01/03/2019 ISSUE 01

Damaged equipment blamed for
Shores cell tower woes. P7
Proposals weighed for
Gifford health services. P9

Caregivers to go on trial for
exploiting John’s Island couple. P4

For breaking news visit

MY VERO Piper Aircraft
sales soaring,
BY RAY MCNULTY hiring surges

2018 was great, but here BY RAY MCNULTY
are some issues for 2019 Staff Writer

All in all, 2018 was a ter- Piper Aircraft’s sales soared
rific year for our community,
which should benefit greatly in 2018, with deliveries of its
from Florida Power & Light’s
purchase of Vero Beach’s elec- airplanes jumping nearly 50
tric utility, Cleveland Clinic’s
takeover of the Indian River percent, prompting a surge
Medical Center and Major
League Baseball’s long-term in hiring that has upped the
lease with the county to run
Historic Dodgertown. workforce of the county’s larg-

So 2019 has a tough act to est private-sector employer to
follow.
more than 1,000.
That said, there are more
than a few issues that still need It was just 3 ½ years ago that
to be addressed, problems that
need to be resolved, and oppor- sagging sales and economic
tunities that need to be explored
across the next 12 months. uncertainty in the global mar-

Here’s some of what I’d like ketplace forced Piper to elim-
to see happen locally in the
coming year: inate 115 full-time positions

 A plan for the develop- and reduce its payroll to 655
ment of theVero Beach-owned,
lagoon-front property at the workers, some of whom ac-
intersection of 17th Street and
cepted transfers to lower-pay-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
ing jobs to remain employed.
School District facing
penalties for inflating Sebastian Inlet dredging yields sand for beach renourishment Since then, however, Piper’s
number of kids bused
business has taken off: Air-
BY KATHLEEN SLOAN craft deliveries climbed from
Staff Writer
127 in 2016 to 155 in 2017,
The state Department of
Education is likely to withhold BY SUE COCKING ers and then pump the sand Inlet District Administrator with an even more dramatic
$1.8 million in transporta- Staff Writer onto beaches to the south to Marty Smithson said. “The jump in 2018.
tion funding from the Indian
River County School District ease erosion. sand collects there by design Jackie Carlin, Piper‘s senior

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 Boaters and beachgoers in “The sand trap was blasted and fills up the trap about ev- marketing director, said last

and around Sebastian Inlet will with dynamite in the 1970s,” CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

see dredge boats setting up and

workers running pipes south Island retailers report this was a great holiday season
along the beach for the next

few weeks as the Sebastian In-

let District undertakes sched- BY SAMANTHA ROHLFING BAITA week’s Wall Street Journal island retailers when asked
uled channel maintenance and Staff Writer report that “shoppers deliv- “How has your holiday season

beach renourishment projects. ered the strongest holiday been?” And the level of en-

Every four years or so, the Up and down the island, sales increase for U.S. re- thusiasm was high going into

district must dredge sand from the Village Shops to tailers in six years.” 2019, as the Holiday Season

from a 42-acre sand trap near Ocean Drive, merchants “Very good” was the virtual- melds intoVero’s High Season.

the mouth of the inlet to en- happily agreed with last ly unanimous response from CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

sure safe navigation for boat-

January 3, 2019 Volume 12, Issue 1 Newsstand Price $1.00 St. Ed’s student
invents ‘Helping
News 1-10 Faith 44 Pets 64 TO ADVERTISE CALL Hand’ for blind. P16
Arts 23-28 Games 45-47 Real Estate 67-80 772-559-4187
Books 38-39 Health 49-54 St. Ed’s 65
Dining 58 Insight 29-48 Style 55-57 FOR CIRCULATION
Editorial 36 People 11-22 Wine 59 CALL 772-226-7925

© 2019 Vero Beach 32963 Media LLC. All rights reserved.

