Plant City Times &
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FREE • THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013
IN FOCUS SPORTS
SPOTLIGHT
Plant City couple concocts new laundry detergent.
Readers share their Bucs linebacker summer It’s Read finds new home Everywhere pics. in Plant City. PAGE 10 PAGE 11
PAGE 8
business
OUR TOWN
by Amber Jurgensen and Erin Sullivan
Following auction, Red Rose future still uncertain
+ Rotary partners with P.C. police
The Rotary Club of Plant City announced Aug. 21, a new initiative to raise funds to purchase of Automated External Defibrillator devices for the Plant City Police Department patrol cars. Proceeds from The Rotary Club of Plant City’s Nov. 15 Dancing with the Locals event, as well as individual sponsorships and donations will be used to support this special AED project. An AED is a portable device used to administer an electric shock to the heart and restore the heart’s normal rhythm during sudden cardiac arrest. “Plant City Police Department currently has four AEDs that we exchange between squads on a daily basis,” said Plant City Police Chief Steve Singletary. “This is a very low number, considering we have 68 sworn officers that are each assigned a car to use while they are working and to drive to and from work.” In addition to Dancing with the Locals, sponsorships and individual donations can be made to support this initiative. For more information, email to rotarypc@gmail. com.
+ Hope to host financial seminar
Hope Lutheran Church will bring Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University to Plant City. Classes will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 8, at the church, 2001 N. Park Road. Since its inception in 1994, FPU has helped more than 1.5 million families positively change their financial future. For more information or to register, call Linda Miller, (813) 752-4622.
, 3&
This week’s winners are
Steve & Pam McCall See their photo on PAGE 14.
The $2.1 million bid was neither accepted nor rejected. Trustee Jerry McHale now will decide whether the sale takes place.
Amber Jurgensen
Brooklynn Santos started kindergarten this week, at Robinson Elementary. She loves her aqua therapy sessions — and her parents call her their “Little Mermaid.”
BANDING TOGETHER
FOR
BROOKLYNN
UNBROKEN SPIRIT by Amber Jurgensen | Associate Editor
A Brandon church will host a fundraiser for Plant City kindergartner Brooklynn Santos, who lives with spinal muscular atrophy. Shawn Santos struggles to pick up her 5-year-old daughter, Brooklynn, like the princesses that decorate her pink and purple room. But, Brooklyn can barely wrap her weak arms around her mother’s neck. She can’t walk. She’s dead weight. “It’s horrible,” Shawn says. “There’s days when she’s happy. But, there’s days when she wants to walk.” Brooklyn has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic recessive disease that destroys the nerves that control voluntary muscle movement such as walking, head and neck control and even swallowing. Brooklynn was diagnosed just 13 days before her first birthday. Shawn and her husband, Jayson, have to lift Brooklynn from her wheelchair to do any number
of tasks — from sleeping to taking a bath. Their backs ache. And she’s not getting any smaller. A number of renovations need to be done to the house to make it more comfortable for Brooklynn and her family, Shawn says as she lifts Brooklyn onto her colorful bedspread. Brooklynn sits with her legs crossed. But, it isn’t long before she loses balance and falls over onto the soft pillows. The family will be holding a fundraiser for her medical fund from 5 to 10 p.m. Sept. 7, at Christ Community Church, in Brandon. After meeting with Brooklynn, The Noise Box, a non-profit, has organized a local band lineup to perform. The family wants to widen the door to her room with the money from the fundraiser. It has become almost too
BROOKLYNN SANTOS FUNDRAISER
WHEN: 5 to 10 p.m., Sept. 7 WHERE: Christ Community Church, 1310 John Moore Rd. Brandon, 33511 COST: $4 in advance, $6 at the door. Sponsorship is a minimum of $10. DETAILS: There will be concessions, raffles, a bake sale and a concert featuring six local bands. CONTACT: Shawn, (813) 459-1045, or Jayson, (813) 784-2657 narrow for her motorized wheelchair. There’s a speed limit for inside — speed 2. But, she still bumps into things, including her doorway. They want to redo the bathroom sink and bath so she has access to the facilities. The family also is drowning in incessant medical bills. They don’t get any help from Medicaid or Social Security.
SEE BROOKLYNN / PAGE 4
The future of the Red Rose Inn & Suites was locked away Aug. 16, in a tiny room off the auction’s center stage, at the Lakeland Center. With the exception of a tiny sliver of light, curious bystanders couldn’t catch a glimpse of the vacant hotel’s winning bidder. If he or she was even inside. And even after the auction winners inside the room emerged, the fate of the Red Rose — the longtime crown jewel of Plant City — remains uncertain. At the auction, Sean Strano hovered outside the room, his business cards in hand. Like everyone else packed in the hallway, he wanted to know who bought the 222-room Red Rose, mistakenly called the “Landmark of Lakeland” by the auctioneer. The Red Rose’s frenzied bidding — opening with a $1 million bid — had heads turning at the packed auction. Plant City residents John Helton and Shafiq Chaudhry were two of several bidders. A Walden Lake resident, Chaudhry was a neighbor of the Madonias. “They are very good people,” Chaudhry said. “With everything that happened with their daughter, it’s hard. God bless them.” Bidder 348 won with a bid of $2.1 million. It was $100,000 less than the Madonias paid in 2002, not to mention the $4 million they spent in renovations. But who was bidder 348? Strano owns a landscape management company and hoped to be the one to clean up the Red Rose for the new owner. A blond woman
SEE RED ROSE / PAGE 4
one for the record books by Amber Jurgensen | Associate Editor
Archives director discovers long-lost film of Plant City’s not-so-shortcake
Plant City sweet-talked its way into the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999, by building the world’s largest strawberry shortcake. It was organized pandemonium the day of Feb. 19, 1999. Volunteer after volunteer filed in line to lug 480 flats of strawberries and 678 half-sheets of shortcake from a refrigerated trailer to an enormous table set up on North Drane Street. The delicious dream was to
break the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest strawberry shortcake. Dodging busy bakers, bystanders gathered at McCall Park to watch the workers build the gigantic cake. Scurrying like ants, the volunteers could be seen squirting
whipped cream on each other in between stacking shortcake and spreading the berry mixture on top. Although it took an entire day to prepare and then clean up, it took only 35 minutes for
SEE RECORD / PAGE 4
Courtesy of the Plant City Photo Archives and History Center
Plant City’s record-breaking shortcake measured 827 square feet.
INDEX Calendar.......................2
Vol.1,No.4 | Onesection Crossword...................14
Obituaries.....................9
Opinion ........................6
Sports.........................11
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