Firing range hazardous to neighbors' health?

Lynn Carlsen is a former neighbor and mother of two, whose husband, Steve, owns a pair of Belgian Shorthaired Pointers I was crazy about when I lived in Wares Creek.
Their family owns a 1,000-acre ranch in Myakka City they’d invite me to visit, an offer I’ve yet to take up.
Unfortunately, they do not feel completely safe on its boundaries during weekend getaways there.
The fear of stray bullets from a nearby shooting range is why.
Not to mention the unnerving noise of semi-automatic gunfire.
That anxiety has been a growing issue shared by neighbors of the Myakka Education and Training Center/Rocky Creek Ranch, which has been operating for more than a year without a Manatee County permit.
It reared its head last week when the gun camp owners — Chris Baden and Ray and Sara Baden — sought a special permit for operation of the outdoor firing range against the vocal objections of rightfully concerned residents.
Lynn Carlsen isn’t some anti-gun zealot.

Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee on Bradenton.com.

National anthem home run for M's home opener

Deborah Bender may have finished as runnerup in the recent 2013 Bright Stars Senior Idol competition, sponsored by Bright House Networks at Ruth Eckerd Hall. But the Ellenton resident hit a home run at McKechnie Field last Friday, singing our national anthem for the Bradenton Marauders home opener.
The M’s open a weekend  homestand against the St. Lucie Mets and Friday night's first pitch is 6:30 p.m.

A benefit for 6-year-old Onicka Patterson, who has endured a difficult recovery from a December car accident, is 8 a.m. Saturday at Manatee Learning Academy, 6210 17th Ave. W., Bradenton. Call 941-794-5838.

Yolanda and Josh McCoy named their first bundle of love, Tristanlea.

Jerry Neff will receive the  Good Scout Award April 17 from the Manatee District of the Boy Scouts of America’s Southwest Florida Council. The community leader was in banking 49 years and in the National Guard and Army Reserve for 39 years, retiring as a brigadier general. The event is 6:30 p.m. at Camp Flying Eagle, 16009 Upper Manatee River Road, Bradenton.Call Henry Miller at 941-301-8272.

The first Mitchell Shreves Golf Tournament is April 19 at IMG Academies Golf & Country Club, 4350 El Conquistador Parkway, Bradenton. The State College of Florida sophomore suffered a serious spinal cord injury in a car accident last December and is undergoing intensive rehab.
Call Olivia Smith at 941-795-1242 or Rhonda Strawn at 941-928-3172.

Read more Friday in Vin's People on Bradenton.com.

Autistic's new iPad will be gift of a stranger

One call was from a major league ballclub's front office guy who lives on Anna Maria Island.
Another, from a detective at the Manatee County Sheriff's Office.
Then there was one from a man who is among Bradenton's most generous people with his money and his spirit.
They all wanted to help Paul Schultz get another iPad.
But their offers came with a definite caveat:
"Keep my name out of it."
Such was the response of folks around our town to the plight of the 22-year-old non-verbal autistic, whose accessorized iPad was stolen from his mom's truck.
Schultz has not spoken since he was 3 and used the device to help him communicate.
That's why the theft, bad enough as it was, touched so many people.
They called.
They emailed.
They went on Facebook.
Yet most of them made it evident they wanted to remain anonymous.
"Keep my name out of it."
Paul Schultz will get a new iPad, thanks to the generosity of a community that takes care of its own.
Chances are good his family will never know the benefactor.
That's a beautiful thing.

Mouseketeer's passing takes away icon of our youth

How many of us 60ish folks remembered our days of innocence when we heard the news?
Annette Funicello was dead.
Seventy? Nah. She'll always be 13 in our hearts and minds.
I can still see her when she burst onto the American stage with "The Mickey Mouse Club" in October 1955.
The short-sleeve turtle neck sweater.
The pleated skirt.
That curly brown hair and brown eyes.
That smile.
Those mouse ears.
I was 8.
Every afternoon after St. Gabriel School let out, we'd run home.
Me and my brother Jimmy.
We'd sit before our family's little black-and-white TV and watch that show religiously, two of the millions of American kids like us who made it a ritual.
It sounds goofy now, but we imagined being Mouseketeers, too.
I know I did.
Annette Funicello was my first crush before I knew what that was.
It faded when she went onto to do those "Beach Blanket Bingo" movies with Frankie Avalon, but who cares?
The Mickey Mouse Club was a staple of my boyhood.
So was Annette Funicello.