2 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

Sebastian Inlet newly-deposited sand. The remaining of Technology to ensure protection the inlet and used to restore county
30,000 cubic yards of dredged sand of sea grass and hard bottom habitat beaches since the district was created
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 will be stockpiled in the Inlet District’s and the creatures they harbor, such in 1919. 
storage area just north of the inlet for as manatees, sea turtles, shorebirds
ery four years. emergency beach fill and dune repair. and sawfish. My Vero
“You can tell when it is full because Work is expected to wrap up in mid-
April prior to the start of the sea turtle The district says 10 years of moni- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
the channel starts to shoal in.” nesting season, which begins May 1. toring so far has shown no ill effects
The district’s contractor, Ferreira from its projects. Indian River Boulevard, where the
The total project cost is $2,945,000, city – when it eventually relocates its
Construction of Stuart, will dredge with the Florida Department of Envi- “The [Sebastian Inlet District] Com- Wastewater Treatment Plant – has a
150,000 cubic yards from the sand ronmental Protection expected to kick mission takes seriously its commit- wonderful opportunity to transform
trap, pumping about 120,000 cubic in 75 percent, or about $2.2 million, ment to preserving natural resources this prime real estate into another
yards of the material through pipes that while the district foots the balance. and protecting important habitats popular gathering place for social,
will stretch two miles south along the and wildlife around the inlet,” said commercial and recreational activ-
beach to a restoration site north of the Beach renourishment will be Smithson. ity.
McLarty Treasure Museum. closely monitored by local, state and
federal agencies and Florida Institute More than 2.5 million cubic yards  The Vero Beach City Council fi-
Bulldozers will till and grade the of sand have been dredged from nally show some courage, stop pro-
crastinating and get serious about
the Central Beach business district’s
parking situation, which will only
worsen with all the new residential
development on the mainland. (Lots
of newcomers are buying homes west
of 43rd Avenue, but they find their
way to Ocean Drive to dine, drink and
shop, or to go to the beach.)

 Our School Board, particularly
the recently elected members, take
their oversight responsibilities seri-
ously and stand up to Superinten-
dent Mark Rendell, leaving no doubt
that he works for them by holding
him accountable and publicly ques-
tioning his decisions and recommen-
dations.

 The Orchid Town Council abide
by the will of the people when it de-
cides the fate of Publix’s plan to
build a supermarket-anchored shop-
ping center on a 7-acre parcel in the
southeast corner of the town, even if
it means putting the issue to a refer-
endum. (The council also needs to
appreciate the importance of being a
good neighbor.)

 Serious discussions between
Vero Beach Regional Airport Director
Eric Menger and a second commercial
airline to complement the passen-
ger service offered by Elite Airways.
(Flights connecting our community to
markets in the Midwest might be very
popular.)

 Major League Baseball fully
and enthusiastically embrace its
long-term commitment to Historic
Dodgertown – especially the much-
needed renovation of Holman Sta-
dium – using its clout to bring at
least one Grapefruit League game to
Vero Beach each year. (We’d pack the
place.)

 The City Council approve the
“urban market” plan proposed by
Lakeland-based builder Mark Hul-
bert and Vero Beach resident Terry
Borcheller, who want to buy and
develop the 35 acres that once con-
tained the Dodgertown Golf Club.
(The hard truth is, the city needs the

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 3

NEWS

ongoing tax revenue more than it School bus riders rector Julianne Pelletier. “I believe her 31, 2017, as shown in the Auditor Gen-
needs another park.) CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 numbers over anyone else’s,” Zorc said. eral’s September 2018 audit statement.

 Local law enforcement – with for inflating the number of kids car- “Ultimately it will all come out of Most of the remaining $1.2 million
call-in help from the public – crack ried to and from their classes each day the general fund to make up for the is for claiming 2,350 more riders than
down on a worsening road-rage prob- on school buses, according to School shortfall in state funding,” Zorc said. actually rode buses during the first
lem, which already has resulted in one Board Chairperson Laura Zorc. “It’s a significant punch to the district’s part of the current school year, a dis-
deadly shooting that prosecutors here general fund balance.” crepancy still being investigated by
said was legally justified under Flori- Zorc said she got the $1.8 million fig- the Department of Education.
da’s recklessly rewritten “Stand Your ure from recently-resigned Finance Di- About $600,000 of the holdback is for
Ground” law. incorrectly counting or not counting rid- The DOE surveys bus riders four
ers during the school year ending June
 Something to cause Virgin Trains CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
USA to abandon its plan to expand
its high-speed passenger rail service
from West Palm Beach to Orlando,
via the Treasure Coast and through
the Vero Beach community. (That’s
probably not going to happen, but at
least there’s no talk of putting a station
here.)

 The Vero Beach Lifeguard Asso-
ciation raise the $250,000 it needs to
build an oceanfront headquarters –
an L-shaped, 600-square-foot obser-
vation tower and command center
at Humiston Park – that would allow
lifeguards to see more of the city’s
shoreline.

 The county succeed in its ef-
forts to protect public access to lo-
cal beaches by winning its recently
filed lawsuit targeting a 2,000-foot
stretch of beach in the Summerplace
subdivision, north of Wabasso Beach.
(The action was in response to a new
Florida statute that prevents local
governments from simply declaring
beaches public through the “custom-
ary use doctrine” and requiring such
disputes to be decided in court.)

