When Boca Grande artists Emerson Wickwire, Linda Wolcott and Nancy Bass sat down together and looked at each other’s proposed art pieces for a show they were putting together, they all had a moment of clarity.
Each one of them was featuring animals in their work.
“We looked at each other and said, wait a minute. Animals. It just sort of happened,” Wickwire said …

The Lee Board of County Commissioners voted Tuesday to accept a $120,000 grant from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for the construction of an artificial reef approximately 15 miles off the coast of Captiva.

In the spring of 2020, as the Johann Fust Library Foundation began to plan for the next season, Board Member and Clevelander Deb Nash was enthusiastic about a 2019 documentary that she wanted to share with the Boca Grande community called “Playing with Fire: Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting.”
The film, directed by two-time academy award winner Allan Miller, tells the story of the Grammy-winning artistic director and founder of Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra. Deb Nash and her late husband Les were passionate supporters of Apollo’s Fire.
Next week, the Boca Grande community will have a chance to see why when the documentary is shown at the Boca Grande Community Center Auditorium.

Jon Meacham may be a Pulitzer prize-winning author and historian, but when he found out that George W. Bush was speaking at a Friends of Boca Grande event in the same week he was, he had a few things to say about it.
Noting the friendly competition, Meacham read the audience a text exchange he had with the former President. “So I wrote, ‘I was just told that I was the best-selling attraction until you wandered onto the scene. I feel like Cheney.”

It was a busy Wednesday morning at the Boca Grande Community Center, as the Historic Preservation Board Meeting was called to order.
The first item on the agenda was the Special Certificate of Appropriateness (SCA) Case 7th Street Boathouse and Marina Alterations (SCA2021-00021).
“This is a non-contributing property that has been previously approved,” read Peter Blackwell, Lee County Planner and Zoning. “Replace the existing boathouse with a new design boathouse. That construction has not occurred yet, and what the applicant is asking for today is a revision to what was previously approved, I believe, in 2018. The main item that concerns staff or that’s relevant to staff review is the exterior elevations on the South elevation. Staff finds that none of these changes are really a change in the character of the building. It’s maritime industrial design either way, and they’re still keeping the metal siding.”

The following information regards our Lee County commissioners, as taken from interviews with island resident Mary O’Bannon. We will be continuing on with interviews from several elected officials from Lee County and the state of Florida, to allow you to know each one a little bit better.
As far as the Boca Beacon is concerned, our readership deserves to be better acquainted with those who make and uphold our laws and create legislation. Many thanks to Mary, and to the commissioners, for helping us with that mission.