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Tuesday, November 7, 2006 No. 6 Vol. 85
Today’s Speaker: Pat Mason
First
Night St. Petersburg Founder and Executive Director
With the calendar year coming swiftly to a close,
our thoughts turn naturally to…First Night! First Night St. Petersburg,
if you haven’t attended, is the entertainment-packed and family-friendly
New Year’s Eve celebration, based on similar city events around the
country. Our speaker today, First Night St. Pete’s executive director,
Pat Mason, has been helping St. Petersburg start every new year off with
a bang since 1993.
Like others who have improved our city, Ms. Mason
has an extensive history of civic and community service. She graduated
from Florida State University with B.A. in English Literature and spent
her post-graduate years teaching high school English in Miami and in St.
Petersburg. Ms. Mason served as Executive Director of St. Petersburg's
Bicentennial of the United States celebration, which included the
founding of the St. Petersburg International Folk Fair Society and
Mainsail Arts Festival.
For many years, our speaker served as President of
the Junior League, and subsequently, as a member of the Southeast Area
Council of Junior League International. While Junior League President,
she initiated the project known as the Naisbitt Report which resulted in
the recommendation of the 49th St. Bridge. In 1993, Ms. Mason became
Founding Chairman of First Night St. Petersburg, and then its Executive
Director.
First Night St. Petersburg began out of the efforts
of a group of citizens, including Ms. Mason, interested in bringing the
event, already popular in many U. S. cities, to our community. The
intent of First Night is to celebrate the many performing and visual
arts groups and individuals in our community, as well as the artist in
each of us. Over the past twelve years First Night has brought together
people of all ages and ethnicities to celebrate our heritage through the
arts. It offers an enjoyable alternative to unsafe revelry and a means
to create a family tradition, acknowledging the close of one year and
the beginning of a new one.
2006 marks the 13th Annual New Year’s Eve
Celebration of the Arts at 35 venues in MidTown and Downtown from 2 in
the afternoon to 12:30 a.m. Family-oriented festivities include music
stages, entertainment, drama, dance, games, art, fireworks and more.
In addition to the tireless effort Ms. Mason puts
into organizing this diverse and inspiring celebration of fresh starts
at the new year, she is a mother of three and grandmother of one, a
Sunday School teacher and a Bible Study Fellowship leader.
Please welcome Pat Mason! We’re eager to learn
more about your vision for First Night and what we can plan to expect
this year.
What’s Happening?
Community Service Meeting Notice
Bob Piplitz informs us that it's time to plan out next year's
community service projects. Please plan to attend this
one-time-only-this-year meeting so that everyone’s ideas can be
considered. We will meet at Jane Baldwin’s house at 922 39th
Avenue NE, St. Petersburg, at 5:30-6:30 pm on Tuesday, November 28th.
Food and drinks will be provided. Please RSVP by e-mail to
Robert_Piplitz@ML.com.
A Moveable Feast Lorin
will be sending around a sign-up sheet for our upcoming holiday party, a
progressive dinner to be held Saturday, December 9th.
Details will be forthcoming.
LAST WEEK AT KIWANIS
St. Pete Times Outdoor Editor, Terry Tomalin, entertained us last
Tuesday with his tales of misadventure in the great outdoors.
Kiwanian-of-the-Day Markus Mittermeyr provided the introduction. Tomalin
spoke of his circuitous route to Outdoors Editor from American
University, where he majored in Marine Biology and failed gym because of
his propensity to show up late to class hungover. Playing rugby and
drinking beer took its toll on his major, so he transferred to USF and
switched his major to Mass Communications. After graduation, he landed a
job at the Leesburg Commercial covering local investigative
stories and law enforcement issues. From there it was on to the
Times for more of the same. Itching to follow his adventurous
spirit, Tomalin took a sabbatical, spending a year in New Zealand,
familiarizing himself with the geography and outdoor pursuits. He came
back determined to find a way to spend his life kayaking, scubadiving
and surfing while getting paid for it. Recognizing Tomalin's talent and
potential, the Times created the position of Outdoors Editor and
hired him back. In time, Tomalin took what had traditionally been
considered a fishing and boating column to encompass a wide range of
oudoor adventure travelogues, winning numerous Sports Writers' and
Professional Journalists' awards. In 1997 and again last year, Tomalin
was recognized by the Outdoors Writers Association of America with a
Feature Writing award.