 The City Council find the right
tenant willing to pay the right price to
lease the city marina and make the re-
pairs and improvements needed for it
to become a first-class mooring, fuel-
ing and storage facility – an asset Vero
Beach can be proud of.

 The owner of the Indian River
Mall find new ways to attract custom-
ers and keep the shopping area finan-
cially viable at a time when an increas-
ing number of people are opting to
shop online.

 The United States Golf Associa-
tion, encouraged by the overwhelm-
ing success of the 2015 U.S. Mid-Am-
ateur Championship at John’s Island
and the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s
Amateur Championship at Orchid Is-
land, award another of its major tour-
naments to our community – possibly
Quail Valley, which has a course wor-
thy of such an honor.

 The Florida Fish & Wildlife Con-
servation Commission use its legal
authority to more quickly remove
derelict vessels from our lagoon and
recover from the boats’ owners all
costs associated with the removals.

In closing: Let's refuse to settle for
merely keeping Vero Vero in 2019 and,
instead, keep trying to make Vero better.

Like we did in 2018. 

4 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

School bus riders the last error found in the summer’s Part of the cost should come as no tion, Rendell wanted to demote Mor-
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 audit report? If not, where can I find surprise to the School Board. During rison to “transportation coordinator,”
this allocation in the budget book?” budget talks last summer, then-Assis- burying it in the consent agenda at
times a year and flags rider counts that tant Superintendent of Finances Cart- the first meeting of three new board
show more than a 5 percent variance Pelletier responded the next day, er Morrison warned transportation au- members, Nov. 20. The board unbur-
from the prior year. “Transportation did include me in a dit findings would cost about $625,000. ied the item and postponed action
meeting to explain that their reporting until Dec. 11, but by then Rendell had
Zorc said it is likely the DOE will ... is [still] not correct. He put the cost into the prelimi- changed his mind, reinstating Morri-
withhold the rest of this school year’s nary budget. Shortly after Morrison’s son to his old position. The next day
transportation funding, which was “I will forward to you the email doc- warning, Superintendent Rendell Morrison and Pelletier resigned.
supposed to total $3.7 million. umenting the error from the DOE [De- sent Morrison home, with pay, for
partment of Education]. I am unaware supposed misconduct on another The rumor was partially confirmed
The $1.8 million cost for incorrect of the timing of the financial impact of financial matter. He accused him of by the district’s public information
transportation numbers was revealed this, but I know that it will be a large transferring $2.3 million into 12 sep- officer, Brenda Davis. She refused to
by happenstance, not by the School amount as the discrepancy indicates arate schools’ salary accounts with- fill part of 32963’s public record re-
Board, district staff or Superintendent approximately one-third of reported out his permission. quest, citing an exemption for docu-
Mark Rendell. riders. ments related to an ongoing inves-
Over the next five months, Rendell tigation, thereby confirming such
Tracking a rumor that Pelletier had “Regarding the summer’s audit re- had the absent Morrison investigat- documents exist. 
sent board members a document de- port, we did not pay the fine. ... I believe ed. At the conclusion of the investiga-
tailing a number of financial prob- that this is roughly $600,000, and it was
lems at the school district before she not included in the budget book.” TWO HEALTHCARE AIDES FACE UP TO
resigned, Vero Beach 32963 requested 60 YEARS IF CONVICTED OF EXPLOITING
all email exchanges with board mem- Rosario did not respond to a request AN ELDERLY JOHN’S ISLAND COUPLE
bers from Dec. 4 to Dec. 11. The part of for comment.
the request that was fulfilled revealed BY FEDERICO MARTINEZ the state attorney’s office took from Mi-
the problem in an email string be- Zorc said there has been no public Staff Writer chelina Martinelli, one of the victims of
tween Pelletier and new Board Mem- discussion by the board of the trans- the alleged fraud. According to court
ber Jacqueline Rosario portation reporting errors because Two healthcare aides charged with affidavits, McGee and Shepherd, certi-
“the board is not being informed ... exploiting an elderly John’s Island fied nursing assistants, had been work-
“I was told the transportation num- [although Juli Pelletier] has brought couple – spending more than $500,000 ing for Michelina, 87, and her husband,
bers reported this fall semester 2018 several things to light in the last few on such expenses as a stay at the Plaza Alfred Martinelli, 89, since at least 2017.
were incorrect, as they were in the months. Hotel in New York, rental of a Rolls-
spring of 2018. ... Have we been noti- Royce Ghost, and shopping at Ralph Both Martinellis suffered from de-
fied that our numbers were incorrectly “Being we continuously have faulty Lauren and Nieman Marcus – should mentia, cognitive impairment and
reported once again?” Rosario asked. reporting revealed through the audits, be ready for the setting of a trial date poor health, according to reports from
“Finally, did we ever pay the fine for the obvious question becomes, ‘Why by mid-January, their attorneys told the Indian River Shores Department
is the Superintendent allowing this Judge Cynthia Cox. of Public Safety.
to continue?’” Zorc said. “I can assure
you I will be revisiting this issue.” Cox scheduled a Jan. 16 status hear- The Martinellis filed a police report
ing for Vero Beach residents Chiquita in January 2018 after suspicious family
McGee, 30, and Sophia Shepherd, 31, members discovered that the caregivers
who both face two felony charges – ex- had used the Martinellis’ personal in-
ploiting an elderly adult and schem- formation to obtain several credit cards.
ing to defraud a financial institution.
If convicted, the women could face up Investigators say McGee and Shep-
to 60 years in prison. herd “willfully conspired” to commit
crimes, and in addition to using the
McGee’s attorney, Lydia Pittaway, credit cards for unauthorized expenses,
and Shepherd’s attorney, Robert Stone, “fraudulently” obtained checks they
told Cox last month they needed a few used to buy high-end jewelry, clothing
weeks to review a Dec. 17 deposition and a car engine, and to pay for cosmetic
dental work and plastic surgery.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 5