State Attorney's ruling for couple right one

The quality of mercy is not strained.”
I don’t know whether Robert Jordan or his wife, Cathy, have ever read The Merchant of Venice, or any of Shakespeare’s timeless works for that matter.
Certainly not with all they’ve been going through for practically the past 30 years.
Yet the English bard’s words resonate for the 60ish Parrish couple today.
They took on real meaning after the State Attorney’s office announced last Tuesday it would not prosecute the husband for cultivating marijuana at the couple’s Parrish home.
A sensible decision.
A welcome one, too.
Happy. Excited. Grateful.
Robert Jordan was all those things when he found out.
Good for him.
Good for his wife.

Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee on Bradenton.com.

Palmetto JROTC off to Louisville for Army nationals

Good luck to Palmetto High School’s JROTC drill team at Saturday’s Army National Drill Championships in Louisville. The squad members are Kenneth Ansbro, Monica Balli, Kevin Beach, Randy Beck, Lee Blair, Bethany Brogdon, Megan Carpenter, Alicia Delarosa, Nelson Doire, Joseph Eicher, Dustin Hall, Ersasto Hernandez, Taylor Holmes, Thai Holmes, Donald Preston, Daniel Preston, Daniel Price, Karelee Roca, Nina Skinner, Brandon Smith, James Vaught, Jessica Wood and Cory Zwycewicz. They’re coached by Sgt. 1st Class Wayne Hockley. Retired Lt. Col. Philip Pugh is the senior Army instructor.

Manatee High School’s Sugar’ Canes host a Cane Camper Clinic, 9 a.m. April 13 for third-through-eighth graders, who will perform at the May 18 Spring Show. Contact Mary Galati at 941-920-2433 or magalati@aol.com for information.

New Bradenton Marauder manager Frank Kremblas will have a built-in fan club among our town’s Ohio natives. Born in Carroll, southeast of Columbus, the 46-year-old played at Canal Winchester High School and was drafted by the Reds in 1989 and spent eight years in the Cincinnati organization.
Father Frank Sr. quarterbacked Ohio State to a share of the 1957 national championship under legendary Woody Hayes. Weather permitting, the M’s home opener with Fort Myers is Friday night at McKechnie Field. First pitch is 7:05 p.m. 
 
That wily ol’ stork is on final approach for Angela and Chris Babroski, who will name their first bundle of love, Michael. Due date is April 23.

Read more Friday in Vin's People on Bradenton.com.

Old Yankee Stadium ticket poignant memento

The ticket stub was one of many I've kept over the years.
But it was the oldest.
The Orioles and the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
It was 1967, my senior year at DePaul High School in Wayne, N.J.
A poignant memento for Opening Day 2013.
The final score of that game, O's 7-2, was written on the ticket stub, but that's not the number that grabs me from back in time.
It was a grandstand ticket.
The price?
Try $1.50.
What's funny, too, were the figures on the envelope.
On it are the old, old metropolitan phone numbers like CYpress 3-6000 on one side,
On the other, it says "Join the New York Yankees in the friendly skies of United."
For reservations, Call TN 7-3000.
That is going waaaaay back.
So are the names I wrote on  a piece of paper, listing friends and classmates who were going to the game with me and who wasn't.
Ted Martens, Mike Lacey, Chuck Kennedy and Jim Boyle were scratched off.
Pete Siegler, Bob Kruk and Dennis DeTitta were good to go.
Below their names were the other ticket price options:
Reserved/mezzanine: $2.50.
Box seats: $3.50.
Those were the days.