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Lake Region MonitorLake Region Monitor USPS 114-170 — Keystone Heights, Florida Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012 40th Year —24th Issue — 75 CENTS

WorthNoting

AMVETS plans Halloween party

AMVETS Post 86 in Keystone Heights is planning its annual Halloween party on Sunday Oct. 21, from 2 to 4 p.m. A costume contest for all ages will be held, plus hot dogs and soda, games, face painting, and of course prizes for the best costume.

The party will be held at the post on Brooklyn Bay Road.

GCL plans Blue Star Marker, Oct. 21

The Garden Club of the Lakes, FFGC and American Legion Post 202 will celebrate the des-ignation of SR 100 as a Blue Star Memorial Highway and the un-veiling of the Blue Star Memo-rial Highway Marker on Sunday Oct. 21.

The dedication will be held at the “Marker’s” site which is be-tween the Rails to Trails and SR 100 almost directly across the street from Ace Hardware. The American Legion and Ladies Auxiliary are hosting a reception following the ceremony.

The Blue Star Memorial Marker Program began in 1945 by the National Garden Clubs, Inc. to honor the men and women serving in the Armed Forces dur-ing World War II. The name was chosen for the star on flags dis-

$600,000 available, no takers

Water management district to Keystone: “We care.”

Melrose developers put subdivision on hold Keystone council: watch out for amendment 4

$1 millionshot BY DAN HILDEBRAN

StarkeJournal.com EditorFor nearly three months, Key-

stone Heights has been trying to give away over a half million dol-lars but so far, not a single resi-dent has applied for the money.

In July, the city said it was ac-cepting applications for home repairs under its Community De-velopment Block Grant. Under the program, low income hom-eowners within the city limits could receive money for roof repairs, heating systems, plumb-

ing, electrical and other code-re-lated fixes.

Scott Modesitt, the city’s grant consultant, told the city council Monday that he and city leaders have been trying to increase in-terest in the program but so far the response has been weak.

“To date we’ve only received five requests for applications,” he said. “Three of those requests were determined to be outside the city limits so they were not eligible. We have two other ap-plicants that we are waiting for their applications to come.”

The consultant added that he has turned to other sources for possible applicants.

“Due to the lack of applicants, we have contacted the Clay County S.H.I.P. Department,” he said. “We also sent information packets to 20 local churches in the event that they had anyone in their congregations that might be interested in the program.”

Modesitt said other aspects of the program are on schedule.

“The city has received a re-lease of funds,” he said. “We’ve done an environmental review

and have gotten those funds re-leased and cleared. We’ve got a number of contractors that we have already pre-qualified.

“It is a 100 percent grant,” he said. This doesn’t cost the hom-eowner any money. It’s a great program for anyone who is inter-ested.”

Modesitt told council members he has some suspicions about why the response has been poor.

“I think the issue here is that you have never had one of these grants so people are not aware of what it can do,” he said.

He also said the income quali-fications may have scared poten-tial applicants away.

“It’s for low-income home-owners but a household with one person and an income less than $37,000 would qualify,” he said. “There is probably a lot of people who would qualify and would be interested in the program if they knew a little bit more about it. “

Modesitt said he anticipates the city will ultimately find around a dozen homeowners who will par-

See CDBG page 4A

BY DAN HILDEBRANStarkeJournal.com Editor

The executive director of the St. Johns Water Management District told a group of around 160 community leaders Oct. 8 that the district’s board cares about lake replenishment in Key-stone Heights and is looking for a solution to dropping water lev-els.

Hans G. Tanzler III said he and board members surveyed a moni-toring well within Camp Bland-ing earlier that may provide one solution to the problem.

“We went out and looked at the well site just south of DuPont and north of Lake Lowery,” he told the crowd gathered at Camp

See WATER page 3A

BY DAN HILDEBRANStarkeJournal.com Editor

The Keystone Heights City Council, Monday, passed a reso-lution asking citizens to care-fully consider the adverse conse-quences of Amendment 4 before voting in the November, 2012 general election.

The amendment, one of 11 on this year’s ballot, would lower the amount non-homestead prop-erties could increase in value from year to year and would create a new exemption for first-time homesteaders. The amend-ment would also allow the legis-lature to prohibit taxable value increases when property values decrease in any one year.