NEWS

The state attorney’s office on Dec. 20 es. She “believed the suspects were and required reimbursement, Barrett but Barrett noted Shepherd was wearing
released a list of 29 businesses where buying her husband pants and shirts explained. He said she thought Shep- a yellow diamond ring that matched one
McGee and Shepherd are alleged to and things like that,” wrote Detective herd and McGee were “hard working of the suspected fraudulent purchases.
have made purchases. Ken Barrett in an arrest affidavit. girls and didn’t have that much money
so she would pay them immediately.” Shepherd and McGee, who were ar-
During interviews with police, Mrs. She believed the nursing aides rested on March 13, 2018, have plead-
Martinelli said she didn’t remember were purchasing supplies the couple During an interview with police, ed not guilty to the charges, and re-
authorizing such extravagant expens- needed with their own personal funds Shepherd insisted on her innocence, main free on bond. 

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6 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

Holiday shopping son Beach, said her store had a “great nal, retail sales in the U.S. from Nov. During the past year, Piper an-
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 holiday season,” noticeably better than 1 through Christmas Eve “were up 5.1 nounced two large training-aircraft
last year, despite stock market wobbles. percent to more than $850 billion,” orders – one from China’s FanMei
At women's clothing store Pineap- with shoppers apparently unaffected Flight School and the other from the
ples in Central Beach, owner Carolyn Dunbar said shoppers were in good by political turmoil and a roller-coast- Jacksonville-based ATP Flight School,
Redfield said, “We had a good holiday. spirits this season. She had significant er stock market. Significant for many which has training centers in 18 states.
A very good holiday. We have a lot of foot traffic, repeat customers from “over beach shops, apparel sales were re-
holiday clientele for our party dresses.” the bridge,” and “repeat tourist custom- ported up nearly 8 percent.  Combined, those orders are for 252
ers.” aircraft.
Pauline Adams, owner of synthetic Piper sales soar
jewelry boutique “I'll Never Tell” for 25 The positive holiday shopping re- In addition, Carlin said Piper con-
years, called the holiday season “great ports continued into Indian River CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 tinues to fill its order book with new-
so far. People are here to relax and they Shores, where Village Shops retail- aircraft sales to a wide range of uni-
don’t mind spending, including Cana- ers were singing a happy tune. At El- week the 2018 production numbers versity-based and independent flight
dians, even with the money exchange egance by the Sea, Catherine Caddell weren’t yet available, but she projected schools in the United States.
issues.” said holiday business was “brisk, all 229 deliveries – a whopping, 48 per-
the way up to Christmas Eve. As we cent increase over the previous year. She said the increase in demand for
Another long-time Ocean Drive were closing a little early, there were Piper’s training aircraft can be “directly
business, Very Fitting, was bustling people knocking on the door. We even Carlin said deliveries of Piper’s M- attributed to a looming pilot shortage
during a recent visit, with sales per- ran out of bags a couple times.” Class line of business and personal and the resulting demand for pilots.”
sonnel assisting customers and man- single-engine, turboprop aircraft grew
ager Erin Metz multi-tasking. Other J. McLaughlin assistant manager 35 percent from 2017 to 2018, and To meet its 2018 production de-
than to say it's been a good season, Cindy Williams attributes the clothing that the company, riding an increased mands, Piper hired workers for an ar-
Metz was “too busy to talk.” store’s happy and successful holiday demand for its smaller pilot-training ray of positions throughout the year.
season to more people staying longer aircraft, anticipates another strong
Toward the south end of the busi- and bringing families, as well as “our showing in the coming year. That’s quite a turnaround from 2015,
ness district, Lily Pad has sold children's fabulous location.” when worldwide demand for Piper’s
clothing, toys and accessories for four “While we aren’t announcing our products slowed – especially in the Euro-
years. Owner Jennifer Lier said she's had Wendy Roberts, owner of Notewor- planned 2019 production at this time, pean, Asian and Latin American markets
a “strong Christmas season, with sup- thy by Design, a stationary store, said we expect that deliveries will grow at – so much that the company suffered
port from both locals and visitors. Now,” her holiday season was “wonderful, least 30 percent,” Carlin said, adding, back-to-back quarters in which sales,
she says, “we wait for the ‘true’ season.” a lot of fun, especially the closer we “All trainer aircraft are sold for 2019 deliveries and revenues all declined.
got to Christmas. We had lots of new with a backlog into 2022.”
North on A1A, in Pelican Plaza, Darcy people come in, and more younger As a result, Piper President and
Dunbar, proprietor of the gift shop Mai- people. It’s revitalizing.” CEO Simon Caldecott said at the time
that the company needed to “better
According to the Wall Street Jour- align production with current mar-
ket demand,” which it did, reducing

