Category: News

A ‘Chaotic Symphony’ & A ‘Wobble’ At The Shops At Wiregrass

wiregrasslights4 — Max, the lead singer in the New Tampa-based kid band ‘Beyond Chaotic,’ sings ‘Radioactive’ by the Imagine Dragons.By Gary Nager

I was on hand for the “Symphony in Lights” Presented by Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel — the every-hour-on-the-hour (between 6 p.m.-9 p.m.) tree-lighting-set-to-music” event at Wiregrass — on Nov. 25, when the Tampa based kid band (its oldest member is 11-year-old Max, the group’s lead singer) known as “Beyond Chaotic” performed three sets of — if you can believe it — alternative rock music — between each of the 10-minute tree-lighting events. I’m not the biggest fan of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but between synthetic ice skating on Piazza Ave., and music every night through December 31, the Shops is still a cool place to shop, with multiple restaurants that sell alcohol and provide additional entertainment.

I was at the Shops that night as part of an informal gathering of Rotarians from the original New Tampa (which has been meeting at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club on Friday mornings for 20 years, the oldest Rotary in either of our distribution areas; we’ll have pics from the club’s 20th anniversary, which was celebrated on Black Friday Night, the night I went to press, but we’ll have a recap in our next issue) and Wesley Chapel (our area’s largest current club, which meets Wednesdays at noon at Stage Left Bar & Kitchen in Lutz) Rotary Clubs. Fun.

While many of those same WC Rotarians were serving meals to 500 people in need at Atonement Lutheran Church on S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel the following morning, a number of NT “Breakfast” Rotary members also were on hand at the Shops the following morning for the third annual “Wiregrass Wobble 5K,” of which which the New Tampa club has been a major sponsor (along with the New Tampa Family YMCA & the FitNiche store in the Shops) since the event’s inception.

I neither attended nor covered this year’s “Wobble,” an event which already has had more than 3,000 participants and raised $45,000 (combined) the previous two years. But, with perfect weather this year, I hear the 5K run was packed again this time around. Since my friend and New Tampa Rotarian (and TV/film director/producer) Craig Miller of Full Throttle Intermedia (Facebook.com/Full Throttle Intermedia) was there, I “borrowed” a couple of his great pics for this story. I hope to soon update the huge number of runners and funds raised at NTNeighborhoodNews.com and in our next issue.

Truly ‘Beyond Chaotic’

My favorite thing about the mall at this time of year is definitely the entertainment. Beyond Chaotic is made up of music students ranging in age from 8 to no older than 11, no less at Bigel Music on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. across from Paul R. Wharton High, in the plaza next to MidFlorida Credit Union.

If you haven’t seen this too-young-to-be-this-good alternative rock band that performs everything from Imagine Dragons to AC/DC, make sure you like their page at Facebook.com/Beyond Chaotic. If you’re like…well, everyone who has seen these kids sing and play guitar, bass, drums, violin and keyboards, you’re going to want to check out their upcoming gigs. And you should.

And, if you or your children want to explore your own musical talents, I think Beyond Chaotic and the Bigel Music Chorus both speak loudly (yet melodically) about owner Larry Bigel’s Bigel Music. For info, visit BigelMusic.com.

There’s lots of other great local entertainers performing every night at the Shops through December 23, too.

For more information about synthetic ice skating, Visits with Santa, or your chance to win a “Santa’s Gift Grab” $1,000 shopping spree, visit TheShopsatWiregrass.com.

Wesley Chapel Rotary's 'Turkey Gobble' Feeds Hundreds Again

By Gary Nager

The Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel Noon is proud to have again served more than 500 “Turkey Day” meals with all of the trimmings at two locations on Thanksgiving morning, Nov 26 — including 450 meals at Atonement Lutheran Church on SR 54 in Wesley Chapel — during the club’s sixth annual “Turkey Gobble.”

The 100-member WC Noon Rotary, which meets Wednesdays at noon at Stage Left on SR 54 in Lutz, has been feeding area homeless and other needy individuals & families at the church (which also is the location of the free Helping Hands Food Pantry for locals in need) every year since 2010. At this year’s “Gobble,” more than 50 volunteers from the WC Rotary (including club members and their family & friends) fed more than 450 families at Atonement Lutheran, while the WC Rotary’s “satellite” club in Land O’Lakes served another 50 meals at Keystone Community Church on S.R. 54 in Lutz, the third year in a row that the Rotary Club has “Gobbled” at Keystone.

“We also donated 150 ‘snack packs’ for those families to take with them,” said Dineen Pashoukos Wasylik, the Rotary Club’s Turkey Gobble organizer this year for the third consecutive year. She also thanked a contingent of volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 149, based in Lutz. “And, some members of our club again went into the woods to take meals to the homeless camp (located off S.R. 54).”

Dineen also thanked other members of the community, who pitched in by delivering meals to housebound people in need. “I am so thankful for the volunteers who spent time on a holiday to put the ‘giving’ in Thanksgiving,” she said.

I am always so proud to say that I’m a member of the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club. If you want to be part of an organization that truly believes in the Rotary International motto of “Service Above Self,” one that always gives back to its local, regional and even international communities, visit WCRotary.org. First-time visitors always receive lunch for free at our regular Wed. meetings at Stage Left and you can even sign in as my guest.