According to the resolution,

which was crafted by the Florida League of Cities, the amendment would decrease revenues to Flor-ida municipalities by $1.6 billion over a four-year period.

The resolution also claims Amendment 4 would create tax inequities, by assessing similar parcels differently.

Mayor Mary Lou Hildreth called the amendment an un-funded mandate.

“This bears down on the mu-nicipalities,” she said. “We have a very limited revenue source.”

She said the purpose of the res-olution was to educate Keystone residents.

“If you want to continue to

See TAX page 4A

Hans Tanzler III, St. Johns Water Management District

Popular turkey shoot returns

See NOTE page 4A

Bettey Ann Chapman lines up a 165-yard shot to win $1 million dollars at the Keystone Rotary Club’s

Chuck WIllis Classic. See page 2A for more.

Related stories on page 3

Representative Van Zant takes on critics of Keystone lakes replenishment.

“Frankly, I’ve heard a lot of push back saying that the peo-ple around Keystone ought to get over this aesthetic idea of putting water— in— the lakes.” Executive director of water management district make it through year one.

Son of famous mayor is a law-yer and certified public accoun-tant.

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s help in catching a 26-year-old man accused of burglaries throughout the county, including Keystone Heights and Kingsley Lake. Shaun Patrick Driggers is 6’04” and weighs 225 pounds. He is wanted for felony battery and has a bond of $50,003. His last known address is Gentlebreeze Road in Middleburg.According to the sheriff’s office, Driggers committed the following offenses.

Driggers

Clay County’s Most Wanted accused of Keystone Heights, Kinglsey Lake thefts

See DRIGGERS page 2A

(Right) Nancy Hayman takes aim at another

target during the Sons of AMVETS turkey shoot.

The Sons of AMVETS brought back their popular turkey shoot to the AMVETS post 86 on Brooklyn Bay Road in Keystone Heights Oct. 13.

Event organizers Wayne and Ruth Tutton said they had, in the past, started the shoot at noon but this year moved the starting time to 11 a.m. to accomidate more participants.

“When I got here at 9:30 we had 20 people lined up,” said Ruth Tutton.

Entrants in the shoot compete within a group of 12. One shot costs $3 and the shooter closest

See SHOOT page 2A

Jim and Jerry Painter have put their plans to develop 19 home-sights near Santa Fe Lake on hold.

In August, the brothers of-fered to pay the costs of mail-ing and advetising to extend the Melrose rural cluster to include their property. However county officials also want the pair to re-imburse the county for staff time spent on the project. They also want the Painters to pay for a wa-ter quality study. Those costs are estimated to be $38,000.

Now, the landowners can only built 5 homes on their 28 acres.

However, if Alachua county commissioners extend the bound-aries of the cluster to include the Painters’ 28 acres, 56 homes could be built on the land.

In August, more the Melrose 50 residents appeared at an Ala-chua County commission meet-ing to oppose the potential land use change.

This map shows the location of Jim and Jerry Painter’s 28 acres just east of the county’s Santa Fe Lake Park and outside of the Melrose rural cluster.

2A Lake Region Monitor • Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012

Sons of AMVETS bring back turkey shoot

Lake Hill Baptist Church holding fall festival

Lake Hill Baptist Church, at 5165 C.R. 214 in Keystone Heights will hold a fall festival October 27 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.. Activities include a duck pond, treasure hunt, face paint-ing, cakewalk, pin the tail, ring toss, potato sack race, bounce house and vendors coming to educate the community on health and safety.

Vendors include the Clay County Health Department, the fire department, the Clay County Work Source, Center for Independent Living, Brad-ford-Union Carerr Center nurs-ing students, LifeSouth Blood Bank, Cruise for Christ car show, Beck Chrysler of Starke and many more organizations. For more information contact the church at 352 –473 –4191.

School of healing prayer class

A school of healing prayer class, using curriculum pro-

vided by Francis and Judith McNutt’s Healing Prayer Min-istries, Inc. of Jacksonville will be offered at Keystone United Methodist Church. The first session is scheduled for Oct. 25 at 6:30 p.m. in classroom 13 of the children’s wing. The course consists of three levels at a cost of $30 per level for materials. Participants should be willing to make a 50-week commit-ment. The class is limited to 10 people and is nondenomina-tional. The church is located at 4004 SE. S.R. 21 N, Keystone Heights. There some other re-quirements that must be met. For further information contact the course facilitators, Jim and Sandy Wolf, at 352-475-5211.

