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FREE • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2014 Plant City Time
2014 FLORIDA STR s & Observer AWBERRY FESTIV AL
SPORTS SPECIAL SECTION
SPOTLIGHT
Dads, daughters share special night at dance.
Charity Polo Classic Read our interview returns to Plant City for with The Band Perry a gallopin’ good time. and much more! SEE PAGE 11 IN THIS ISSUE
PAGE 8
ENTERTAINMENT GUID E
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW :
THE BAND PERRY
SEE PAGE 11
Meet the 2014 Strawberry Festival Queen and Court See Page 4
ALSO INSIDE:
STYX, PAGE 6 BOYZ II MEN, PAGE 8 KELLIE PICKLER, PAGE 9 CAROLINE KOLE, PAGE 12 AND City MUCH Plant MORE! Times & Observe
Plant City Serves Up Strawberry Recipes, Pages 16-17 1
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OUR TOWN
+ Rachel Green wins ticket contest We received many entries for the first of our NRG/ Plant City Times & Observer Florida Strawberry Festival ticket giveaways. In the end, Rachel Green’s entry stood out above the rest: “I am thrilled to get the chance to share my special story with you,” Rachel wrote. “Many of my favorite memories are set at the Florida Strawberry Festival, none more so than falling in love for the first and only time in my life. “I was 22 years old, an employee at Sunshine State Federal Savings and Loan,” she wrote. “I was volunteering that day at the festival on the trams. I had gone to the Plant City High School Raider Band pie and cheesecake booth for a delicious treat, when I ran into an old flame, who just so happened to be Matthew Green, the band director at the time. He treated me to a slice of cheesecake, and we chatted a little. That night, we ran into each other again at the Aaron Tippin concert. He took me aside after the concert and told me what a mistake he had made letting me getaway when we previously dated and asked if he could see me again. I was thrilled! I had never had feelings for anyone else, and I never would. “Ten months later, Matt took me back to the pie booth, got down on one knee, slipped a ring on my finger and asked me to be his wife,” Rachel wrote. “To which I replied at the top of my lungs, ‘Absolutely!’ We have spent every moment since building our lives together and are beyond blessed with a beautiful family. Every year, the festival is a reminder to us of how great it is to live here, with these people, our family and friends, and of our love for each other.” We have more opportunities to win! Visit PlantCityObserver.com for your chance to win Rascal Flatts tickets, or see page 4 for a chance to win tickets to The Band Perry!
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This week’s winner is
Kiersten Denny See her photo on PAGE 17.
paper trail by Michael Eng | Editor
Visions Golf files rezone request for golf course The rezone includes 581 multi-family units, 187 single-family lots and an assisted-living facility. Visions Golf LLC, owner of Walden Lake Golf & Country Club, filed last week its request for a rezone part of the community’s two golf courses for residential development. Filed Feb. 19 at Plant City Hall, the request, titled the Villages of Walden
Lake Polo and Country Club, offers some details regarding Visions Golf’s plan for the property. The accompanying map details four separate areas for development. In a 35-acre parcel between Clubhouse Drive and Sydney Road, the request calls for a maxi-
DEVELOPMENT by Michael Eng | Editor
mum of 425 multi-family units. Across Clubhouse Drive, the proposal shows an assisted-living facility on about 10 acres. Directly south from there is a 13-acre parcel with a maximum of 156 multi-family units. The largest parcel within the proposal, 75 acres, is reserved for up to 187 single-family lots. It stretches from
SEE VISIONS / PAGE 5 Courtesy rendering
The park’s central feature is a decorative fountain.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Commission endorses concept for Village Green
by Amber Jurgensen | Associate Editor
The park, designed to be the central attraction for Midtown, will feature brick pavers, benches and a water fountain.
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Amber Jurgensen
Resident Al Kramer has served as a St. Clement Catholic Church shortcake booth volunteer for six years.
Saints of the
St. Clement Catholic Church has run its strawberry shortcake booth for 41 years.
Buzzing like a hive, 150 volunteers scurry around the fellowship hall of St. Clement Catholic Church. It is just one day before the beloved Florida Strawberry Festival, and the church has one of just three booths on the entire grounds that offers the city’s signature strawberry shortcake. Last year, green-aproned volunteers sold more than 90,000
decadent desserts at the tinseled buffet line. About 70 volunteers, separated into two shifts, are needed each day to run the hectic booth. But the highly visible stand is just the strawberry on top of the cream. It’s the extensive operation that goes on behind the
SEE SHORTCAKE / PAGE 4
BY THE NUMBERS 150: The number of volunteers who are at the church each day preparing strawberries. 70: The number of volunteers who work on the festival grounds at the booth each day $137,000: The amount raised last year in shortcake sales. 90,000: The number of shortcakes sold last year. 550: The average number of flats prepared by St. Clement volunteers per day. 3,000: The number gallons of whipped cream consumed at the festival.
In a unanimous vote, the Plant City Commission established Feb. 24 the visual identity of the Midtown project. With a 4-0 vote (Vice Mayor Rick Lott was absent), the commission endorsed a design concept for the Village Green park, which will become the centerpiece of the redevelopment project just south of downtown. The park, which will be situated between South Wheeler and South Evers streets, will feature a circular design centered around a fountain. Brick pavers will serve as diagonal paths from the block corners to the fountain. The park also will include wrought-iron benches, decorative lighting and matching trash receptacles. All the walkways will be lined with trees, which will be chosen for their phytoremediation properties to continue to clean and restore the once-contaminated site. “The issue for the design of this park is two-fold: It is a place (that would serve) as a meeting center and it also is to provide phytoremediation for the high nitrogen and phosphate that’s there from the Gro Mor Fertilizer plant,” said Steve Boggs, of Boggs Engineering, which created the concept with landscape architectural firm L.A. Design Inc.
SEE PARK / PAGE 5
health care by Amber Jurgensen | Associate Editor
President will focus on recruiting, growth New South Florida Baptist Hospital President Karen Kerr brings a wealth of experience. After serving for five months as interim president of South Florida Baptist Hospital, Karen Kerr has taken the helm as president. “I am very excited about the opportunity,” Kerr said. Kerr took over as interim
president last August, after former president Steve Nierman assumed the same role at Winter Haven Hospital. While Nierman was at South Florida Baptist Hospital, Kerr was able to work alongside him. “He was a great mentor,”
Kerr said. “We worked very close together. I was able to gain a lot of knowledge.” From 2002 to 2013, Kerr was employed as the director of patient care services at South Florida Baptist Hospital, overseeing clinical and operation-
al departments of the hospital. Before that, she worked as assistant administrator of patient services at South Florida Baptist Hospital and served as director of patient care ser-
SEE KERR / PAGE 4 Karen Kerr
INDEX Calendar.......................2
Vol. 1, No. 31 | One section Crossword...................17
Obituaries...................10
Sports.........................11
Weather ......................17
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