unfortunate that it is a necessity now,” Wright says. “It’s a shame our children have to be protected by a person like me, or a sheriff’s officer or police officer. But that’s what we’re here for, and that’s what we will do.”

Irma Who? One Year Later, Willow Is Making Happier Memories!

Willow enjoyed cutting the hair of Rays second baseman Daniel Robertson at a Cut For A Cure event at Tropicana Field during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

On the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Irma, Jennifer Newman wasn’t interested in sharing her memories from the day of the storm.

Instead, she was working on erasing them. “It was a pretty emotional week, knowing it was coming up on Sept. 8 and knowing what it meant,” the Wesley Chapel mom said.

A year ago on that date, her daughter Willow, hoping to be celebrating her third birthday, was diagnosed with leukemia.

That diagnosis created more of a storm in Willow’s life than Hurricane Irma ever could, but the two events have since become interwined. As everyone else shared remembrances on the Irma anniversary about the harrowing moments of the storm and the damage and inconveniences it caused, Jennifer, her husband Shawn Stine and Willow and her older sister Eden were at Tropicana Field celebrating Willow’s birthday while watching a Rays baseball game.

Invited because the club was recognizing September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, some of the Rays players shaved their heads to raise money for the Cut For A Cure program.

Willow giggled her way through doing the honors on Rays second baseman Daniel Robertson.

“I felt like we made some great memories that day,” Jennifer said. “I feel like we took back that day. We were super grateful to rewrite history.”

Last year at the same time, Jennifer was frantically trying to get ready for Irma, buying food and water supplies and cleaning the house. Willow ran errands with her, and the two stopped to buy Paw Patrol birthday decorations for her big day.

But, Jennifer sensed something was wrong with Willow. She was sleeping more than usual, she looked pale and she was asking to be held all the time.

Willow had a routine checkup scheduled for Monday, but with Irma set to come through on Saturday, Jennifer decided not to risk its aftermath and took Willow to the doctor in hopes of getting some antibiotics. Her doctor agreed something might be wrong, and Jennifer and Willow were sent to Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC) to do some blood work.

The pathologist there delivered bad news. “I’ll never forget his face or where he was standing in the room,” Jennifer wrote on her Facebook page.

Willow was transferred to John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. The FHWC nurses, who gave Willow a stuffed giraffe for the trip, looked sad. With sirens blaring, she was rushed away.

After blood transfusions and more tests, doctors told Jennifer and Shawn that Willow likely had pre-b cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pre B-ALL).

Doctors started blood transfusions immediately and vital checks every hour, and sadness set in. The All Children’s nurses, though, made sure Willow still celebrated her big day, throwing a “Frozen”-themed birthday party.

Video from the party went viral and was featured on CNN and in People magazine.

That first night, Jennifer and Shawn slept in chairs pushed up against Willow’s hospital crib.

The next morning, Saturday, with Irma bearing down, Shawn had to leave. The Howard Frankland Bridge, which connects Tampa and St. Petersburg, was being closed, and he had to get back to Eden.

That night, with a daughter newly diagnosed with cancer and separated from her husband and other daughter by a threatening hurricane, Jennifer went outside.

“The wind was picking up,” she says. “I found a bench, sat down and just started crying. It was one of the only times I let myself loose. It was a lot to handle.”

Back On Track…

But, handle it Willow has.

This past year, she spent 70 days in the hospital, had more than three dozen blood transfusions, 15 lumbar punctures (which collect samples of cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, from the spinal column) and three major surgeries.

She has endured countless trips to the clinic for chemotherapy treatments. She takes chemo every night at home, and one night a week, she has to take nine pills. Her body has suffered from neuropathy, but at the same time, Willow has fought back.

Hurricane Irma will become an afterthought one day. But today, Jennifer says Willow is doing much better.

She is like any other child, running and jumping around, swimming and riding a bike. She is happy and engaged, and other than being poked by needles, she actually looks forward to her trips to the clinic.

“I think she’s made a lot of great strides in terms of learning how to deal with the procedures she has to go through, and we love seeing her,” said Jessica Wishnew, M.D., in a story on the John Hopkins All Children’s website. “She definitely brings a lot of energy and happiness when she comes in.”

