EAST COUNTY
Observer
Lakewood Ranch’s weekly newspaper since 1998
A+E Challenges take center stage. INSIDE
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2024
VOLUME 26, NO. 19
YOUR TOWN
2024 STORMY DAYS IN PARADISE
W
hile some of our strongest memories of 2024 will focus
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A special delivery in Myakka Reindeer aren’t the only animals spreading Christmas cheer in Myakka City. The Myakka City Co-op delivered Christmas cards to Myakka City Elementary students at the start of December. The cards feature residents of the Farmhouse Animal and Nature Sanctuary, such as Tugboat the wallaroo and Luna the prairie dog. The kids decorated the cards, and they were put up for sale at the Silver Star Restaurant. Proceeds will go back to the elementary school. “We had a secret Santa buy the whole rack of cards when we put them out,” said co-op member Lynn Meder (pictured above). “He bought $204 worth of cards. That’s more than we made last year, and he donated them back to us to resell.”
on the three-headed hurricane
monster of Debby, Helene and Milton, the East County area once again will celebrate many advances, such as more dining and shopping options. The year also will be known for political upheaval as grassroot candidates made an unlikely ascension to Manatee County Commission seats. Through it all, the East County Observer tried to present a clear picture of the triumphs and trauma. Here is a look back at some of our top memories of 2024 through our lens.
File photos
AUGUST
DEVASTATED BY DEBBY Summerfield Bluffs’ 13-year-old Leah Abrams looks over her destroyed yearbooks as her family works to clean up their home after it was flooded by Hurricane Debby. Some neighborhoods along the Braden River, which never had experienced any level of flooding in the past, were under water after the “100-year storm.”
SEE PAGE 2
OCTOBER
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Tired of moving
DIRECT HIT East County residents, such as Westwinds’ Jimmy Gula, said they never had seen a hurricane hit Manatee County on a straight line from the west before. Gula’s home was damaged and a huge pile of scrap landed just outside his front door when Hurricane Milton blew through as a Category 3 hurricane after building to a Category 5 in the Gulf of Mexico.
When the Shell Factory in Fort Myers closed at the end of September, so did the fourand-a-half-acre nature park next door that was home to hundreds of exotic animals. Nearly 400 animals had to find new homes. Farmhouse Animal and Nature Sanctuary in Myakka City doesn’t typically take raccoons, but Meeko (above) and Boo were facing euthanasia, so sanctuary volunteers built a new enclosure. “It was not something we had budgeted for this year, but we couldn’t see them being euthanized,” founder Lisa Burns said. The sanctuary also took in an “agile” wallaby and two prairie dogs named Thelma and Louise.
SEPTEMBER
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NOVEMBER
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN Myakka City’s Carol Felts completed a Cinderella political story by winning the Manatee County Commission District 1 race. After Felts’ win in the general election, she gets a big hug from campaign volunteer Aeryell Dunnuck.
AWESOME FAITH, BABY! Dick Vitale, who had just finished another round of cancer treatments, holds a rock painted for him that says, “Think positive and have faith.” Lakewood Ranch’s resident celebrity has persevered through difficult times the last few years, but as always, his wife, Lorraine, and family were by his side.