Christmas boutique at Fresh Start Fellowship

Fresh Start Fellowship will hold its annual Christmas Bou-tique on Friday Nov. 2 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday Nov. 3 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The boutique features hand made gifts and proceeds from the event benefits the missions projects of the ladies’ minis-try. Fresh Start Fellowship is located at 7191 S.R. 21 North.

For more information call 352-473-6550.

Beulah Baptist Heritage Day planned

Beulah Baptist Church Heri-tage Day is planned for Satur-day, Oct. 27. Meet at Beulah Baptist at 8:45 a.m. to go to old Beulah Cemetery on Camp Blanding.

The church will feature a trunk or treat, that evening, Oct. 27. from 5 to 7 p.m.

The Beulah Baptist Church Homecoming will be held Nov. 11. The church will be 162 years old. Sunday School will begin at 9:30 a.m.. Rev. Bill Clayton will sing from 10:30 until 11 a.m. Rev. Clayton will also be the speaker at a morn-ing Worship Service. Dinner on the grounds will immedi-ately follow.

Beulah Baptist Church is located at 4579 S.R. 21, in the Belmont area, south of S.R. 16.

Church NewsRotarians honor past president with Chuck Willis Classic

The first place team in the 1st Annual Chuck Willis Classic consisted of (l-r) Cal Boggs, Tom Gumber, Tom Grant and Kenny Edington. The team donated its $300 winnings to

the Keystone Golf and Country Club.The Keystone Heights Rotary

Club sponsored the first annual Chuck Willis Classic Oct. 13 at the Keystone Heights Golf and Country Club. The club split the proceeds of the fundraiser with the golf course.

Local Rotarians have been or-

ganizing the tournament for sev-eral years but renamed it this year in honor of their colleuge Chuck Willis who passed away shortly after chairing last year’s event.

Willis also served as the club’s president in 1994.

After the golfing, participants

enjoyed German cuisine with an Octoberfest dinner.

Betty Ann Chapman drew a chance to win $1 million if she could sink a 165-yard shot on the course’s nineth hole. Chapman pulled the attempt to the left and was left out of the money.

Thefts:On 10/12/12 a license plate decal was stolen from a vehicle at a residence on Sunnyside Drive in Middleburg.On 10/13/12 a large above-ground pool was stolen from the yard of a residence on Lori Loop Road in Keystone Heights.On 10/13/12 a registration decal was stolen from a license plate on a vehicle at a residence on Townsend Street in Kingsley Lake.On 10/14/12 the left rear tire and rim were stolen from a vehicle at a residence on Kettering Way in Orange Park.On 10/14/12 an old Army Officer’s uniform was stolen from a framed case in an unlocked office at the Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in Orange Park.On 10/14/12 cash was stolen from a wallet that was under a pillow, while the victim slept, in a room at Heartland Health Care on Wells Road in Orange Park.Burglary to Structures:On 10/12/12 two (2) Super Nintendo gaming systems and approximately fifteen (15) games were stolen from a screened-in back porch of a residence in an apartment complex on South Lawrence

Boulevard in Keystone heights. There were no signs of forced entry.On 10/13/12 cash and meds were stolen from a residence on Pringle Circle in Middleburg. Entry was made by breaking a kitchen window.On 10/14/12 cash was stolen from a safe in an unlocked residence on Glenlyon Drive in Orange Park.Burglary to Autos:On 10/13/12 a Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol was stolen from an unlocked vehicle at the Hess gas station on Blanding Boulevard in Orange Park.Criminal Mischief:On 10/12/12 scratches were found on the driver’s side door, rear door, and quarter panel of a vehicle parked on the side of the road in front of a residence on North Pinewood Boulevard in Middleburg.On 10/14/12 the driver’s side window was shattered on a vehicle at a residence on Oak Grove Circle in Green Cove Springs.Anyone with information about Driggers should call the sheriff’s office at 264-6512 or email rpunsky@claysheriff.com.

Continued from 1ADRIGGERS

(Top) Ruth Tutton took a few seconds to locate her gun among the dozens that had been placed on a table.

(Bottom) Dakota Campmire, 4, makes her first attempt at a target with help from her father Ray.