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 7

NEWS

its payroll by more than 15 percent. Damaged equipment blamed for Shores cell tower woes
The company carried out re-
BY LISA ZAHNER replacement equipment needs to cause complications in sorting out
verse “alignment” during the past 12 Staff Writer be custom-fabricated for the Shores when, where and how the equipment
months, this time increasing its work- tower, so hopefully the setback should got damaged and getting the replace-
force and production. Indian River Shores residents who only mean weeks more of waiting, not ment covered. “Hope it doesn’t take
tried unsuccessfully to “reach out and months, for Verizon customers. more than three to four weeks.”
“Piper’s continued commitment touch” loved ones on Verizon phones
to a level-loaded aircraft-production from inside their homes this holiday “The antennas may have a longer But there’s one more unknown fac-
schedule has allowed us to meet solid season – instead of outside at the curb lead time but I wouldn’t be able to tor in the mix, Smith said, a change in
financial growth and performance next to trash bins of discarded Christ- guess right now,” Smith said, adding key personnel on the project. “We also
goals, while expanding our worldwide mas wrap and turkey carcasses – will that some issues having to do with in- heard Verizon’s changed their construc-
sales, visibility and efforts, especially bemoan the latest snag in the long- surance and the delivery carrier could tion site manager as the previous one
in the pilot-training realm,” Caldecott running saga of the town’s new cell took the early retirement offer, so he has
said last week. tower. to get up to speed as well,” he said.

“As we look toward 2019, we are ex- The Verizon transmission equipment On the bright side, Jones did have
cited about the growth in demand needed to boost signal on the barrier some good news to report. “In any
for aircraft trainers and the resulting island arrived at the contractor’s office, event, the site work requiring con-
contracts that we have been awarded, but it had to be sent back, according crete and digging is complete and the
which has helped develop a backlog of to Curt Jones, president of Datapath platform is in,” he said. Verizon is also
orders,” he added. Towers, the Shores’ partner on the cell already making lease payments to the
tower project. town while they get it together on the
“Additionally, working in concert technical end.
with our full-service dealers, we look “The equipment designated for this
to continue to grow M-Class demand site was damaged in transit and they AT&T customers have enjoyed im-
and sales.” had to decline acceptance. Meanwhile, proved service from the tower since
Verizon is reordering the equipment mid-September, though some re-
Vero Beach Airport Director Eric and working on a new delivery date,” main disappointed that the signal isn’t
Menger said he and other local offi- Jones said last week. stronger. But many local residents,
cials are excited about Piper’s success plus the town’s public safety depart-
and the impact it’s having on the city- Jones said he does not believe the ment, rely upon Verizon. 
owned airport.

