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World’s Richest thanks given to many

To the Editor: The Boca Grande Area Chamber of Commerce wants to thank everyone who participated in, sponsored, donated to or volunteered for the World’s Richest Tarpon Tournament 2016. We all had a great time on the water and at the street festival and art show, and I believe everyone else did, too. Thanks need […]

Kids Classic to be held June 4 … it’s not too late to sign up!

■ STAFF REPORT – The Gasparilla Island Kids Classic roster is filling up fast, with 29 boats signed up so far to fish the world’s great kids’ fishing tournament. There is still time to get your team in, if you have a captain and a boat lined up. The tournament will be held on Saturday, June […]

Sundown puts the rest to bed at WRTT

■ BY MARCY SHORTUSE – Capt. Timmy Smith hadn’t caught a lot of tarpon this season up to the time of the 2016 World’s Richest Tarpon Tournament, held last week on Thursday and Friday, May 19 and 20. Maybe that’s because he was saving his mojo up for those two days, because he and his anglers […]

Manatees ‘making merry’ leave beachgoers concerned

■ BY SUE ERWIN – Boca Grande resident Tom Shaffer was taking his regular morning stroll on the beach around 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 14 when he noticed a peculiar group of manatees frolicking in very shallow water just a few feet from the beach shore. His four-year-old Golden Retriever, Maggie, paused just north of […]

Cars in the trees, a battery and a theft reported

  ■ STAFF REPORT – The sheriff’s office activity log for the island has been a little busier lately, with a vehicle accident, an assault and a theft reported recently. On Friday, May 13 at approximately 5 p.m. the vehicle shown here was southbound on Gasparilla Road at the north end of the island when the […]

Profile: Betty Hill

■ BY SUE ERWIN – Betty Hill distinctly remembers arriving in Boca Grande for the first time in 1955. It was a time when there was, quite literally, nothing here with the exception of about 125 people and a bare-bones infrastructure of a town. She recalls that in the 1950s there was the post office, a […]

Day One of World’s Richest yields 24 releases

BY MARCY SHORTUSE – Day One of the 2016 World’s Richest Tarpon Tournament is complete, and in just a few short hours Day Two will begin. Day One, on Thursday, May 19, yielded 24 releases for 26 boats in the competition. The First Fish Award, with a release at 2:51 p.m. , went to Capt. […]

BIPS update: Progress on the Range Light acquisition

■ BY SHARON MCKENZIE      BARRIER ISLAND PARKS SOCIETY The Barrier Island Parks Society (BIPS) reported that thus far the fundraising for the Gasparilla Island Light restoration project has brought in $1,068,000 in gifts and pledges. Larry Hannah, BIPS director and chair of the fundraising effort, said that “over 350 individual gifts have propelled […]