(Lower left) Clay Cole says he has been participating in the turkey shoot for 25 years.

to the target wins a turkey. Ruth Tutton said ham rounds

are also available for $6.Clay Cole said he has been

participating in the event for 25 years,

“It’s fun and it’s for a good cause,” he said.

The turkey shoot will run every Saturday from 11 a.m. until dark for the next five weeks. This last day of the event is Nov. 17.

Continued from 1ASHOOT

Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012 • Lake Region Monitor 3A

Immokalee, “where we are doing the monitoring well that is a pre-cursor to the larger well. We’re going to be measuring the perco-lation effect.”

The well Tanzler referred to was the first step in the North Florida Aquifer Replenishment Initiative. In March the district approved a pilot test project that could last between 12 and 24 months. The test consists of a well into the lower Floridan Aui-fier. That underground water supply is separated by a layer of clay from the upper aquifer used for ground water sources.

The test well should pump around 1.4 million gallons of wa-ter a day into an area that feeds the headwaters of the upper Eto-nia Creek basin of which Key-stone-area lakes are a part.

According to the district, the test will allow water managers to predict how the area will react to new water flowing into Low-ery Lake, Blue Pond, Alligator Creek, and Keystone lakes Ge-neva and Brooklyn.

Based on the outcome of the

pilot prject, the district may develop additional projects

including reclaimed water and storm water pojects.

Tanzler said he understands some residents might be frustrat-ed with the pace of the project.

“In some ways, it’s moving at a snail’s pace,” he said. “I’m a solutions guy. I’m new to pub-lic service. Process bothers me. I want to get onto the solutions. But there is process and there is public money and there is scien-tific data that needs to be collect-ed to do things properly.”

Tanzler added that the district is looking at a variety of possible ways to replenish area lakes, but they all have one common ingre-dient.

“The solutions have to involve new water,” he said. “We have to get new water into the area.”

“We are looking at projects that I know you have all heard about,” he added, “like storm water harvesting with the De-partment of Transportation. If that can work, that is the way to go and we’re on it.”

However, while Tanzler spoke

briefly on possible solutions to falling water levels in Keystone-area lakes, his primary message was that water managers care about the plight of Keystone lakes and that they want to coop-erate with community leaders.

“When we are talking solu-tions, everybody is welcome,” he said. “If anybody that wants to talk about solutions, let’s talk about it. But you’ve got to come with a positive attitude and leave the hand grenades outside.”

After the meeting Tanzler said the district has about 40 potential projects on the board that would restore water levels to the lakes.

“We are trying to narrow them down to the most cost-effective and most beneficial,” he said.

Save Our Lakes Organization president Vivian Katz said she sees a new level of cooperation between governmental agencies and community groups.

“I think we are at a pivotal point,” she said after hearing Tanzler. “What I see right now is they are solutions-oriented. I have not seen that in the past

Continued from Page 1AWATER Van Zant takes on replenishment critics

Tanzler completes first year leading district

BY DAN HILDEB-RAN

StarkeJournal.com Editor

During an Oct. 8 meeting at Camp Im-mokalee, St. Johns River Water Man-agement executive director Hans Tan-zler III talked about the “how” and the “what” of lake re-plenishment.

State Representa-tive Charles E. Van Zant, however, fo-cused on the “why” of replenishment. Following speak-ers from the water management district, Van Zant thanked the board several times for coming to western Clay County.

“I want to help us refocus to-day,” he said. “We want to focus on four words today: water in the lakes.”

Van Zant delivered those four words with a pause after the words “water” and “in”, giving the phrase a rhythm and a ca-dence: water—in—the lakes.

The representative then took on critics of Keystone lake re-plenishment.

“Frankly, I’ve heard a lot of push back saying that the people around Keystone ought to get over this aesthetic idea of putting water— in— the lakes.”

Van Zant conceded that recre-ation is one motivation for lake replenishment but disagreed with critics who claim water skiing and fishing are insufficient rea-sons for taking on the costs as-

BY DAN HILDEBRANStarkeJournal.com Editor

Hans Tanzler III, who was in Keystone Heights Oct. 8 explain-ing the St. Johns Water Manage-ment District’s position on lake replenishment, just completed his first year anniversary as the state agency’s executive direc-tor.

