October 2011
Volume 4 Issue 10
Serving Coastal Boca Raton and Highland Beach
Boca Raton
Parking meters feeding city coffers But residents not happy with fees and tickets
Howard Schnellenberger will wrap up a career of more than half a century of football during the debut season of Florida Atlantic University’s new stadium on the school’s Boca Raton campus. Photo by Tim Stepien
The house that Howard built
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By Tim Norris
iding shotgun across campus on a Florida Atlantic University golf cart, Assistant Athletic Director Katrina McCormack at the wheel, Howard Schnellenberger lets his right leg slide loose into an eastern breeze. Two weeks before, doctors at the Sports & Orthopedic Center in Boca Raton had removed Schnellenberger’s right hip and installed a high-tech version to improve the original, tested and tortured through hard-core playing days and the practice-and-sideline exertions of Schnellenberger’s 77 years.
FAU ready to kick off first season in new football stadium
He was back on the practice field the following week. He is about to climb, this September morning, into the school’s nearly finished and still unnamed football stadium, on a survey tour. He approaches it as he would any of his shared efforts. “Let’s start down here,” he says, “and work our way up.” To make sure no one confuses the
surgery with his status, FAU announced in August that Schnellenberger’s first year in the new stadium he fought so long to realize also would be his last, his final year as a coach, head or assistant. Anywhere. Schnellenberger has nurtured young men and, with them, campuses and communities for more than 40 years. He learned his trade, he says, from a few of the best teachers football has ever seen — Paul “Bear” Bryant, Blanton Collier, George Allen, Don Shula — and also from his coach at Flaget High School in See HOWARD on page 12
By Angie Francalancia
Depending on whom you’re asking, the new parking meters in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park and at the city’s beaches are either a boon or the bane of residents’ travels. Five months after the city installed new meters at what Mayor Susan Welchel calls the “primo” spots near the beach and in Mizner Park, one thing is certain: The program is a boon to the city’s coffers, bringing in more than $250,000 from the $1.50-per-hour fees. About 75 percent of that comes from Mizner Park. And the average 25 to 30 parking citations the city is writing each day has added another roughly $150,000, Assistant City Manager Mike Woika said. Contributing to that pot: Mayor Welchel and council members Constance Scott and Anthony Majhess, who each got parking tickets this summer in Mizner Park. There were 129 meters See METERS on page 6
Along the Coast
St. Andrew’s marks 50 years of educating By Mary Jane Fine A bit of perspective: It was the year Gov. George Wallace allowed two black students to be enrolled at the University of Alabama. President John F. Kennedy guided a nervous nation through the Cuban missile crisis. Diet Rite and Tab debuted that year, and
Inside Remembering Boca safari
Africa USA, which closed 50 years ago, was one of Florida’s first theme parks. Page 16
ABC began broadcasting in color. The Beach Boys turned Surfin’ Safari into their first hit. A gallon of gas cost 31 cents. Back then, the western reaches of Boca Raton were a vast tract of scrubland and alligators. It was 1962, the year St. Andrew’s School welcomed its first class.
“This was the only thing around here,” says Carlos Barroso, with a sweeping gesture that takes in the school’s perfectly manicured 81 acres. “Lynn University didn’t exist. FAU didn’t exist.” Barroso, the school’s director of marketing and See ST. ANDREW’S on page 10
All of St. Andrew’s 1,313 students turned out to mark the school’s first half-century . Photo provided
Rabbis ‘made in Boca’
Chabad of East Boca aims to grow the next generation of Jewish clergy. Page 17
Meet Your Neighbor
Highland Beach mom Marilyn Morgan wrote a book on raising a specialneeds child. Page 9
Haunt-dogs Canines can do tricks for treats in Halloween costumes. Page 14