All those noises last night explained

Sorry, but every time I hear booms or see the word “boom” I can’t help but think of “Boom goes the dynamite”. This video clip is just a little snippet. The full video is below, it’s a viral classic.

As for all booms and bangs last night, Pasco County Government spokesman Doug Tobin says from what he understands, and has been reported elsewhere, the noises were the result of air force exercises in the Gulf of Mexico. But they were certainly loud enough to rattle some windows and give my dogs a scare on our walk around 8:40 p.m. last night.

Here’s the top 5 Boom Explanations we pulled off the Wesley Chapel Community Facebook page:

From banging my head against the wall trying to help my child finish this science project.
Rainbow Dash’s Rainboom (parents who have been forced by their children to watch My Little Pony should get a kick out of that one. Admit it, you’re all singing the show’s theme song right now, aren’t you?)
Aliens.
Impending Apocalypse.
Construction detonations.

Junior Woman’s Club Members Accompany Vets On ‘Honor Flight’

Tampa Palms resident Melanie Otte remembers her grandfather’s stories about World War II. He would regale the family about his wartime exploits, as they leafed through his photo albums, and proudly show off a picture of the Enola Gay — the first aircraft ever to drop an atomic bomb — that he had to jump a fence to take the photo with a small spy camera.

It never really hit her, though, what his service meant to him until she recently chose to take part in an Honor Flight.

Otte and Wesley Chapel resident Jennifer Lee, both members of the Greater Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)’s New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club, served as volunteer guardians to a pair of U.S. Military veterans on Sept. 22, an experience that left both amazed, appreciative and very much in awe.

honor2 — Jennifer Lee (left) and Melanie Otte

“I had been to Washington, DC, as a kid, but this was a much more moving experience,’’ Otte says. “I mean, standing there with a person who lived it, that was just something totally different.”

Honor Flights are one-day trips organized by non-profit organizations dedicated to providing a way for veterans to visit the monuments created in the name of their service scattered throughout the nation’s capital.

Last year, the New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club donated $400 so one veteran could make the trip. That inspired Otte and Lee to get involved as Honor Flight volunteers this year.

Otte served as a volunteer guardian to 80-year-old Korean War U.S. Air Force Military Police veteran Frank Kynion, who lives in St. Petersburg, while Lee escorted Laura Tilton, a 92-year-old Venice resident and World War II veteran.

The day of the Honor Flight began with alarm clocks going off at 3 a.m. for the volunteers, a donated breakfast from McDonald’s at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport, and a 4 a.m. flight to the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport with about 80 other veterans and their guardians.

When they got off the plane, the spunky Tilton asked Lee if the wheelchair had a speed limit, and Lee asked if she was pushing too fast.

“No, pick it up, we got things to see,’’ Tilton told her with glee.

A contingent of military personnel was there to greet the veterans at the airport, setting off a whirlwind day of emotional sightseeing.

“When we were at the Korean War Memorial, it was very somber,” says Otte. “Frank was visibly taken aback. You could tell he was welling up.”

Otte said the listing of the Korean’s War’s U.S. fatalities (almost 40,000, with more than 100,000 injured) and the 19 haunting seven-foot-tall stainless steel statues standing in a patch of juniper bushes at the memorial was overwhelming.

Lee pushed Tilton around, although the former Naval Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)/pharmacy maid, was able to stand and walk for short periods of time.

“She was a lot of fun,’’ Lee says. “I think a lot of them just appreciated the one-on-one attention. She told me, ‘I had so much fun. I like to giggle, you like to giggle. She told me I was now her third daughter.”

As the vets returned to Florida, they read dozens of letters written to them by school children and adults, thanking them for their service and dedication. When the plane landed back in Clearwater, a throng of roughly 800 people, including a band, were there to greet them.

Kynion, who married a Japanese woman after the war, says he faced discrimination as a result, and also lived through the anti-military era of the Vietnam War, so he was humbled by the support. In fact, many of the veterans, on multiple occasions, asked why everyone was doing this for them.

Otte told him the answer was simple: “Because you are our heros.”

The GFWC New Tampa Junior Woman’s Club meets the second Monday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the New Tampa YMCA (16221 Compton Dr. in Tampa Palms). For more info, visit GFWCNewTampaJuniors.org.

Two-car collision on S.R. 54 leaves two dead

WESLEY CHAPEL — Two women are dead after an accident on S.R. 54 and Ernest Drive near the New River Library backed up traffic for hours Sunday night.

Lutz resident Barbara Janet Charlebois, 38, was traveling west on S.R. 54 when, for unknown reasons, she drove off the roadway and onto the right shoulder of the road. She overcorrected her vehicle, a 2004 Toyota Camry, to the left which caused her to swerve into the eastbound lane and into the direct path of a 2014 Buick Verano driven by 76-year-old Bridget Mary Kent of Ontario, Canada.

The collision between the two cars occurred around 8:50 p.m.. Charlebois suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene. Kent had serious injuries and was taken to Lakeland Regional Hospital.

There were two passengers in Kent’s vehicle. and both were taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa. Lillian Cruickshank, 70, suffered serious injuries. William Edward Kent, 78 of Ontario, Canada, passed away overnight.

S.R. 54 Wesley Chapel