Promoted from the district’s general council to executive di-rector in October, 2011, The University of Florida graduate took over an agency in turmoil, ordered by Governor Rick Scott to cut its budget by 20%. He moved into the top job after serv-ing as the district’s legal counsel for three months. Prior to that he had been on the board since 2008.

It wasn’t the first time Tan-zler took over an organization in trouble. In 1990, he joined Mark

III Industries, an Ocala van con-version company as chief finan-cial officer and general council. That firm was facing severe cash flow problems caused by market changes. Tanzler took over as CEO when the company’s top executive was fired.

Tanzler moved on to top man-agement positions in a Tampa in-surance conglomerate, a Winter Park data storage company and a Jacksonville contractor and ar-chitectural firm before leading a real estate development company from 2002 to 2011.

After graduating from the Uni-versity of Florida in the early 1970’s Tanzler obtained an ad-vanced law degree from his alma mater and started his career in Miami as an Assistant U.S. At-torney. He also spent nine years as a tax lawyer for a Jacksonville law firm.

Since taking over the district’s top spot, Tanzler has had to jug-gle budget cuts, presiding over layoffs.

According to media reports, he has also had to buffer the district’s staff from aggressive board members who complained publicly about the senior staff’s opposition to industry water per-mit applications.

The St. Johns Water Manage-ment District covers 18 counties from Indian River to Nassau. Over the first year of Tanzler’s tenure, the district has addressed diminishing water flows in the Silver and Wekiva Rivers, a pol-luted Lake Apopka and district-wide falling water table due to long-term drought.

Clay school board settles lawsuit for $75,000

State Rep. Charles E. Van Zantsociated with replenishment. He said Florida law expressly cites recreation as a legitimate ratio-nale for restoring water levels.

“But there’s more to it than that,” he added. “It also has to do with our economy. Keystone Heights and the lakes region

have all but closed its doors economically. We’ve had business after business close up because we do not have wa-ter— in— the lakes. People’s welfare and the ability to earn a living have been affected greatly.”

Van Zant also cited the environment as a basis for

replenishing the lakes.

“We’ve lost wetlands,” he said. “We’ve lost the wading birds. I grew up on this land. When I was a kid we swam with otters. Anybody seen one lately? Anybody seen a group of wading birds lately? They’re gone.”

The Clay County School Board, earlier this month agreed to settle a civil rights lawsuit for $75,000.

Patrick Capriola, an assis-tant principal at the Bannerman Learning Center, claimed in the suit that his boss, Princpal Lisa Turner used school resources to impose her religious and political views on himself and other em-ployees.

The assistant claimed in court papers that Turner sent him and

other school staff members emi-als askeing them to pray and en-couraging them to have faith in God. Some of the communicai-tons also made recipiets aware of religious petitions circulating.

The suit allages that in one instance Turner asked workers ot pray for rain in Texas. In an-other she asked workers to pray in response to the Sept. 11 terror-ist attacks.

Capriola also asserted Turner made derogitory remarks about

Predident Obama in some of the emails.

The lawsuit contained ex-amples of some the the emails. Many of them appeared to origi-nate from people other than Turner. The principal appeared to forward the emails to cowork-ers.

Turner retired June 30. She and the board settled the lawsuit during mediation without admit-ting guilt.

4A Lake Region Monitor • Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012

ticipate in the program and the city has until April 2014 to com-plete the work. He also said he is willing to do anything to get the word out about the opportunity.

“If we need to, we’ll go out into low-income neighborhoods and go door-to-door passing out flyers,” he said.

Modesitt said that another bar-rier is that potential applicants are wary of the program, suspecting it could be a scam. However that skepticism is usually overcome when home repairs actually be-gin.

“Usually what happens is you get a couple of homes un-der construction,” he explained. “Someone says, how could they afford to get all those house im-provements done? Then it starts to snowball when people realize through word-of-mouth that it is a viable program.”

When asked by council mem-ber Paul Yates if direct mail might be a way to publicize the program, Modessit responded that buyer-beware caution also hinders that approach.

“People get something in the mail that says, ‘hey, we’re going to do free work on your home.’ A lot of people get stuff like that all the time.”

Continued from Page 1ACDBG

have the services that your city provides,” she continued, “then you need to vote no on Amend-ment 4 and know what it means to where you live, the quality of life and the services that you get.”

Clay County Property Ap-praiser Roger Suggs told the council Amendment 4 would have a disproportionate effect on Clay County.

