Serving Hypoluxo Island, South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream and Coastal Delray Beach
April 2018
Volume 11 Issue 4
Along the Coast
Briny Breezes
Schools act to make kids safer, plan to do even more By Rich Pollack
A sweet 60th anniversary ABOVE: Dozens of decorated golf carts parade in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the year when trailer campers gathered up their money and bought former landowner Ward Miller’s land, creating Briny Breezes. Generations of families have enjoyed the oceanfront community. LEFT: Pat Barnes, an original owner in the mobile home park, holds Thorian Halfhill, who was born Jan. 1 in the Briny Breezes home of his parents, Tyrone and Lia Halfhill. Barnes turns 100 in May. The March 24 parade had a strawberry theme, looking back to the days when Miller raised dairy cattle and sold strawberries to his mobile home renters. More photos, page 29. Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
The rush of calls came soon after word spread about the mass shooting in Parkland. Parents of children attending public and private schools throughout Palm Beach County wanted to be sure their children were safe. They also wanted to know that leaders at even the smallest schools were taking security seriously. What they found is that the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — just a few miles away from some South County schools — had pressed school leaders into action almost immediately and, more important, led to ongoing conversations and action to improve campus safety. “Parkland has made everyone more aware,” said Carlos Barroso, director of marketing and communications at St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton. “We’re going to be constantly looking at school security each and every month.” At the Gulf Stream School, where officials have made See SCHOOLS on page 8
County Pocket
Through time and tide, Nomad Surf Shop rolls on
By Ron Hayes On a breezy Friday evening not long ago, Ron Heavyside sat in an old wooden porch chair in front of his Nomad Surf Shop, nursing a Coors Light and squinting west over North Ocean Boulevard at the fat orange sun sliding down toward the long yawn into dusk. Can it really be 50 years since he opened the shop? Heavyside was 19 then. He’s 69 now. The young man who
Striking sculptures
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s artwork is finally getting its due. Page AT11
surfed is an old man who sits, with half a century of triumph and tragedy behind him. But he’s still here, and so is the shop. “It seems like yesterday,” Heavyside said, and sipped the beer. “But it’s going to feel like 50 years in about 15 minutes when that sun hits my chair.” Ronald Richard Heavyside was born in Montreal, moved to Los Angeles at 2, and arrived in Ocean Ridge in 1962, just turning 14. He never left. “My father knew a guy in
Shipshape
New options coming ashore for cruise fans. Page AT1
Briny Breezes,” he remembered. “That’s how we wound up here.” His father, Richard, opened a TV repair shop across the road from Briny, beside a Pure Oil gas station that later became a real estate office. The TV shop was south of the station, with the Capri Lounge, which later became Dante’s Den, to the north. While his father sold and repaired TVs, young Ron rode surfboards. And pretty soon he See NOMAD on page 21
Ron Heavyside’s sons, Ronnie (left) and Ryan, run the Nomad Surf Shop he started in 1968. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
Happy campers
Our guide to the area’s summer camps. Page H1
Boynton OKs Town Square City plans ambitious reshaping of downtown. Page 12