On the one-year anniversary of the storms that swept in and changed her life, know this: the prognosis for Willow is good. Dr. Wishnew says that the cure rate for pre B-ALL is in the 90-plus percent rate.

“I know in my heart she’s going to beat this,” Jennifer says. “She’s strong, she’s a little fighter. I know she’s going to beat this.”

Willow will do her fighting with a lot of people in her corner. Just last week, someone in the community dropped by Willow’s home to leave a gift and some cookies. Those kind of things happen often. Jennifer says what were once complete strangers have become some of her closest friends.

“I just want to say, we are blessed,” she says. “We are blessed to be in Wesley Chapel, where there has been so much support. Between that and all the prayers, it has been wonderful.”

BBD Update — Done By End Of Year!

It’s easy to recognize the progress being made on the widening of Segment D of Bruce B. Downs Blvd. (above). The final phase of the BBD widening is expected to be completed before the end of 2018.

The seemingly never-ending widening of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., a project talked about and debated — and even cursed — for two decades, could be “substantially” finished by the end of October 2018.

While the mounds of dirt, yellow construction trucks working behind orange traffic barrels and the winding roads with sometimes confusing lane switches seem to contradict that claim, Hillsborough County’s Public Works Department says that all eight lanes of Segment D — the last of the four segments of the BBD project — will be operational in October.

That doesn’t preclude periodic daytime lane closures, as contractors complete punch list items, but the end, thankfully, is finally near.

The final full completion of the segment is scheduled for sometime in November.

The widening of Segment D — a 1.44-mile stretch from Pebble Creek Dr. to County Line Rd. — from a 4-lane divided roadway to an 8-lane divided roadway also will include a landscaped median, sidewalks, a multi-use path and upgraded traffic signals.

The final segment of BBD widening began construction in October of 2016.

According to the county’s website, Segment D’s cost was estimated at $24 million, which was funded through the Public Works Transportation Capital Improvement Program (CIP) and was awarded $5 million from the Transportation Regional Incentive Program (TRIP) by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).

Segment A, which was once the most congested area of BBD and extends from Bearss Ave. to Palm Springs Blvd. in Tampa Palms, was a $54-million project that wrapped up last year.

Segments B and C, which bracket the work that was done around the same time I-75 was widened, were considered the most difficult (and costly) of the segments geographically, but were completed together first.

The two inside southbound lanes of Segment D have been completed, and plans were to finish the two outside northbound lanes, and then shift traffic by the end of August.

When the traffic shift has been completed, work will begin to complete the two inside turn lanes, as well as the median northbound and southbound.

As we reported last issue, county engineers recently showed results of a signal-timing project they say has improved traffic on BBD (and its side roads) south of Cross Creek Blvd., and said when the construction is done, some of those same signal-timing improvements will be applied to Segment D.
Also, a new traffic signal has been added at the intersection of BBDs and Trout Creek Dr. (just north of the Burger 21) in an effort to alleviate congestion off the side roads in that area. That signal was not yet operational at our press time.

While residents have complained about perceived inactivity on BBD at most of the traffic-related townhalls and forums held in New Tampa the past year, all of the previous segments had their own challenges. The completion of Segment D has had to overcome some construction and weather issues that have delayed progress at times.

Last year, Hurricane Irma (and other lesser storms) dumped enormous amounts of rain on the New Tampa area, and the usual summer-time showers this year also have provided some delays.

“The toughest aspects of the project so far have been the weather impacts,” wrote the county’s Public Works Department, responding to questions from the Neighborhood News. “All construction projects must utilize temporary drainage measures to address the rain. This project is unique because the installation of the main drainage line must connect to the adjacent drainage lines on the south end of the project first, to allow the entire project to drain properly.”

While the Segment D project is designed with the temporary drainage measures in place to handle the rain, “unusually quick and heavy” rains can overwhelm the drainage system, making it unable to drain the water from the roadway and causing backups.

The project also has faced obstacles like locating underground utilities, which in most cases can be traced as a straight line, but there are unexpected deviations that required a redesign.

“When coordinating multiple utility companies to install, relocate, and remove, it is challenging, especially when the majority of this work is completed by other companies all trying to fit in narrow areas,” the county says.

But, the delays haven’t been enough to change the much-anticipated completion date, which remains the end of 2018. The end of a two-decades-long wait draws ever closer.