“For lack of a better term, we are a bedroom community,” he said. “Seventy-five, seventy-six percent of our tax roll is residen-tial. Eighty-something percent of those have a homestead on them.”

He added that the last time a constitutional amendment in-creased homestead exemptions, Clay County took a big hit.

“When we passed Amendment 1 in 2008 that doubled the home-stead from $25,000 to $50,000 that took $1 billion of taxable value off the tax roll. Homestead exemptions really, really affect Clay County in a big way.”

The council unanimously ap-proved the resolution.

Suggs also went over amend-ments 2, 9, 10 and 11. Those amendments also would change property taxes in the state.

“The reason why you see prop-erty tax amendments on the bal-lot and it seems like they’ve been on the ballot every time we’ve had a general election,” he said,

Continued from Page 1ATAX

played in homes and businesses denoting a family member serv-ing at that time.

The program grew to extend thousands of miles across the United States to honor all men

and women who have served, are serving, or will serve in the Armed Forces of the United States.

The Florida Federation of Garden Clubs and National Gar-den Club continues to partner with local garden club members in dedicating the “Markers” to show our appreciation for those who defend our country.

The Garden Club of the Lakes has had numerous fund raisers to buy the marker and petitioned the Florida Department of Trans-porttion to have the portion of S.R. 100 that runs through Key-stone Heights to cemetery des-ignated as a Blue Star Memorial Highway. The City of Keystone Heights has also supported the project.

The public is invited to joint Garden Club and the Ameri-can Legion in honoring military men and women at the historical, commemorative event.

Melrose Library plans crafts for kids

The Melrose Library has fun for crafty kids on Friday, Oct. 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. The library supplies the materials and the kids put it together. There will be projects for all ages and interests. Make it at the library and take it home the same day. Do-it-yourself crafts are a free Putnam County Library System activity. The library is located behind the Melrose Post Office at 312 Wynnwood Avenue. For more information call the library at (352) 475-1237.

IFAS plans food

p r e s e r v a t i o n class

The UF IFAS and the Clay County Extension Service will present a food preservation program on Friday, Oct. 26, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The class will be held at the Clay County Extension Office 2463 S.R.16 W in Green Cove Springs.

The program will emphasize techniques in canning food safely. The cost of the program is $7 per person to cover supplies. Attendees will receive freshly made jam and the latest food preservation informationRegister for this program before Tuesday, Oct. 23rd. Call the Clay County Extension Office, 904-284-6355 to reserve your spot. Space is limited.

Scary Fun at the Melrose Public Library

The Melrose Public Library is hosting an after-school scary event for families on Putnam School’s early release day, Wednesday, Oct. 17 at 1:30 pm.

Wear your favorite costume for the costume contest. There will be activities, games, scary stories and tasty snacks. For more information call the library at (352) 475-1237.

Boy scout annual yard sale

The annual yard sale for Boy Scout Troop 146 is Friday , Oct. 19 from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday Oct. 20 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Keystone United Methodist Church. The church is located at 4004 S.E. S.R. 21 South. Call 352-494-7304 for more information. This event provides funding for the scouts’ summer camp.

Gold Head

Branch State Park Haunted Hike

Hike along a 1 mile haunted trail in the moon light through the woods of Gold Head Branch State Park. You never know what ghost and goblins will come to greet you. This will be a scary hike. Please use discretion in bringing children. To ensure the safety of all participants stroll-ers and pets are prohibited. Food and drink will be available for purchase before and after the hike. The hike will be Saturday, Cot. 27. Sign up begins at 6 p.m. The hike starts at 6:45. No flash-lights please. Cost is $5 and the regular gate admission into the park is waived. For more infor-mation, call the Ranger Station

at 352-473-4701 or visit www.floridastateparks.org

Lake area FairTax Tea Party to meetThe Lake Area FairTax Tea Party will meet on Tuesday, October 23, at 7:00 p.m. The Tea Party has an abundance of printed information that needs to be distributed though out our local area, they need your help with distribution. Please come to this meeting and pick up enough materials to share with your neighbors, regarding how important it is that they get out and vote in order to protect our Constitution and our diminishing Freedom. This is very likely the most important

election in American history, be a part of it! Lake Area FairTax Tea Party meetings are held at the American Legion Post 202 on Hwy. 21, in Keystone Heights. The American Legion does provide refreshments for a modest fee. For more information about the Lake Area FairTax Tea Party please visit www.LakeAreaTeaPartyPatriots.info

Putnam Hall homecoming set

Putnam Hall 3rd Annual Home-coming Festival will be held Oct. 27 & 28, 2012 at Smith’s Ball-park, Putnam Hall

Events start Saturday October 27 @ 9am until; Sunday October 28 @ 1pm

A parade will begin at at noon on Saturday Oct. 27. All interest-ed participants should be at park no later than 11:15am.

