Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News, Profiles.
BY JACK SHORT Gene Glidden is soft-spoken, ruddy-cheeked man whose cheerful demeanor belies the ruthlessness of the man who sits atop a commercial and residential painting empire. Just kidding. But he is absolutely cheerful, if a little quiet, and he built a business out of nothing that now reaches into several counties. In 40 years, […]
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in News, Opinion.
BY MARCY SHORTUSE So this week we had a lesson in social media. The tale of Sam Samsonov, “our Sam,” as we call him, went viral worldwide. The story of a man who collected tolls for the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority for almost 30 years was picked up and made it into the worldwide media […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in News.
On Saturday, July 11 at approximately 8 p.m., the Boca Grande Fire Department responded to a report of a boat that had run into the mangroves on Boca Grande Bayou.When firefighters arrived, by water and by land, they found a boat with three people onboard set far back into the mangroves. They reported they were […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Legal, News.
Lee and Charlotte counties have each formally accepted settlements for their claims against BP, related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, at a fraction of the amounts for which they filed claims.In recent weeks, several nearby governments including Collier and Sarasota Counties also accepted sums for economic losses incurred in the wake of that 2010 […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Obituaries.
Edward Cruz, former CEO of E.E. Cruz and Company, Inc., philanthropist and entrepreneur, passed away on Tuesday, July 14 at his home in Bay Head, New Jersey with his family by his side. After treatment for lymphoma in 2001, Mr. Cruz enjoyed 13 years in remission, during which he sold his business and became an […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Obituaries.
JoAnne (Jo Jo) Faulstich passed away on June 29, 2015 in Southwest Florida after a lengthy illness. She was a native of California and lived in Boca Grande for more than 30 years. Jo Jo graduated from Redlands High School in Redlands, Calif. in 1972. She attended Humboldt State in the 1970s, where she pursued […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Profiles.
BY JACK SHORT She’s Chrissy to most, but only if you knew her after she moved here. Or before she became a professional. It’s a little confusing. She had switched to Christine in order to be taken more seriously, but Boca Grande apparently has a surfeit of Christine’s (or Christina’s), so it was back to […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Letters to the Editor.
Dear People of Boca Grande, The Boca Grande Farmers Market appeals to you for help and assistance in finding and identifying new market location alternatives. When we began our plans in the summer of 2014 to establish the market, the greater part of our laborious energies went to trying to quickly identify a suitable and […]
Written by Boca Beacon on . Posted in Editorial.
Many of you are aware that Sam Samsonov, a toll tender with the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority for 30 years, is no longer at the booth. There has been a flood of responses on social media regarding his leaving, and we wanted to acknowledge him. Sam, you were a Gasparilla Island fixture. Many people saw […]
Written by Marcy Shortuse on . Posted in Obituaries.
BY MARCY SHORTUSE We lost another one of our island mothers on Sunday, July 5, as Louise Bowe slipped away from congestive heart failure. Other than for a few years her entire life was spent on the island, and while she was a quiet, understated woman her impact on Gasparilla Island was profound. Mary Louise […]