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.
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 […]
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.
John Henry Eckenroad, III, 78, of Boca Grande, Florida passed away surrounded by his family on July 24, 2022.Born on August 14, 1943, John spent the first years of his life in Clarendon Hills, Illinois with his parents, Mary and John Jr. and his younger sister, Ann. John attended St. Procopius High School before the […]
Since the Boca Beacon began in 1980, the Boca Beacon has had the distinct honor of running obituaries free of charge. This policy has been adhered to without question until recently, when we realized that many of our readers send us obituaries that don’t go through funeral homes. This means that they aren’t being recorded […]
We are so excited to announce our new music series, “Rhythm & Boots,” featuring some of the top talent in the Country & Bluegrass scene. This concert series spans all of our venues, with two outdoor concerts at the Friends Pavilion, one in the Auditorium and the other in the intimate atmosphere of the Crowninshield Community House.
A wise local once told me something profound. When asked what we could do to help save a historic icon that was about to be sold he said, “What are you trying to save? It’s already been sold out. It could have been sold to someone who cared, but they didn’t buy it. And it’s not my job to subsidize their personal experience. They had their chance to make it what they wanted to, or to keep it the way it is, and they choose not to buy it. Now it’s someone else’s choice.”
Andy said the focus has changed somewhat in the last months. Initially, the emphasis was on vehicles, gas and safety equipment to help people evacuate. Today the evacuations have slowed significantly and the new emphasis is on restoring normalcy where they can. Housing is a major item. “We are working with a church in Kyiv to clear land and set up modular houses,” Andy reported. Each house can be put up for $1,900 to $2,000, and, when necessary, can house two families. “So a $4,000 donation from a church or group can make a real difference,” he said.
Norman Darrell George, 83, passed away on July 24, 2022. As a native of Pennsylvania, it is not surprising that Norm received his bachelor of science degree in business at Bucknell University. It is there that he would meet the love of his life, Carolann Buquet. In college, Norm loved skydiving and was the president […]
Marjorie Ann Triebold (Schonath) went to her eternal home on July 22, 2022. Marge was born on January 6, 1937 to John and Martha (Hoppe) Schonath in Whitewater, Wisconsin. She graduated from Whitewater City High School in 1954 and then went on to graduate from UW Whitewater in 1958 with a degree in kindergarten/ primary […]
