In our Oct. 29 issue, we told you that Box of Cubans restaurant was getting ready to open in the space previously occupied by Mochinut’s New Tampa location at 17512 Doña Michelle Dr., off Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., just north of the BBD exit off I-75 in the area known as Highwoods Preserve.
(Photo by Katherine Baker)
Well, owners Marcos and Oni Silverio and their son, Marcos Jr. (MJ) have now opened their second Box of Cubans location (the other is in Riverview) and everything we’ve sampled so far has been pretty great.
In addition to tasty pressed Cuban sandwiches (left photo), Box of Cubans also offers 14 different varieties of empanadas — from beef & cheese and chicken to banana nutella and guava & cream cheese. My current favorite sandwich is the “pan con bistec,” with mojo-marinated Palomillo steak, Swiss cheese, sautéed onions, crispy potato straws, mayo and a house cilantro sauce (top photo). There also are Cuban rice bowls with black or red beans and your choice of protein, garlic toast and sweet plantains that I haven’t sampled yet, although I did also enjoy Box of Cubans’ black beans and rice.
Box of Cubans also serves a variety of breakfast items, even though it doesn’t open until 11 a.m. during the week and 10 a.m. on Saturday & Sunday. “We sell our breakfast all day,” Marcos told me. “And we already have customers coming in at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday ordering our breakfast sandwiches.”
The bacon, egg & cheese on pressed Cuban bread is delicious and I also enjoyed the ham, egg & cheese empanada. But, my surprise favorite breakfast item is the torrejas, or Cuban-style French toast (right photo), which is topped with powdered sugar and served with both breakfast syrup and a warm strawberry dipping sauce. Incréible! The café con leché is excellent, too, and other hot and cold coffee drinks are available.
To place an order online, visit BoxofCubans.com, or call (813) 632-9021 and please tell them I sent you! — GN
Although photographer Charmaine George and I couldn’t get to all eleven New Tampa public schools for the Great American Teach-In on Nov. 21, we did make it to four local schools for that event and on this page are photos from our respective visits.
Charmaine was at Benito Middle School when teacher Justin Swaim brought members of the Wharton High orchestra (l.-r. in left photo) Travis Bivins, Eliza Connell, Zoie Bowers and Sofia Salazar — all of whom are Benito alumni, to their former middle school, as well as for Michael Harvey of the Florida State Guard Aviation Response Squadron’s visit to Richard Roy’s math class (bottom left photo).
She also visited Heritage Elementary, where the Kids and Canines organization visited Heather Leitzki’s Exceptional Student Education (ESE) class (top photo). Charmaine also took pics at when Waste Connections lead truck driver and instructor Thomas Benton (middle photo below) demonstrated how the trucks work.
I was able to stop in at Tampa Palms Elementary for online star Zackery Turgeon (below right) captivated all of the school’s 4th-grade classes (where most of the kids wanted to follow in his footsteps) with his discussion of how he makes a living, thanks to the 700,000+ subscribers to his “Corny” channel on YouTube.
I then visited teacher Jamie Miller’s class at Freedom High (bottom right), where I talked to her students about not only the Neighborhood News, but also writing and editing in general, and I was thrilled that some of her students actually asked me questions about my job. — GN
Jamie and “Santa Paul” Bartell. After 30 years of playing Santa Claus, Paul has written a book — Santa: An Angel Dad — where he tells the story of his years portraying St. Nick, Sean’s passing at the age of 16 and the creation of the Sean Bartell Memorial Foundation, which has provided cash scholarship grants to graduating seniors from high schools in Wesley Chapel & Zephyrhills the last nine years. (All of the photos in this story are from Paul Bartell’s Facebook page)
I first met long-time Wesley Chapel resident Paul Bartell about a dozen years ago, when he was the volunteer event chair for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. My wife Jannah, who I had only met the previous year at the same event, was the Cancer Society’s staff community representative running the show at that Relay.
It was a hot day and Paul had been there the entire day, his face beet red from working in the sun. And, even though I didn’t know he also had been dressing up as Santa Claus for kids and events throughout the Tampa Bay area for many years, I remember that I definitely thought he looked a little like Ol’ St. Nick himself.
I also didn’t know back then that Paul and his wife Jamie had two sons — James and Sean — or that Sean would pass away (at age 16) only a couple of years after I met Paul, from a rare skin and blood disorder known as Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (or SJS).
Sean Bartell
With his ruddy complexion and pleasant demeanor, Paul was seemingly born to portray Santa. In fact, he has been playing the jolly man for 30 years, the last 22 in and around the Wesley Chapel area. He clearly delights in the role and has continued to make dozens of appearances as St. Nick each year, even in the difficult years since Sean passed away.
