HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY TO THE ROUSH TWINS!

Leukemia may have kept John Roush (far right) from school and his friends since his diagnosis in May, but it wasn’t going to spoil the drive-by 7th birthday celebration he shared with his twin brother Donald (left), as the Wesley Chapel community turned out in force out to wish the boys well from a distance.

Robert Roush knew a traditional birthday party was out of the question for his twin sons Donald and John, after John was diagnosed with leukemia in May.

So, Robert took to Facebook and crossed his fingers. A 26-year resident of Wesley Chapel, he hoped he could rally enough people willing to drive by his home and offer a happy seventh birthday wish for the boys from their vehicles.

Wesley Chapel didn’t let him down. More than 100 vehicles drove by the Roush home in two hours in Fox Ridge, honking and hollering birthday wishes, including fire trucks, a motorcycle club and some classic cars. Many waved elaborate signs wishing the twins a happy birthday, others handed out gifts for them.

“Honestly at first, we were apprehensive,” Robert said. “We’ve lived in Wesley Chapel for 26 years and I’ve seen how much it has changed with so much growth (and new people) the last two years and worried maybe it was losing that sense of community…but I was overwhelmed in a very good way. We saw that, at the core, the community is still there.”

Donald and John waved back from the front lawn of their home. They posed with firefighters, who brought gifts. John got to see teachers and his classmates from Quail Hollow Elementary, who he never got to say goodbye to this school year due to his untimely diagnosis.

“That was a big deal for him,” Robert said. “Missing the last weeks of school was really, really tough for him.”

John will not be able to attend classes in the fall, and will be home schooled by Robert. John’s mother Laura is a teacher’s assistant at Quail Hollow and is taking classes to become a teacher.

In May, John, who hadn’t been himself for months, was taken to St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, where he was diagnosed with leukemia.

He spent the following 11 days in the hospital. The doctors say there is a two-year battle ahead of the family, but Robert says people who have children with leukemia or have already been through it have told him that two years “is a pie in the sky” prediction.

“We think we’re looking at 3-4 years of chemotherapy and other treatments,” said Robert, a self-employed counselor and pastor. “We’ll just have to take it one month at a time, and pray for the best.”

On the twins’ actual birthday — June 24 — John had a bone marrow draw and a spinal injection, where he had to go under anesthesia and have chemotherapy directly injected into his spine.

As a result, he was worn out 45 minutes into his birthday drive-by celebration the following day, but not before he was able to enjoy a reprieve from the loneliness of his illness.

“It absolutely was good for him, not only seeing how many people were supporting him and rooting for him, but it also gave him closure for the end of school,” Robert said. “It really helped him.” — JCC

Note – On July 1, Robert Roush posted the following on Facebook: 

“After a wonderful birthday, due to the love and support of the community, John has had a few setbacks. He had to undergo an additional bone marrow draw…and his blood counts have dropped, requiring him to be admitted back into St. Joseph’s. His spirits are high, but his energy is low. Please pray for our little man and our family…God willing he may be home for the 4th (of July).”

Check our Facebook page for updates.

MP Connector To K-Bar Ranch Closed…For Now 

The road from K-Bar Ranch through Meadow Pointe III was opened for utility workers, not the general public, and has been closed again. Final work, like removing the sign above, should be completed by the end of this month.(Photo: John C. Cotey)

It was open.

Now it isn’t.

However, it will be open again. Really.

That’s basically where the Meadow Pointe Blvd. connection to K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. saga stands at the moment, after a few weeks of confusion for Wesley Chapel and New Tampa residents.

The long-awaited connector is currently closed. According to Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents the New Tampa area, the roadway is “technically private property until the Tampa City Council approves the plat later in July 2022.”

Following that approval, the roadway will have to pass an inspection by Pasco County, which will then officially approve it. The City of Tampa has already inspected the connector.

Until all of that red tape has been completed, developer M/I Homes will retain ownership of the roadway and the barricades will stay up.

Viera was under the impression that the connector was completed when he noticed that the barriers had been removed and contacted the Neighborhood News on May 30.

A few weeks after driving the road a few times and posting a story online about the connection finally being made, the Neighborhood News received more than a dozen inquiries via email and social media asking why it was suddenly closed again.

After a number of social media conspiracy theories were floated, Viera says he was told by City of Tampa staff that the connector was only meant to be open to provide utility access to fully complete the work, as well as removing old signs like the dead-end sign on Meadow Pointe Blvd.

However, the thirst for a connection heading north from New Tampa to Wesley Chapel was bound to attract K-Bar Ranch residents, who have been clamoring for years for additional points of egress. Currently, the only way out of the western end of K-Bar Ranch is via Kinnan St., or by driving through busy neighborhoods and past Pride Elementary on Bassett Creek Dr.

