Author: Garland Pollard

Churches send unified message on need for parking

Churches along Gilchrist Avenue this week sent a letter to Lee County officials reiterating their support for continuing to allow daytime parking in the median of Gilchrist Avenue. The formal letter...

A timeline of parking discussions on Gasparilla Island

April 25, 2024
Garland Pollard
News

The issue of parking on Gasparilla Island is not a new one. Through the years, the Boca Beacon has covered the issue as locals and county officials have tried to balance competing interests. Below,...

5G ‘Q-tip’ poles swab up the streets

This week, there were two more 5G Verizon small cell towers erected on Gasparilla Island. They are part of a series of Verizon “small cell” wireless towers that will provide a secondary service in...

The ‘remnant people’ head home, or stick around

There are many “very important” and “formerly very important” or “previously important” or “pretty important” people on Gasparilla Island. We have acronyms for them. This week, we spied one of the...

The limits of our earth on this day

Earth Day is coming up this weekend. This week, we have a column about Earth Day from Delores Savas as well as a small article about one of the Earth Day activities in our news section. There are also...

O.J. Simpson was Rotonda Superstar in 1975

The death of O.J. Simpson on April 10 in Las Vegas brought back a time when the NFL star came to Rotonda for ABC’s The Superstars. We look back at the era. Above, O.J. and Howard Cosell at the 1974...

Superstars: Locals remember O.J. and Hulk’s Lou Ferrigno

There was a week in February of 1975 that the late Orenthal James Simpson was king of Rotonda and Cape Haze. The event was O.J.’s victory the ABC Superstars competition, which aired Sunday, Feb. 23,...

Superstars: America’s great athletes assembled in Rotonda

The first Superstars was Feb. 19-20, 1973 and aired Feb. 25 over the entire ABC network. “There are some who question its integrity as an entertainment vehicle,” said organizer Philip Bottfeld,...

Remembering Rob Wells of Cabbage Key

Robert Wells Jr., the founder of the modern Cabbage Key and the Tarpon Lodge, died Tuesday. Wells, and his wife Phyllis, purchased Cabbage Key in 1976, after he left a job as director of admissions...

Gaza aid worker caught his first fish here

Jacob Alexander Flickinger, a 33-year-old humanitarian food aid worker for the charity World Central Kitchen, was killed April 1, 2024 while delivering food aid in Gaza. He is the nephew of island...