In fact, Paul says, it was Christmas Day in 2014 when Sean, who was then covered in the blisters and lesions associated with SJS (which starts with flu-like symptoms and is usually caused by a severe adverse reaction to certain medications and needs to be treated immediately at an emergency room when the symptoms first manifest) was no longer the promising young man who was fifth in his graduating class at Wesley Chapel High (WCH). “He was in so much pain and there was nothing Jamie and I could do to help him,” Paul recalls. “It was such a terrible, helpless feeling.”
And, although SJS is only fatal in about 7.5% of cases, Sean lost his battle on New Year’s Eve that same year. But, his devastated parents could only think of how much Sean loved school and how much they wanted to something positive to come out of their family’s tragedy.
Enter: The Foundation
“There’s no doubt that education was always Sean’s focus,” Paul says. “He was planning to study biology at Vanderbilt University.” According to the website for the Sean Bartell Memorial Foundation (SeanBartell.org), which the Bartells started in 2015, the family’s church, Atonement Lutheran on S.R. 54, came to them wanting to start a scholarship in Sean’s name, which is how the idea got started.
That first year (2015), the Foundation gave its first $1,000 scholarship/grant to then-WCH senior Meghan Sanchez. Today, the Foundation has awarded $74,000 to students and more than $10,000 more to teachers at Wesley Chapel, Wiregrass Ranch, Cypress Creek and Zephyrhills high schools (and this year, Kirkland Ranch Academy of Innovation will be added to that list), to assist them with furthering their respective educations.
Each year, based on the amount of money the Foundation is able to raise, a gala has been held at Atonement Lutheran where the scholarships have been awarded. The Foundation has hosted events like a Quarter Auction and Charity Bingo nights to help raise additional funds, but Paul says he still always wanted to do more.
Paul, Jamie & James Bartell, with Cypress Creek High principal Carin Hetzler-Nettles (next to Paul) at the 2024 Sean Bartell Memorial Foundation gala.
“I have had so many experiences as Santa, why not write a book?,” he says. “I’m not really a big TV watcher and I like to read. I had read probably half a dozen books about being Santa and I said to myself, ‘Why can’t I write a book? I’ve been doing it long enough and I’ve got a story to tell.’ And I figured I would donate any proceeds from the book sales to the Foundation.”
Paul says that it took him four or five months to write the book. “Because I’m Santa all through November and December every year, January and February are my ‘down’ times when I’m basically a couch potato.” He adds that he wrote the entire book on his iPhone.
“I just looked back at all of the pictures in my phone that people had sent me and that became my timeline to tell the story,” he says. “I basically went backwards on the timeline and I wrote down what I remembered about each picture.”
He then tweaked it a few times and added pictures at the end of the book and he was ready to publish. He uploaded the pages to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform and, “It was easy,” he says. “You don’t even have to buy any copies. You pick your own sales price, between $10 and $200. So, we picked $19.98, because that was the year Sean was born. I ordered a few author’s copies and it went live on Amazon on July 1 of this year.” The book is available in both hardcover and Kindle versions and the Foundation retains 60% of the proceeds after the initial per-book charge of $8.06.
Paul also says that the full story of what happened to Sean is one of the book’s chapters.
And, in the meantime, “Santa Paul” is in the middle of his busy season. After making 123 appearances as Santa last year, he had been through about two dozen of his 128 scheduled appearances this year, which includes the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel’s “Breakfast with Santa” at Bubba’s 33 on Saturday, December 14.
And yes, Paul still also works full-time in the sales department of a company that sells pumps for vacuums used in manufacturing and laboratories. He also wanted to make sure I mentioned how hard Jamie, his wife of 36 years, has always worked behind the scenes for the Foundation and how much he appreciates all of her efforts.
Unfortunately, this year’s Charity Bingo event for the Foundation was postponed due to Hurricane Milton. It has been rescheduled for Saturday, January 25, but without a location because Atonement Lutheran was badly damaged by the storm.
If you or someone you know has a location that could host that event, visit SeanBartell.org. To order your copy of Santa: An Angel Dad, visit Amazon.com.
(Above) The Wiseman family participated in the “Trot for Tessa” 5K run at Tampa Palms Elementary, where principal Angela Gluth (bottom left photo) talked about former TPE student Tessa Wiseman (bottom right), who passed away at the age of 28. (Trot for Tessa photos by Charmaine George)
What’s the best way to start a day when you know you’re going to consume large quantities of food, like on Thanksgiving? With a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) run, of course!