This year’s special event will be crowning of King (De-quilla Randall), Queen (Para Lee Williams); Princess (Brianna Wallace), Prince (Braylon Wil-liams). Princess and princes will have 15-17 courts per float.

Vendors will also be on site with mouth watering bar-b-que and plenty of other tasty dishes.

Other events will include a horseshoes tournament, Whisk tournament, entertainment and fun and games for all ages.

For additional information, please contact Willie Mae Davis @ (352) 219-3552.

These volunteers assembled 750 Christmas stockings for children and hospital patients. From left, Evelyn Poag, Noel Thomas, James King, Cheryl King. Zaire Ankeney, Bill Ankeney, Lois Tyler, Linda Carpenter and Toni Ankeney Dressel. Post president Toni Dressel said in the past the post has collected toys. This year the group is taking a slightly different approach with stockings. The group has earmarked 600 of the stockings for children and the other 150 for patients at the Gainesville V.A. hospital. Volunteers have spent the last two months making the stockings and now are asking for donations of small toys to fill them. Families who wish to receive a stocking should apply through Lake Area Ministries. The stockings will be ready to go Dec. 15. For the veterans stockings, the post is asking for donations of puzzle books, white sports socks, books and hand held games. The post cannot accept food donations for the stockings.

750 Christmas stockings filling now

Continued from 1ANOTE

“is because the legislature does not have the authority to exempt property tax unless they can point to the constitution to find the ex-emption.”

Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012 • Lake Region Monitor 5A

Miss Tri-County Teen USA Shelby Skelly will travel to Hol-lywood, Fla., to compete in the Miss Florida Teen USA Pag-eant.

The Miss Florida Teen USA

preliminary competition will be held on Oct. 20, and the Miss Florida Teen USA Finals will be held on Oct. 21 at Bailey Concert Hall.

Shelby will compete against 69 other teen contestants from across the entire state. Each con-testant will compete in interview, swimsuit and evening gown com-petitions.

Shelby is the daughter of Rich-ie and Cathy Skelly. She is a 15-year-old sophomore at Keystone Heights High School where she is on the fast-pitch softball team, volleyball team and is a member of 4-H.

You can see all of the contes-tants, including Shelby, on www.missfloridateenusa.com.

Skelly to compete in Miss Florida Teen pageant

Skelly

Children donate bench for mother

Melrose Library Association hosts quilt show

The Melrose Library As-sociation hosted a quilt show Oct. 12 and 13 at Eliam Bap-tist Church. The group plans to use proceeds of the event for the library’s childrens pro-grams and for an irrigation system.

The approximately 100 quilts were loaned by mem-bers of the community.

“They’ve dug them out of their cedar chests and storage

Sarah Guilfoyle, a junior at Keystone Heights High School, volunteered for the quilt show.

Jean Giesel shows her grandmother’s quilt, along with its twin. Giesel’s maternal grandmother, Ezzie Brower Callahan and her identical twin sister Bessie made the two matching quilts. Giesel said the sisters were very

close and often quilted together, charging customers $1 for every small spool of thread they used on a project.

Pomegranate class offered

The University of Florida, IFAS Putnam County Extension is offering a class about growing pomegranates in North Florida on Saturday, October 20th, 2012 from 10 AM - 12 PM.

Pomegranate (Punica grana-tum L.) may have potential as an alternative crop for citrus in Florida and also as a crop for small farmers and home owners. If you are not familiar with the plant and fruit, that’s ok. It is suf-ficient to know that both the plant and the fruit are beautiful and the juice is very healthy. Pomegran-ate is also very well suited to an edible landscape at home.

The class is sponsored by the UF, IFAS Putnam County Exten-sion and features Dr. Bill Castle, Professor Emeritus from UF, as well as local Extension Agents.

