Written by Staff Report on . Posted in Obituaries.
Lucy Battel Hamilton died peacefully on July 19, 2023 at her summer home in Cooperstown, New York surrounded by her loving family. Known to all as “Bunny,” she was born in Buffalo, N.Y. on November 13, 1933, the daughter of Lucy Mills Battel and John Lawrence Battel. After attending the Buffalo Seminary and Bennett College, […]
Written by Garland Pollard on . Posted in Community History, Profiles.
In Cape Haze, just behind the Ace Hardware and Cool Pickle in Paradise restaurant, a 300-foot radio tower that most see, but few pay attention to, peeks out of the woods.
The tower, with its blinking red light, is the broadcast point for 91.3 FM, WSEB. It is a small, independent Christian radio station that runs on a tiny budget but has considerable reach.
WSEB’s signal reaches north up to Bradenton, east 10 miles outside of Arcadia, and south to the airport in Ft. Myers. Its signal also goes out across the Gulf of Mexico, reaching the very occasional boater or fisherman. Most often, boaters just use the blinking red light atop the tower as a guide.
“We’ve heard from fishermen that they use our tower for guidance,” said WSEB General Manager Ken Lindow, Jr. “Sometimes it’s a blessing to them.”
Written by Sheila Evans on . Posted in Community History, Health & Wellness, Profiles.
Author George Bernard Shaw famously claimed youth was wasted on the young. Apparently, he never met Effie Joiner, because she is not wasting a moment of her youth. Effie is not yet 27 but is putting nearly every minute to good use and having great fun along the way.
Effie is the newest member of the staff at the Friends of Boca Grande Community Center. She is a program assistant, helping primarily on the music front. She also helps with the lecture series, selling tickets in the office and assisting wherever needed.
Written by Garland Pollard on . Posted in Community, News.
Many were relieved to hear that Palm Island Resort fared as well as it did. It has become a generational family place to visit, with many grandparents taking their grandchildren to see Redbeard the Pirate perform, to eat ice cream at the tables outside Coconuts and play on the purple turtle playground, just as they did when they were young.
Written by Staff Report on . Posted in Obituaries.
Susan Hatch, 77, of Chenequa, Wisconsin died on July 3, 2023. She was born in Janesville, Wisconsin as the daughter of Albert and Mary Hamlin. She was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, where she met her husband Jim, to whom she was married for 48 years. In 1983 Susan founded Hatch Staffing Services. […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Obituaries.
George John Benisek M.D., 91, passed away in his sleep under hospice care in Frankfort, Michigan on June 18, 2023. He is preceded in death by his wife Barbara (Ellacott), brothers John and Paul, and grandson Kyle Killworth. He leaves his son George Benisek Jr. and daughters Lisa Benisek, Kay Muller (Fred), and Anne Bralver […]
Written by Sheila Evans on . Posted in Profiles.
It is a common myth that librarians are quiet, dull, and living in a world of fiction most of the time. If that is the image you have, Toni Vanover, Boca Grande’s librarian for the last 20 years, will quickly dispel it. She is funny, clever, and extremely smart. She loves people even more than she loves learning and sharing knowledge, and that says a lot, because those are things that really get her going.
Toni had not intended to be a librarian. It was more like a calling. After growing up in Staten Island, New York, she decided to go to George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., to become a diplomat or work in the Peace Corps.
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in Community History, News.
You’re not going to like what we’re about to say, but you knew it was coming. The Community Tree across from Hudson’s Grocery will be coming down soon, as Hurricane Ian apparently put a final nail in its coffin. We’ve all watched it, hoping for one green leaf to prove that life was still going […]
Written by Staff Report on . Posted in Obituaries.
Patricia Bowler Leggat, longtime Cohasset, Mass. resident, died peacefully on April 20, 2023, surrounded by her loving family. She was 93 years old. Patricia was born to Dr. John Pollard Bowler and Madelaine Gile Bowler on August 19, 1929, Patsy grew up in Hanover, NH. Her father was a surgeon at the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, […]
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in Community History, News.
The Whispering Bench is gone. Early Saturday morning heavy equipment operators came and began to gouge it out of the earth, while Boca Grande residents gathered around and did their best to protest it. Some tried to block the way of the equipment. Others tried to climb on the equipment. There were epithets thrown, as well as more than one projectile.
Someone in the crowd was heard to say, “They just started a war.”
It’s not as much about the bench as it is about the mentality of those who are moving here. Many of these are people who don’t know or care about the island’s rich history and, more to the point, they don’t know about how things have been done around here for almost 150 years.
But it didn’t matter in the end; the job was done.