And, the New Tampa/Wesley Chapel area hosted three such runs, with nearly 3,500 total runners taking part. The largest of these was the 12th annual Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot, hosted by the New Tampa Rotary Club at the Shops at Wiregrass, with more than 2,100 runners and walkers.
At the same time, BayCare Wesley Chapel Hospital hosted the BayCare Wobble at the Tampa Premium Outlets, with more than 1,100 participants, who enjoyed the cool weather, a fun costume contest and DJ music. I was there to photograph this race, which was won by Land O’Lakes resident Alejandro Peña, in an outstanding time of 15:34 (photo below left).
Baycare Wobble Photos by Gary Nager
But, photographer Charmaine George was on-hand at the first annual “Trot for Tessa,” a non-sanctioned 5K fun run at Tampa Palms Elementary (TPE) that was created to honor a former student at the school, Tessa Wiseman, whose mom Robin also is a current second grade teacher at TPE.
Tessa, who passed away from liver cancer in August of last year at the age of 28, was an avid runner who not only logged 6-7 miles per day and ran marathons, but also served as a guide runner for visually impaired athletes who ran road races.
After high school, Tessa earned her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and was a year from graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville, when she tragically lost her second cancer fight. She worked for the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C., where she was focused on immigration and refugee advocacy and was an inspiration to her family, friends and colleagues. She wrote an op-ed piece for Glamour magazine in 2017, following her first cancer diagnosis and again made national headlines when she was released from the Moffitt Cancer Center to attend Taylor Swift’s final Tampa performance only four months before she passed away.
TPE principal Angela Gluth said that not only was the run named in Tessa’s honor, a magnolia tree was planted at the school to remember her.
“Every time you see that tree, you’ll be reminded to live a little more like Tessa with kindness, generosity and that love for life…If there is any money left over from (the 200+) race registrations, we will donate it to our school’s Vision Department, to create Braille resources for our students. and the Wiseman family will be selecting some of Tessa’s favorite childhood books so our students here can continue with their love of reading [in Braille].”
Tessa’s father Todd Wiseman told those in attendance that Tessa “would have loved running with you through Tampa Palms today.” — GN
Tampa Palms Resident Defies The Odds With Perfect Scores On The PSAT, SAT & ACT!
Tampa Palms resident Adwaith Praveen is the only New Tampa resident we know of who scored perfect grades on the PSAT, SAT & ACT exams. (Photo by Charmaine George)
A Tampa Palms resident has accomplished an outstanding academic feat by earning perfect scores on the PSAT (1520), SAT (1600) and ACT (36) exams and is likely the first to do so in the 30+ years since the name “New Tampa” was first coined.
Strawberry Crest High junior Adwaith Praveen has joined an elite group of test takers who achieved all three of these perfect scores. Adwaith says he chose Strawberry Crest, located in Dover (near I-4), for its International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme and his family knows that these perfect test scores are just one measure of Adwaith’s academic acumen.
While standardized entrance exams have changed and evolved over time, their difficulty is widely recognized, as they stress out millions of high school students who take them annually. The number of students who have achieved perfect scores on all three tests is hard to pinpoint since the exams only publicly share general info.
However, in a typical year, only 0.1%- 0.2% of ACT test-takers will receive a perfect score of 36. This means that out of the approximately 1.4 million students who took the test in 2023, only 1,400 – 2,800 likely scored a 36. When it comes to the SAT, that number is even smaller.
Scoring a perfect 1600 on the SAT is something that only 0.03% to 0.05% accomplish. Out of the 1.9 million students who took the SAT in 2023, only 570-950 would manage a perfect score. To achieve perfection on all three is even more rare, most likely in the low 100s annually nationwide.
For perspective, the average SAT score in Florida in 2023 was only 966 — 463 in math and 503 on the evidence-based reading and writing (ERW) section.
Adwaith says that he enjoys challenging himself intellectually.
“I’ve always just had a general academic inclination,” he shares. “I watch a lot of documentaries. I read a lot of books about science. I always try to learn new things and take harder courses.”
That determination to push himself fueled Adwaith’s choice of middle and high schools — neither of which is located in the New Tampa area.
“We decided to give me the best learning opportunities and best environment,” explains Adwaith. He attended Terrace Community Middle School (TCMS) in Temple Terrace, a charter school that was named the #1 school in Hillsborough County and one of the “100 Best Bets in Charter Schools” nationally. And, Strawberry Crest’s IB program offers rigorous, pre-university coursework for highly motivated students. The comprehensive academic program integrates literature, science and language, in addition to other curriculum areas.
