Cal Ripken All-Stars crank out footballish scores

Manatee 8-&-Under Cal Ripken All Stars are (front row) Dylan Reiser, Lucas Viera, Rylen Stockton, batboy Sam Heintz, Ashton Lamb, Tristan Schellinger, Jack Muller; (second row) coach Shane Reiser, Judson Hildreth, Mason McReynolds, Justin Cook, Ryan O'Sullivan, Jaden Stockton, Alex Heintz, Christopher Conboy; (back row) manager Lee Heintz, coach Mike Stockton.

 The Manatee Cal Ripken 8-&-Under All-Stars tuned up for the June 20-23 district tournament in Ocala in overpowering fashion at the recent Suncoast Travel Ball Tournament.
Manager Lee Heintz’s ballclub swept Fort Meade, Sarasota and Riverview by a combined score of 65-0.
The closest score was 7-0; the biggest rout, 27-0.

.• Bob McComas alert! The Slippery Rock University sports information director and former Herald sports guy will be back in B’town for a couple of days beginning Sunday.
He’s now in Orlando at the national SID convention and wants to look up his ol’ pals when he gets here.

.• Blake Riley-Hawkins, a recent Lakewood Ranch High School graduate, will be a wrestling walk-on at Ohio State, the same path brother, Kyle, took a couple of years ago at the Big Ten program.
Blake wrestled at 132 pounds for the Mustangs. Kyle, a junior academically, wrestles at 184 for the Buckeyes.

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

School board chair cannot be serious about plaque

Karen Carpenter (left) with MTI chief Mary Cantrell at last February's dedication.

Karen Carpenter cannot be serious.
The chairwoman of the Manatee County School Board wants to replace a plaque --- a plaque! --- at Manatee Technical Institute's new campus on State Road 70.
Its cost? $3,200. Or $5,456 for a rush job.
Why?
We'll get to that in a second.
But there is no good reason to even be contemplating this financial foolishness.
Not when the school district over which she is supposed to be a steward has been hemorrhaging millions.
Not when 180 teachers have lost their  jobs.
Not when 96 district staff have lost their jobs.
Not when schools have been closed.
Karen Carpenter cannot be serious.
So what if the present plaque at MTI has former superintendent Tim McGonegal's name on it, even though the explosive revelations of financial mismanagment that rocked the school district last fall erupted on his watch and forced his resignation.
So what if all the names of the current school board --- Carpenter's included --- are not on it.
WHO CARES?!
Nobody in their ight mind, that's who.
Not when this school district is in such dire straits and new Superintendent Rick Mills is trying his darndest pull it off the rocks.
We're obsessing on a plaque?
As if our community needed one more reason to get rid of this school board.
Karen Carpenter cannot be serious.

School's out, but summer doesn't feel the same

Superintendent Rick Mills

School’s out, but it sure doesn’t feel like the happy days and good times traditionally associated with the start of summer recess.
Maybe for kids, the way it should be.
Can’t say the same for the rest of us who understand and appreciate the important role the education community plays in our town and the vitality it brings to it.
Not after the sturm und drang the Manatee County School District has been going through of late.
Though it’s been anticipated for months there would have to be drastic measures taken after the revelations of astonishing mismanagement by district administration, the numbers brought on by the fallout are still staggering.

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

Manatee Y Tech High graduates its first class

Keynote speaker Nick Bollettieri congratulates a Manatee Y Tech grad.

Manatee Y Technological High School celebrated its inaugural graduation at the South Florida Museum and the graduates are Kelvin Arrington, Hildus Dawes, Keith Dean, Tron Edmond, Sandra Garcia, Laquinton Hart, Carneshia McCants, William Myers, Dannika Oliver, Crystal Palacios, Marquis Trice, Ashley Watson and Davon Whitfield.
Kiwanis Club of Bradenton also gave the Manatee County YMCA $10,000 for the 59th Street West YMCA SPLASH program.

•  Deacon Jones passing Tuesday touched a lot of people, including Pat Curran, my Lakeland College teammate in Sheboygan, Wis., many moons ago.
Pat played 10 years in the NFL and was a Los Angeles Ram rookie in 1969 when he got a personal introduction to the legendary defensive end in training camp.
“The first time in practice I’m playing tight end and the play was an off-tackle run,” said Pat, now a Snap On Tools exec in Escondido, Calif. “My job, down block the D-end. It was Deacon. The ball got snapped and
all I blocked was air. I asked Deacon, ‘How did you know I was going to block you?’ He answered, ‘You look at me before the snap, Rookie.’
“I never looked at him again, but still had trouble trying to block him.”
That went for half the NFL during Deacon’s 14-year Hall of Fame career.

• Circuit Judge Diana Moreland was the commencement speaker at the Jane B. Pratt Alternative School Just for Girls on Wednesday.

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

One way to definitely not begin your morning

Do not try this at home.
Take it from me.
Monday morning I had just gotten back from an hour in the gym on the treadmill. I would normally have walked that hour around our neighborhood, but it was raining.
Anyway, I showered, toweled off and began going through my usual routine getting ready for work.
Deodorant there.
Powder there.
Body lotion there.
But I'd developed a bit of a rash from my elastic shorts and reached for the Cortizone.
Only I couldn't find it in the drawer where I keep those sort of things.
So I opened the medicine cabinet to see if I'd put it there.
Well, there was that good ol' red-and-white tube. I grabbed it, squirted a dab on my hands and began to apply it.
Uh, oooh!
It was BENGAY Ultra Strength.
Eeeeeyeeeooow!
I jumped back in the shower, turned on the cold water and doused the fire as best I could.
After a few minutes, I was as good as I would be, resumed getting ready for work and made a mental note to myself.
Next time, stupid, wear your glasses.

Mural probably emulates superintendent's feelings

Don't know whether Rick Mills is an aficionado of modern art.
Or whether he's ever heard of Edvard Munch.
But I bet that extemporary 2-story mural hanging outside Manatee High School, an imitation of the Norwegian painter's most famous creation, made Manatee County's new school superintendent want to holler, indeed.
Or do a very slow burn.
The mural was made by 300 art students as a protest over school district budget cuts in general and the lack of kilns to make ceramics in particular.
They made the mural unveiled Monday out of trash.
There's a metaphor for you.
Especially on the same day Mills announced the results of a study conducted by a blue-ribbon panel of Florida Association of Area District Superintendents.
The findings?
Absolutely no surprise:
-People were hired without regard to the budget.
-Nobody understood the district's finances.
-The district is dysfunctional.
It's a mess. all right.
"More dire than anticipated," Mills said.
That mural at Manatee was meant to make a statement, but it probably captured the feelings of a new superintendent trying to save a school district that has gone off the rails.
It's enough to make a grown man scream.

Signs that tell you it is hurricane season

Our human resources department emailed each of us an employee locator form, which means one thing.
It’s hurricane season.
The bosses want to know our plans in case of the impending arrival of a Category 1 or higher hurricane.
That’s followed by the question — where will you go if told to evacuate?
I type in the same answer every year.
The Railway Tavern in County Kerry, Ireland, overlooking Tralee Bay.
I wish.
Instead, we’ll all be gearing up for whatever Mother Nature decides to throw our way.
The experts are forecasting an active or extremely active season, which is overstating the obvious because we’ve had nothing but active hurricane season forecasts for the past several years.
Besides, all it takes is one hurricane to ruin your day, not to mention rearrange your life.

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