The class is $5.00 per person. Light refreshments and reading materials are included. Class size is limited so register early. We would prefer that you mail or bring your payment prior to Fri-day, October 19, 2012 to: The UF, IFAS Putnam County Exten-sion Office, 111 Yelvington Rd., East Palatka, Fl 32131. Cash or checks only. Make checks pay-able to: E.H.A.C.

Halloween dance at Gallery 26

A Halloween concert and dance featuring the music of “R. Mutt” will be held at Gallery 26, 301 State Rd. 26 & corner of Grove St., in Melrose. There will also be a costume contest with prizes. Admission is $15 at the door.

The R. Mutt Blues Band per-forms driving, updated inter-pretations of traditional blues classics combined with soulful, passionate originals that pay trib-ute to the vintage recordings of the 1950’s and 60’s. The group was formed two years ago by award-winning visual artists Richard Heipp (bass) and Dan Stepp (vocals, piano, guitar) with the addition of lead gui-tarist Paul Goble and drummer Vince Megale. The band’s name is taken from Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 artwork Fountain; a uri-nal displayed in an art gallery simply signed “R. Mutt.” Foun-tain is widely seen as one of the most important artworks of the 20th Century. The R. Mutt Blues Band features “American Standard” music crafting the art of the blues.

The event will be on Friday, Oct. from 8:30 to 10:30. Doors open at 7:30.

Cow world/art life at Bellamy Road

The paintings, ceramics, and drawings of Sean Sexton and photography of Bob Stone will be featured at Bellamy Road Fri-day Oct. 19. An opening recep-tion for artists will be held from 7-10 p.m.

Sean Sexton was born in Indi-an River County and grew up on his family’s Treasure Hammock Ranch, eight miles west of Vero Beach. He divides his time be-tween taking care of a 700 acre cow-calf and seedstock cattle op-eration and painting and writing.

Bob Stone is an independent folklorist, photographer, and media producer based in Gaines-ville. In his service with the Florida Folklife Program from 1990-2010, he documented and presented the diverse traditional culture of Florida from Key West to Pensacola. In recent years he has concentrated on documenting the unique cattle ranching culture of the Sunshine State.

Bellamy Road is open Friday through Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. and appointment.

The address is 5910 Hampton Street, Melrose on State Road 26.

Putnam library giving yellow ribbons to active military

The Putnam County Archives is attempting to get a large yel-low ribbon to the families of our

Ralph and Dixie Roberts of Sevierville, Tenn. surprised their mother, Elinor Roberts, by purchasing a bench for the city park in Keystone Heights in honor of her many hours of community services, especially with National Campers on Missions. In this photo Ms. Roberts is with City manager Terry Suggs who made the presentation Oct. 22.

Putnam County active-duty mili-tary. This is our way of honoring our Veterans on Veteran’s Day, Sunday, November 11. The yel-low ribbons will be delivered just before Veteran’s Day.

Because of privacy issues, the families with an active-duty member must contact me to re-ceive the yellow ribbon. If you would like to have a yellow rib-bon, please call me, Darlene Walker at the Headquarters Li-brary, 386-329-0126. If you know a military family, please tell them about the program.

Sign language class in St. Augustine

Families with children ages 9-17 who want to learn American Sign Language or enhance their skills can sign up for a beginners level course that is offered by the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind from Oct. 23 to Dec. 18. This eight-week course will meet on Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the school campus here at 207 N. San Marco Avenue in the Moore Hall Building, Room #215.

The class fee for one parent and one child is $100. Each ad-

ditional child is $20. The book by Penny Warner, “Signing is Fun,” can be purchased from the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind at a cost of $15.

To register for the class or for more information, contact Mi-chele Love, Parent Services, at (904) 827-2622 or at lovem@fsdb.k12.fl.us.

FFA holding open house, bowl-a thon

The Keystone Heights High School Future Farmers of Amer-ica will be holding an open house and membership drive today in

the Ag Department. All are wel-come and hamburgers and hot dogs will be served.

This Sunday the group will be having a bowl-a-thon at Splitz Bowling in Gainesville from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The cost is $12 per person.

compartments,” said event chairperson Pam Whiting. “I’ve been really impressed with the community support.”

The group hosts several fundraisers thoughout the year to spport the programs of the Melrose Library.