Written by Sheila Evans on . Posted in Community History, News.
The first project to come before the Board was the replacement of an outside stairway at 225 Banyan Street. The stairway is on the south side of the house and is referred to as a “double-winder,” which means it has stairs to the right and left of the centerpoint. This is a short stairway, only four steps on each side. The owner wants to replace it with a single stairway directly in front of the doorway.
Written by Guest Columnist on . Posted in News, Sports & Outdoors.
You can take an active part in protecting shorebirds and their nests by obeying simple rules – picking up trash, filling in dug-out holes, keeping dogs that are predators to birds off the beach, staying outside of roped nesting areas, not chasing the birds and watching where you walk.
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in News.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, there are 82 affected area codes across the country that have had to be changed, as they all have one thing in common: Their area codes are all similar to or too close to “988,” which is now the established national number for the crisis line. The 82 affected area codes have one thing in common: using 988 as a local exchange, a term that describes the middle digits of a 10-digit phone number (for example: 123-988-1234). Four of those area codes are in Florida: 321, in Brevard County; 352, in north-central Florida; 941, which covers an area from Bradenton to North Port; and 561, in Palm Beach County.
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in Community, News.
If you were to find ten young adults who grew up in Boca Grande during the 2000s and ask them who the most influential people in their lives were, you can be guaranteed a good number of them would say the name DJ, or “Coach,” Keisling. DJ has been working at the Boca Grande Community Center’s events and summer camp for a very long time … time he has made good use of. The number of young lives he has positively impacted is countless. Not to mention, it just wouldn’t be a proper egg hunt without him there between hunts, throwing candy to the wind with joyous abandon, surrounded by hundreds of young children who look as though they might eat him for brunch if he didn’t step up the pace.
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in News, Obituaries.
1964 – 2022 Bonnie Kay Pringle, 58, died on Sunday, July 31 at home in Rotonda. She was born in Punta a on May 8, 1964 to June (Reynolds) and Merril “Buddy” Fulton.Bonnie grew up in Placida, however, where her father was a commercial fisherman. She attended Charlotte County schools and had a natural affinity […]
Written by Boca Beacon Reader on . Posted in Community History.
It all started in the 1960s when my Granddaddy, Alfred Bavis Dixon, known by most folks as Alfred or A.B., bought a parcel of mostly submerged land from Bert Cole. Mr. Cole had purchased the deed from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers when the Corps was building the Intracoastal Waterway, which stretches from Massachusetts to Brownsville, Texas. The Corps approached upland and adjacent landowners and sold off parcels of submerged and partially submerged land in order to help fund the massive project. Granddaddy was a dreamer and doer, a visionary, no stranger to long hours of hard work, a man far ahead of his time. He went to the proper authorities and obtained permits to dredge and fill the parcel, and then he brought a dredge that he had built with his son Ormand to his new dream. He never asked for any special favors, no government grants, no subsidies. All he wanted was to be left alone with his task. He got as much fill as he could get when the big dredge came through digging the waterway, and he dredged up more when he built the basin and channel out into the bay. The first time I remember going to “The Point,” as we all called it, I was just a kid, and Grandaddy had the dredge set up digging the channel out to the bay. I must have been about 10 years old at the time, and it was a very exciting time for me. We were living in Virginia then, and I had never seen anything like that.
Written by Delores Savas on . Posted in Boca Beacon Back Pages, Columns, Opinion.
Like so many species on this list, which have been on this planet for eons, the endangered migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) has an ancestry that dates back about two million years. Now this species is threatened by habitat destruction, increased use of herbicides and pesticides in homes and commercial agricultural sites, illegal logging of the forests where they spend the winters, and by other factors during their migration to and from wintering sites.
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in News.
“I have lived here since I was 5, for 53 years of my life, in Lee County. I have never left here – I have raised my kids here and built my businesses here. I think this is paradise. Receiving the governor’s appointment only drives me more to keep the seat so I can continue to work to make Lee County a better place for generations to come.”
Written by Tonya Bramlage on . Posted in Columns.
Monitoring of sea turtle nesting activity is done through two separate programs: the Statewide Nesting Beach Survey and the Index Nesting Beach Survey. Managers use the results to evaluate and minimize the effects of human activities (e.g., coastal construction, seawalls, beach renourishment and recreation) on turtles and their nests and identify important areas for enhanced protection or land acquisition.
Written by Delores Savas on . Posted in Boca Beacon Back Pages, Columns, Opinion.
Florida has topped the global charts in shark bite numbers for decades. The trend continued in 2021 researchers said. Out of 73 reported unprovoked incidents around the world last year, 28 were in Florida, representing 60 percent of the total cases in the U.S. and 38 percent worldwide. That number was consistent with Florida’s most recent five-year annual average of 25-shark attacks.