NEWBERRY – At the City of Newberry's latest commission meeting, city manager Keith Ashby asked for a show of hands from those were 70 years old and also in an executive position. No hands rose up.

After 10 years of managing Newberry, Ashby, who is 70 years old and in an executive position, has decided to retire within the next three to six months.

“I feel good about it, and they gave me a standing ovation,” he said about his announcement on Monday night, Jan. 13.

The position feels more like a stressful environment lately, he said, after several major turnovers in the city’s senior staff. The parks and recreation director, city planner and utility director are leaving soon or have left already.

“I recently lost my right arm, Richard Blalock,” Ashby said. Blalock, recreation director, along with Commissioner Joe Hoffman, had the goal of expanding the role of the Parks and Recreation Department.

“Then I lost my left arm, Lowell Garrett,” he said. Garrett was the best city planner in North Florida, Ashby said, bringing an invaluable perspective on the regulatory and statutory sides of business.

After having heart issues this past year that resulted in two operations, Ashby said he is ready to leave the high pressure of his position to spend more time with his wife, Sara, and five sons.

He will see the commission through the transitional period that comes with staff reorganization, but then he will look into teaching government courses at Santa Fe College and Saint Leo University as an adjunct professor.

He said he looks forward to the dinner that will be put on in honor of his career with the city, where he will have a chance to say a few words.

Ashby grew up between Melbourne and Carmel, N.Y. He went on to be an Air Force pilot for 30 years and retired as a colonel in 1997. He has been in county and city management ever since.  

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CAROL TATE/ Photo special to Alachua County Today

Officers of the High Springs Woman's Club. (L-R): Billie Jo Benedict, Sallie Milner, Windy Phillips, Barbara Miller, Katy Evens, Patti Lamneck, Vicky cox and Lillian Jenkins.

HIGH SPRINGS – At the beginning of each year, members of the General Federation of Woman’s Clubs (GFWC) present their best arts and crafts projects for judging on a local level. This year, entries competing in about 50 arts and crafts categories were delivered to the 86-year-old GFWC New Century Woman’s Club meeting house for judging on Wednesday, Jan. 8.

      Competitive categories include photography, water color painting, quilting and more.

      The results of this year’s judging are to be announced on Thursday, Jan. 9, at the GFWC Woman’s Club monthly luncheon. This is the first step in a larger district, state and, ultimately, a national competition to determine the best arts and crafts projects from woman’s clubs throughout the country.

      Brenda Hoffman, of Palm Bay, art chair of the State Convention Exhibit, talked about how much the artists contribute to their communities.

      “These women give so much to their community every year, much of which is not recognized,” she said. “This is our way of giving them recognition.”

      “The winners get ribbons and bragging rights for a whole year,” she said.

      The top local projects will be awarded blue ribbons and will be submitted for judging at the District Five GFWC Arts and Crafts competition in Gainesville on March 1. The first place winners of the Jan. 8 judging in High Springs’ will be judged again at that time, along with the 14 other woman’s and junior woman’s clubs from Alachua, Citrus, Dixie, Gilchrist, Levy and Marion counties, for submittal into the state-level competition.

      Winning District Five entrants will travel to Orlando and compete against all other districts in the state GFWC Florida Spring Convention, scheduled for April 25 through April 27.

      Last year’s state-wide competition led to the awarding of a third-place ribbon to High Springs’ club member Carole Tate for her handmade crocheted doll, an item she donated to Relay for Life for their fundraising auction.

      Ultimately, state-wide blue ribbon winners are chosen to go on to compete nationally at the GFWC Woman’s Club national convention, scheduled this year to be held at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort and Spa in Chandler, Ariz., on June 21 through June 24.

      Judges at all levels are chosen for their artistic abilities, background and talent and cannot be chosen from the Woman’s Club roster. Each judge must be a non-club member in order to qualify.

      This year’s local judge is Cootie Coo Creations’ owner Sharon Kantor, whose shop has been a hub for scrapbooking, rubber-stamping and art-related classes in High Springs for the past five years.

      Kantor has a Masters in Industrial Arts from Appalachian State University, Boone, N.C., with specialization in drafting, crafts and graphic arts. She taught graphic arts, photography and drafting in Miami before traveling and finally settling in High Springs. Kantor also has been event chair for Relay for Life for the past two years and has created her own line of stamps, known as Kantorkards.

      “Every month, a different service program committee conducts a meeting,” said Joyce Hallman, chairman of the Arts Community Service Program this year.