As part of his IB program, Adwaith is currently taking courses Chemistry, high-level (HL) Physics (which is apparently a step above the AP Physics offered at most high schools) and HL Mathematics.
Adwaith, who has an unweighted grade-point average (GPA) of 4.0, describes how he manages his strenuous academic requirements. One key strategy, he says, is avoiding procrastination. He utilizes time blocks allotted for study and work on assignments during the school day in order to take care of what he can before ever leaving the campus. Then, upon arriving home after school, he makes sure to get his homework finished before anything else.
“I definitely spend a lot of time practicing for HL Mathematics, because it’s a rigorous course,” Adwaith says. “But most of the courses I’m taking do take quite a bit of studying and knowledge. Whenever there’s a test, I will generally be studying for that, whether it’s AP US History, Chemistry, Physics or Math.”
Adwaith says his parents absolutely support and encourage him, but they don’t pressure him. In fact, he is the one that chooses to put in all the extra effort.
“A lot of it is my own motivation,” says Adwaith. “I want to score high on my tests, and do good in school, so I can have a better future.”
His parents say that Adwaith’s passion for learning was evident at a young age. His father, Gopinath, and mother, Ampana, both earned Master’s degrees from universities in India, and have always encouraged and supported his growing curiosity and interests. His father, who works in IT for a bank, says that there were early signs of his son’s talents.
“When he was very small, he had a big fascination for numbers,” recalls Gopinath. “Before kindergarten, he could count into really high numbers and would remember things like Googolplex (or 10 to the 100th power). That kind of caught everyone’s attention.” Adwaith’s interests as a child also included a fascination with the solar system, as he remembered the names of constellations, stars and planets.
Upon realizing that Adwaith had a gift and could easily remember things, his parents did whatever they could to nurture his talents and encourage him to always aim higher. While prioritizing academics is important to the family, Anupama , a Hillsborough County substitute teacher, explains proudly that she and her husband “don’t have to push him,” although they did make a point of encouraging Adwaith’s love of reading by taking him to the library and coming home with 30-40 books as well as buying him others — mostly nonfiction, such as Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” by Yuval Noah Harari, that sparked his interest throughout his youth.
Adwaith knows that his voracious reading background was one of the keys to his perfect scores on the standardized tests.
He says that reading regularly exposed him to more grammar and vocabulary than most children pick up.
At some point you will just be able to read a passage and [know] that something doesn’t sound right and which phrasing sounds more natural.”
When it comes to tackling math, physics and chemistry, Adwaith has this advice: “Write down examples and do them on your own. Once you learn the concept, do practice problems. Practice problems are key.”
Adwaith acknowledges that everyone has their own unique learning style, but he is happy to share the strategies that have helped him academically. “The best thing you can do is be generally passionate about what you do,” he says.
When asked if she felt pressured to achieve similar scholastic success as her brother, Adwaith’s sister Parvati, a 13 year-old 8th grader, also at TCMS, had only positive things to say.
“I don’t really feel pressure to get that score,” she shares. “But it does inspire me knowing that someone in my family could get a perfect score. If I work hard enough, maybe I could get one too.”
While Parvati, like her brother, also enjoys math classes, playing the piano is one of her favorite activities. She has been playing for eight years.
Even with his heavy academic load, Adwaith makes time to relax and enjoy life, too. Like many teens, he enjoys playing video games and he does like to tinker with coding and programming. However, reading is one of his favorite ways to relax and unwind.
“I like to sit on the porch and read a book,” he says. “It’s really nice with the sun shining through.”
Gopinath says his son also owns and spends a lot of time looking at the stars with his Dobsonian telescope (a design invented in 1965 by amateur astronomer John Dobson, which is credited with vastly increasing the size of telescopes available to amateur astronomers). “Adwaith has always been fascinated by the stars,” Gopinath says.
And, while he does generally try to hang out with like-minded teens, who also put an emphasis on academics, Adwaith never lets his unique interests and achievements create a gap between him and his peers. Instead, he looks for their commonalities.
“When I’m interacting with people, we usually use a common medium like games,” he says, “When I am talking with people, we will talk about shared interests.”
While he is currently undecided when it comes to what college he wants to attend (although he has mentioned both Georgia Tech and the University of Florida in Gainesville) and what field he plans to enter, Adwaith is excited about what the future holds. While his drive and level-headed-ness can not measured by standardized tests, those traits will continue to be the key to his ongoing success.