“This was absolutely important,” said Cindy Gustavel, a K-Bar Ranch resident since 2015. “I think some people saw this as a way to get to malls and restaurants, but most of us just saw it as a way to make living here safer.”

The City of Tampa will organize a formal opening ceremony when the roadway has been completed, likely later this month or in early August.

That keeps with the original schedule that City of Tampa chief traffic management engineer and head of the Smart Mobility Division Vik Bhide laid out in March. Bhide said then that the roadway would officially open in July.

The Meadow Pointe Blvd. connector is one of four connection points originally planned on K-Bar Ranch Pkwy. for the K-Bar Ranch community. The first, where Kinnan St. meets Mansfield Blvd. in Meadow Pointe II, was denied by Pasco County and continues to only be open to emergency rescue vehicle and police traffic. Meadow Pointe Blvd. is the second, and the other two — at Wyndfields Blvd and Morris Bridge Rd. — are at least two years away, according to Bhide.

So, while a new connection is something to be happy about, many K-Bar Ranch residents still strongly believe the Kinnan-Mansfield connection should still be opened to vehicular traffic as well.

“There’s a huge appetite for that,” says Gustavel, who serves on her neighborhood’s HOA board as well as on the K-Bar Ranch CDD board. “I don’t think that will ever go away.”

NTPAC Ribbon Cutting Just One Upcoming County Event

The New Tampa Peforming Arts Center could be ready for its ribbon cutting in September.

The decades-in-the-making New Tampa Peforming Arts Center (NTPAC) should be ready to open this fall, says Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan.

Hagan, who represents New Tampa in District 2, said a ribbon cutting is tenatively scheduled for September 22 or 23.

“Nothing is set in stone yet,” Hagan says. “But that’s what county staff is looking at right now.”

The 20,000-sq.-ft. NTPAC, which can be expanded later to 30,000 sq. ft., will have a 343-seat theater with retractable seating, a stage, a catwalk and an orchestra pit. There will be four multipurpose rooms and parking for 215 vehicles. The facility, located behind the Village at Hunter’s Lake shopping plaza, across from the entrance to the Hunter’s Green community, is expected to be used for community performances and arts training of all kinds.

No one has been selected to run the facility yet, a responsibility the county may end up assuming. It had originally chosen The Florida Cultural Group, formerly known as The Manatee Players, Inc., but some of the commissioners objected and said they preferred a local group be hired to manage the NTPAC. 

A new company was expected to be chosen to run the programs at the PAC by March but nothing has yet been announced.

But, the NTPAC ribbon cutting isn’t the only thing the county has planned for September in our area — Hagan says he also expects the new Branchton Regional Park to break ground that month.

The park, which will be located on Morris Bridge Rd. just south of Cross Creek Blvd., will have pickleball and basketball courts, a splash pad and a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) substation in its first phase, to name a few of the amenties.

“County staff is finalizing plans and getting the final permits,” Hagan says. 

And, prior to the NTPAC and Branchton events, Hagan said there will be a public meeting held in August so local residents can weigh in on a proposed public recreation center, which would be the first such county-run facility in New Tampa.

The recreation center will be located at Cross Creek Park, adjacent to Pride Elementary just off Kinnan st.

The facility will include indoor basketball, volleyball and pickleball courts and be available for other sports, and there will be community meeting space as well.

The basketball courts and playground already at the park will be upgraded, and a splash pad also would be part of the improvements.

Hagan says he has secured $1.5 million for the project, and is looking at the rest of the funding to come from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) federal funding. Hillsborough County has received $285 million from the federal program.

The recreation center’s proposed location, near Pride Elementary, could be an issue for many K-Bar residents without major road improvements in that area. 

At various townhalls and meetings with city officials, residents have expressed safety concerns about school traffic in that area, due to the unusual configuration of the road leading past the school and into K-Bar Ranch, which has created logjams for years.

‘Grand Hampton’ Series Headed To The Big Screen

Annette Simmons-Brown, who plays the evil Dr. Annette, and Antony Capers co-wrote the Season 3 premiere that shot part of its episode at the Tampa Theater on July 1. (Photos: Charmaine George)

Here’s something that Grand Hampton resident and multimedia artist Antony Capers never imagined happening when he started shooting his campy, convoluted and creepy YouTube-based horror series during the pandemic — “Grand Hampton: The Movie Series” is headed for the big screen.

What began as a 45-second video clip of Capers’ son Merric and became an online series with two seasons and 27 episodes filmed exclusively in the Grand Hampton community with local residents mostly during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, is now going to have its Season 3 premiere — an hour-long movie — shown at the iconic Tampa Theater in downtown Tampa in October.

Part of that premiere was shot at the Tampa Theater Friday afternoon. 

Filmmaker Antony Capers (with hat) and some of the cast members of his “Grand Hampton: The Movie Series” at a recent table read.