      “This month is our turn.”

      Kantor will be the featured speaker at the Thursday, Jan. 9, Woman’s Club luncheon and will teach participants how to make their own greeting cards using stamps, buttons and other items for embellishment.

      The Arts Community Service Program is chaired by Joyce Hallman and co-chaired by Barbara Bluhm. Committee members are Marion Dolan, Ellie Hubler, Mary Sears, Carole Tate, Liz Taylor, Terry Walsh and Debbie Wolnewitz.

      The Woman’s Club’s commitment to the arts dates back to 1894, when a literature committee was established. The committee rapidly grew to encompass programs focusing on arts and music. Clubwomen became known for their support of the arts and are credited with helping to establish the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

      The club, which has served High Springs for more than 110 years, is located in the Historic District of High Springs, next door to High Springs City Hall, and currently encourages youth and elder art projects and art shows in the community.

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ALACHUA – City commissioners met on Monday, Jan. 13 to discuss a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and conduct the second of two mandatory public hearings for the grant.

City officials said the grant would allow the City of Alachua to receive as much as $700,000. Grant money would be put toward community needs, particularly road resurfacing, under the current funding cycle.

During the a meeting last May, the city commission held the first of two required public hearings to determine the type of application for the city.

“The city is projected to be submitted to the Department of Economic Opportunity on or before March 12, 2014, depending on the opening of the CDBG grant application cycle,” said Assistant City Manager Adam Boukari.

Upon completion of the first public hearing, the city commission unanimously agreed to direct city administration to proceed with an application in the neighborhood revitalization category for the grant. According to an email from the city manager’s office, the Citizen Advisory Task Force meetings for this application were held on May 21 and Aug. 20 last year.

The grant comes from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to the grant’s website, “The Community Development Block Grant program is a flexible program that provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs.”

To help prepare for the grant application, the city hired J. Scott Modesitt of Summit Professional Service, Inc. to assess the city’s score for the grant. The grant is based off of a calculated score using income surveys performed by Summit Professional Services. Other factors that are considered are fair housing activity, readiness to proceed and matching funds. At each of the two public hearings, overviews on fair housing were provided.

“I am fairly confident that the city will receive the grant,” Modesitt said, “It really depends on what other communities are also applying for the grant.”

Modesitt said the grant will be used by the city to resurface the roads in parts of the Merrillwood Housing Project in northeast Alachua.

“The whole community is the beneficiary of this grant, it is very good for the city,” said Mayor Gib Coerper. “Re-pavement in these neighborhoods is needed,” he said, “and the City of Alachua is really thankful.”

Coerper says the city has been applying for the CDBG for many years. He said he is extremely happy with the work from city administration and Summit Professional Services.

If the grant application is successful, approximately $60,000 of the $700,000 grant will be used to pay for administrative costs, Mayor Coerper said.

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ALACHUA COUNTY – He puts history on display for all to see and uncovers forgotten tales of Alachua County.

Jim Powell is the ancient records coordinator at the Alachua County Clerk of Court. “The Wizard of AR (ancient records)” works his magic by taking the time to go through old documents, trying to decode them and ultimately transferring them onto an online database. Citizens are then easily able to access these old archives, some dating back to the early 19th century.

“We share what the Florida Supreme Court will allow online,” Powell said. “There are a lot of documents that are hard for regular people to find and understand.”

The man behind the monitor, as he calls himself, has transcribed a total of 18,070 pages worth of records. Originally, it started out as a family project. Eventually, once he became a part of the Board of Genealogy Society, he tried to get them involved as well. Powell is a part of the Alachua County Historical Commission, but after his mother died, he said he dropped almost everything and took a break from his volunteer work.

“After some time went by, the historical commission asked that I start again, and promised to help,” he said.

The Alachua Historical Society was initially founded to promote its history, both locally and its surrounding area. It was also created in the hopes of encouraging individuals to preserve its written history along with the landmarks that make the area so special.

Powell is currently working on a cemetery project where he hopes to photograph every grave marker in Alachua County.

“We have photographed 99 percent of them, from little to huge,” he said.

Powell and his colleagues are still in the process of working on 30 or so more cemeteries, with plans to add “Voices over Stones,” where a descendent or historian creates a short audio or video story about the person under the stone. Adding photographs of the deceased is also being considered.

Though the project is in its primary stage, it is definitely going on a fast track in reaching the public, Powell said.

They are sharing their photos with the UF library, and have an index that links back to their site on Ancestry.com, he said.

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