bserver O SARASOTA
You. Your neighbors. Your neighborhood.
NEWS
DIVERSIONS
Mayor Suzanne Atwell looks ahead at new year. PAGE 3A
OUR TOWN
Courtesy photo
Booker Middle School teacher Joanna Fox’s eighth-grade creative writing class enjoyed the simulcast.
+ Students enjoy opera simulcast Approximately 250 Sarasota students enjoyed their own HD live simulcast of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s production of “La Traviata” Wednesday, May 9. Funded by the Community Foundation and the Education Foundation of Sarasota County, this marks the first time that the students enjoyed their own private viewing of the simulcast. Joanna Fox, a teacher at Booker Middle School, brought her eighth-grade creative writing class to enjoy the production, and she says the class had been studying “La Traviata” in preparation. “They’ve been kind of surprised that the music is contagious,” said Fox. “They’re seeing that the story touches on themes that are still relevant today.”
+ Temple Sinai hosts fundraiser Temple Sinai hosted its first Golf Ball Drop Saturday, May 12, at Evie’s Golf Center. The event raised $5,180 to support youth programs. Thousands of numbered golf balls were dropped by a crane onto the golf green, and the three balls closet to the pin won cash prizes of $1,500, $500 and $250. The evening also included an end-of-the-schoolyear picnic with more than 175 attendees. The youth group also installed its new officers and led everyone in songs.
Thursday, MAY 17, 2012
NEIGHBORHOOD
David Smash is living a musician’s rock ’n’ roll fairy tale. INSIDE
Downtown festival ‘milks’ events for fun weekend. PAGE 12A
1948-2012
Loss
by Robin Hartill | City Editor
of a
leader
Longboat Key Police Chief Al Hogle died this week in a motorcycle accident in North Carolina. In his wake, he leaves a department transformed by his commitment to service. The town advertised the position of Longboat Key police chief in late 2002; it received 98 applications. Four U.S. Marshals wanted the position. So did supervisors with the Drug Enforcement Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigations, a U.S. Navy regional security director in Pearl Harbor and the leader of the United Nations police mission in Bosnia. Town Manager Bruce St. Denis was convinced he already knew the man for the job. He had lunch with Al Hogle, who’d become Bradenton’s police chief 15 months earlier. Hogle described how he would run Longboat Key’s police department. He thought he was just advising St. Denis on his pursuit of a new police chief. “By the time lunch was over, Al had molded the ideal department he wanted in his head, and I leaned over and told him the job was his if he wanted it,” St. Denis said. At first, Hogle rejected the offer, which led the town to advertise the position. But a few days later he called back and accepted the job. He spent the next nine-and-a-half years crafting that department. Longboat Key Police Chief Albert F. “Al” Hogle, of Sarasota, died Monday, May 14, in a motorcycle accident in North Carolina. He was 63. The Asheville Citizen-Times re-
See Hogle / Page 6A
File photo
PERCEPTION PROBLEM
by Kurt Schultheis | City Editor
Suncoast Charities seeks donor support The Suncoast Charities for Children wants the public to be aware that its organization funds the boat races and fireworks that occur on the bayfront every Fourth of July. The Suncoast Charities for Children Vice President Lucy Nicandri said a perception that the city of Sarasota and Marina Jack restaurant fund Fourth of July fireworks and the 2012 Su-
per Boat Grand Prix Festival is hampering the organization’s fundraising. Nicandri said the organization still needs to raise $49,600 for the 28th annual event this sum-
mer. Nicandri told the Sarasota County Commission at its regular meeting May 9 that the organization is responsible for raising enough cash sponsorships
each year to pay for the more than $80,000 it costs to put on the boat race and the $36,000 needed for the annual fireworks
SEE SUNCOAST / PAGE 2A
INDEX Briefs.................... 4A Classifieds..........26A
Cops Corner.......... 9A Crossword...........25A
Opinion................. 8A Real Estate.........24A
Sports.................22A Weather..............25A
Vol. 8, No. 28 | Two sections YourObserver.com