The eighth child of nine, Terry craves alone time
and renews his spirit in the outdoors. Still, a scary solitary encounter
camping and rafting during the No-Name Storm of '93 taught him respect
for the power of nature. He was camping alone when the storm hit "like
freight trains circling my tent." In the morning he rafted out, trying
to get back to his starting point, but paddled aimlessly winding up ten
miles out to sea. Completely lost, he let the currents carry him down
the coast. The second night he was out of Jack Daniels; by day three he
beached, caked with salt and his (then) long hair wild and unkempt. The
calm in the weather brought biting Black flies, forcing him to spend the
next several hours dancing, running and doing jumping jacks on the
beach. After a while, he noticed four boats of kids and adults
open-mouthed at his inexplicable antics. Back at the Times, he
wrote up his story and got great response to his column. It was then he
knew he had realized his dream.
From there, Tomalin undertook every trip and
outdoor activity he fantasized about and reported on them for his
column. He paddled a 45' outrigger to Bimini and wants to do the same
to Cuba "if," he says, "the secret police will let me come back." Even
on his honeymoon, he swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco, just for the
challenge of it. Now he wants to swim from Italy to Sicily. He has
surfed all over the world, including both coasts of Florida, citing the
two best seasons for surfing here, hurricane season and wintertime, when
tropical storms and cold fronts kick up the surf. Surfing during
Hurricane Opal, he suffered a torn rotator cuff, so he no longer surfs
on the East Coast of Florida.
Tomalin related scubadiving and cave diving stories
and one involving lemon sharks circling him in the water! When asked
about more traditional outdoor pursuits, Tomalin said that Florida is
the #1 boating market in the country, so he does write a lot of consumer
oriented stories to get people in to boating. Hunting is big, too, and
he told us of his abortive attempts at hunting (“shot at 200 ducks, got
2”). He continues to work with a crew on outriggers and has many more
journeys planned we can experience vicariously through his columns, but
he admitted that as a husband and father of two children, negotiating
time and risk is hard. Thank you, Terry, your adult adventures tales
excite our imaginations from the comfort of our recliners!
Guests and Visitors Dave Miles
introduced us to his guest, Lisa Nobo of PayChex, Cathy Swanson’s
guest was Mary Ann Lynch.
With Sympathy Bruce McKelvey
informed us of the sad news that Bill Holloway’s mother passed
away. Her husband was past president,
TODAY’S QUIZ
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1.
Who was America’s only queen?
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2.
What do selenologists study?
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3.
The state of Texas is the only state in the nation that has
been under six flags. What flags were those?
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4.
In 1844, policemen in New York City staged a strike against
their proposed blue uniforms. What was their objection?
LAST WEEK’S QUIZ:
1. If a black cat walks towards you, it brings good
fortune, but if it walks away, it takes the good luck with it.
2. The Canary Islands were not named for a bird
called a canary. They were named after a breed of large dogs. The
Latin name was Canariae insulae - "Island of Dogs."
3. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, named in
the Bible's Book of Revelation, are Conquest, Slaughter, Famine, and
Death.
4. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger bought the
first Hummer manufactured for civilian use in 1992. The vehicle weighed
in at 6,300 lbs and was 7 feet wide.
PRAYER OF THE DAY Bless
us, Lord, and help us look at this day with new eyes, awed and thankful,
joyful of heart. Help us be our best selves and bring our best effort
to our work. Guide us to those whose loads need lightening and teach us
how to become the angels that lift up and protect. Teach us that our
highest goal must be to become humble and our strongest desire to
serve. Amen.
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