Capers, a freelance designer who owns his own production company, Reelistic Tales, continues to be humbled by the rection to his horror series, which is about a community filled with people in the witness protection program, whose children are disappearing as part of an organ harvesting plot run by an evil doctor and assisted by strange alien creatures. The show has more than 250 subscribers and 15,000 views on YouTube. While it has allowed Capers to build strong friendships in the Grand Hampton community, his primary goal when he started the series, it also could pull open some curtains for the 46-year-old filmmaker. 

The first curtains to open will be those at the Tampa Theater. Last year, Capers attended a horror movie viewing of “The Conjuring 3,” starring Tampa’s Patrick Wilson, at the old movie house in downtown Tampa as part of a “Film Tampa Bay Presents” series showcasing the work of local writers, directors, actors and crew who are from the Tampa area.

During the Question-&-Answer session after the movie, Jill Witecki, the Tampa Theater’s marketing director, says there was a lot of discussion about the Tampa Theater’s mission to celebrate area films and filmmakers, and it struck a chord with the New Tampa filmmaker.

The next day, Capers and Annette Simmons-Brown, who plays the evil Dr. Annette, harvester of children’s lungs, in the series, emailed Witecki about the Grand Hampton project.

“It was fascinating to us,” Witecki says. “Not only because he was a local filmmaker, but because it was really something different. It was a great example of some of the creativity that came to light during the pandemic.”

Witecki says Tampa Theater officials and Capers had a number of conversations about working together. One idea was to have Capers speak to the theater’s summer campers. 

“The film camp program is learning how to do exactly what he did, which is take what’s around you, take the people and the locations, and turn it into a movie,” Witecki says.

The other idea was to fit “Grand Hampton: The Movie” into the theater’s October horror series, “The Nightmare on Franklin St.,” where classic horror movies have been shown the last two weeks of the month for the past nine years.

Antony Capers.

“It seemed to be a good fit,” she says.

Not only did Capers jump at the chance, but he also talked the theater into letting him film part of the premiere inside the Tampa Theater.

Capers and Simmons have written the script for the Season 3 premiere together. They wrote a small part for Witecki, as well. And, Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who attended the Season 2 premier at the Grand Hampton clubhouse and helped give the show some of its initial publicity, also has a small role.

While Season 2 had to end abruptly due to the opportunity with the Tampa Theater, Capers says it is giving him a chance to revamp the series. Instead of it focusing on one family — him and Merric — each episode will be a 45-minute tale about a different family, which Capers compares to the way the old “Tales of the Crypt” series was filmed.

Season 3 begins with the parents of Grand Hampton going on a date night to the Tampa Theater, and while they are gone….well, you’ll just have to watch.

“A lot of action takes place back home during date night,” Capers says. “The new way of doing ‘Grand Hampton’ is pretty cool, if it works. It’s still ‘Grand Hampton,’ still the same characters, no paid actors, still 100-percent community involvement. It’s just revamped.”

The opportunity at Tampa Theater has Capers dreaming big. 

He says a showing at an iconic theater will put new eyes on his series, which is a thrill. And, he’d love to get into the Sundance Film Festival, get on Netflix or even just get the chance to pitch the idea to a streaming service. 

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he says. 

And, for Capers,  Simmons and other Grand Hampton cast members, the chance to be seen on the big screen and then answer questions from the audience about what it’s like making a series and a movie will be the thrill of a lifetime.

“Branching out at an iconic location like Tampa Theater is going to be great,” Capers says. “I can’t wait.”

To view all episodes of the series, visit YouTube.com and search “Grand Hampton: The Movie”.  

Local 2022 Campaign Season Heating Up

Fentrice Driskell, the new Democratic party leader of the Florida House, will headline a pair of townhalls in New Tampa over the next two weeks.

The first town hall will be at the New Tampa Regional Library on Thursday, June 30, at 6 p.m., followed by a town hall at Tampa Palms’ Compton Park on Wednesday, July 6, also at 6 p.m.

Rep. Driskell will be joined by District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera and State Sen. Janet Cruz, who is seeking reelection in Senate District 14, a district that recently has been redrawn and now includes New Tampa.

Sen. Cruz, a Democrat, is running against Republican Jay Collins, who dropped his bid for Congress last week to challenge Cruz and picked up a quick endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

That effectively forced Hunter’s Green resident and fellow Republican Shawn Harrison, who had filed to run against Cruz in April, from the race,

Like Cruz, Driskell is running in a redrawn district, although it still includes New Tampa and USF. Instead of House District 63, the seat she won in 2018 and 2020, Driskell is now looking to secure House District 67.

She will be opposed by Democrat Dawn Douglas, who filed to run in May, and Republican Lisette Bonano, who filed last year.

Bonano, an Army veteran, is a New Tampa resident.