Volume 24 Issue 9
Inside: A North Tampa Fine Arts League Update!
April 22, 2016
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Named The 2014 ‘Small Business Of The Year’ By The Wesley Chapel Chamber Of Commerce! The Direct-Mail News Magazines Serving New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Since 1993! For the complete list of the neighborhoods that receive this publication by direct mail in New Tampa (zip code 33647), see page 58!
New Tampa Woman Reunites With Her Rescuers One Week Later By John C. Cotey The moment may be over, they say, but it is never forgotten. Rarely does a day go by that four strangers — Sam Harris, Maurice Rolle, Lisa Missana and Shane Mitchell — don’t think about that one Thursday morning, around 7:45 a.m. on March 31, when they came together at the intersection of New Tampa Blvd. and Meadow Pine Dr. in West Meadows. Each played a pivotal role. In just a few minutes time, they managed to cobble together the smarts, verve and guts to act selflessly and swiftly, to enter dark waters, to pull someone from a gray Ford Mustang that had sunk to the bottom of a retention pond. On May 4, they will be honored by the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners. “I don’t know about your religious beliefs or what you believe in,’’ says Sam, “but (L.-r.) Sam Harris, Lisa Missana, Marla Zick, Shane Mitchell and Maurice Rolle got together at there was something happening that day.” Stonewood Grill & Tavern a week after the quartet of rescuers pulled Marla out of her car as it ++++++ sank in a retention pond just east of the Gateway Bridge in West Meadows. Maurice was driving his 7-year-old “I knew it was going wrong,’’ he added. missed a cement light post, and a tree, before daughter to school, over the Gateway Bridge rolling between two bushes and into the retenjust past Freedom High, when the gray Mus- “I was just screaming, ‘No, no, no, no.’” Sam, a New Tampa Realtor who lives in tion pond at the corner of Meadow Pine Dr. tang heading in the same direction just in Maurice pulled over, told his daughter front of him swerved to the left and into a Heritage Isles, was driving west on New Tampa Blvd., a road he says he had rarely driven not to move, and tossed all of his belongings white brick retainer wall. The driver of the car, Marla Zick, 26, on before. But, that morning, he had to pick out of his pocket. Sam did the same. After dropping his daughter off, Mauhad suffered a seizure and was no longer in up a cake at the Publix in the New Tampa Center for a wedding party at his wife’s office rice had planned on heading into work at control of her vehicle. “I saw her lose control right at the top at USAA, and decided to take the back way to the 30/30 Barber Shop & Salon he owns on Busch Blvd. But, his plans changed. of the bridge,’’ Maurice says. “She was swerv- the insurance office over the bridge. There was nothing between his car and “Dammit, I gotta get wet, I gotta get ing, and when she didn’t swerve back to corthe one careening down the bridge towards freaking wet,’’ he said to himself. rect herself, I knew she was in trouble.” After a few steps into the pond, Sam deThe car rolled down the bridge, “scrap- him in the same lane. He pulled over. The wall finally turned cided they needed something to pull the car ing and grinding” against the wall the whole the Mustang loose, and it turned left. It just out with. It was 7:55 a.m. He picked up his way, Maurice said.
Also Inside This Issue: News, Business & Sports Updates Dermatology School Slated For New Tampa, FHWC Expansion Is Ahead Of Schedule; New 55+ Community Planned; YMCA Kicks Off Healthy Month; Our Exclusive Maps Of What’s New In Wesley Chapel & Lots of Local Business Features!
Pages 3-40
Neighborhood Magazine
Hunter’s Green Elementary Remembers Nick Wolf; Local Artists To Be Showcased; 900º Woodfired Pizza Takes Pasta To A New Level; Tarek’s Cafe Offers Great American & Mediterranean Fare & More Neighborhood Nibbles & Biz Bytes!
Pages 41-60
cell phone, called 911 and ran back to his vehicle for a rope. +++++++ Shane was taking his 7-year-old son to school, and as he drove slowly down Meadow Pine Dr. they noticed the car coming through the bushes and rolling gently into the water, where it appeared to float and drift. A 32-year-old carpenter, Shane pulled his Nissan over and hopped out. He saw Maurice near the water. While Sam was retrieving a rope from the trunk of his car, Shane had a wincher — a motor-driven or hand-powered drum around which rope or a chain is wrapped and used to move heavy loads — on the front of his. “I just thought we would pull the car out,’’ Shane said. “I didn’t think anyone would be going underwater.” Maurice grabbed the hook at the end of the wincher chain and walked into the water. He was roughly 20 yards from the car, but the water was getting deeper with every step. After a few steps it was up to chest, and Maurice couldn’t see the car well enough to have an idea where he would be attaching the hook. ++++++ Lisa was just a few minutes behind Shane on Meadow Pine Dr., on her way to drop her 14-year-old son A.J. at Family of Christ School in Tampa Palms, when she saw the car in the pond. At first, she grabbed her phone and started taking pictures. “Oh gosh,’’ she says she told her son, “that person better get out of that car. Then, I realized Shane and Maurice were yelling at somebody in the car.”
See “Heroes” on pg. 32.
Hargreaves III Is Headed To The NFL, But Where? By John C. Cotey The best high school football player in New Tampa history is about to become the highest-drafted National Football League (NFL) player in New Tampa history. Former Paul R. Wharton High star defensive back Vernon Hargreaves III, who went on to a standout career at the University of Florida in Gainesville, is expected to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, which will pick the first round on Thursday, April 28, beginning at 8 p.m. Hargreaves will attend the draft, which runs through April 30 and is being held at Roosevelt University’s Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. While other Wildcats football grads have flirted with the NFL (linebacker Larry Edwards was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Buffalo Bills in 2007, and linebacker Josh Jones played in some preseason games for Jacksonville in 2012), none has had the impact Hargreaves is expected to. According to NFL.com’s analysis,
“With top-notch ball skills and exceptional instincts that drew praise from Alabama’s Nick Saban, Hargreaves possesses the football makeup to become a Pro Bowl corner.” Hargreaves — whose sister Chanelle graduates this spring from Wharton after a sterling volleyball career and who also will attend Florida — grew up in Miami and Greenville, NC, where his dad Vernon II was an assistant football coach at the University of Miami Hurricanes and at East Carolina University, respectively. In 2010, Hargreaves II took a job at the University of South Florida in Tampa, eventually enrolling his son at Wharton. Hargreaves did not play football until high school, but was clearly a natural and excelled from the start. According to various NFL draft experts and analysts, as well as most mock drafts, Hargreaves should be a top-10 pick as arguably the purest cornerback in the draft (although FSU safety Jalen Ramsey is rated a
See “Hargreaves” on pg. 39.
Tampa Bay Times photo
See “Hargreaves”