“As Piper grows, so grows the airport
and its many very successful busi-
nesses,” Menger said, “all of which
contribute to our facility.” 

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Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 9

NEWS

HOSPITAL DISTRICT SHIFTS FOCUS
TO ‘POPULATION HEALTH’ AS IT

SEEKS TO UPGRADE GIFFORD CLINIC

BY MICHELLE GENZ pital District board, which recently
debated changing its name to Indian
Staff Writer River County Health District.

Two proposals for expanding ser- At what was its final Chairman’s
vices at the Gifford Health Center are meeting of the year in December, the
on hold until January after the Hos- Hospital District’s elected trustees
pital District discovered that compet- heard the broadest view yet of where
ing cost projections provided by the the county’s overall health measures
county’s Health Department and Trea- stand, and where the board’s evolving
sure Coast Community Health Center mission lies – squarely within the pa-
were based on different patient-visit rameters of population health.
numbers.
The Hospital District will eventually
Those numbers – estimates of total be relieved of the burden of reimburs-
patient visits – are the basis for cal- ing the hospital for care of the county’s
culating the cost of delivering health medically indigent patients, its main
services to county residents. With the function up till now. Cleveland Clinic
two bidders using significantly dif- has committed to absorbing those
ferent numbers, it was impossible to costs within three years. That will free
compare the proposals they presented up for other uses some $7 million a
last month, Hospital District Treasurer year in tax revenue currently expend-
Allen Jones told the board last week. ed by the district.

Jones proposed scheduling a special And that wasn’t the only good news
meeting after the numbers are cor- for the district as it mulls its post-
rected to go over the proposals, with Cleveland Clinic takeover role in the
the hope of giving the go-ahead to one community. As it turns out, the hospi-
of the two organizations by mid-to- tal is now led by a population health
late January. expert: Dr. Greg Rosencrance, new-
ly named president of what is now
The snag hasn’t stopped the Hospi- Cleveland Clinic Indian River.
tal District from contemplating how
the Gifford expansion dovetails with He previously ran Cleveland Clin-
its newly focused mission of work- ic’s Medicine Institute in Cleveland, a
ing to address underlying causes of ill system-wide division includes inter-
health in the county. nal and family medicine, preventative
medicine, geriatric medicine and hos-
Those causes, including limited ac- pital medicine. The Medicine Insti-
cess to medical care and behaviors like tute also claims to be a “laboratory for
smoking and overeating, are increas- innovation around the care delivery
ingly being dealt with under a disci- model,” according to its website, and
pline known as population health. is charged with leading the Cleveland
Last week, the Hospital District board Clinic health system in the transition
heard strategic planning consultant to population health management in
Michael Felix brief them on the evolu- line with health care reforms.
tion of this concept, which is driving a
global trend in healthcare. Population health management
evolved from insurance company pro-
“It focuses on inter-related factors grams intended to reduce insurance
[known as health status indicators] payments to healthcare providers.
that influence the health of a popula-
tion. It’s both about health factors and Insurance companies used data
the system itself – that’s really the dif- from claims to identify high-risk peo-
ference in population health. ple in group plans and then alerted
employers who created incentives to
“It’s not just about a hospital, or the get those people to quit smoking, to
people who provide the services. It’s exercise and to lose weight. If success-
also the human services providers and ful, the employers were charged lower
the philanthropic and faith communi- premiums. Those methods eventually
ties. It’s really putting together these maxed out in terms of effectiveness,
broad-based public-private strategies and slowly, care management by in-
that allow people to play an appropri- surers shifted to population health
ate role in the health process.” management by providers.

With Cleveland Clinic this week tak- Today, the areas covered by the term
ing over the hospital the district origi- population health mirror the concerns
nally was created to run, the health of of public health. Longer, heathier lives
every resident of Indian River County depend not only on medical care but
– not just patients at the hospital – has
become the clear priority of the Hos- CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

10 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

NEWS

Gifford health services All that is beginning to change. pre- and post-natal care organization lung cancer in the county – accounting
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 Population health management Healthy Start. for 30 percent of all cancer deaths.
now goes beyond providers to include
conscious choices by individuals and schools, churches, parks departments, Healthy Start, which is run through Last week, the needs assessment
institutions. planning and zoning departments, the Health Department at the Gifford showed a decline in the lung cancer
and code enforcement agencies, gro- Health Center, collaborates with the death rate, from 140 per 100,000 in 2016
Unlike many European countries cery store chains and restaurants, even Partners in Women’s Health program to 123 last year. Earlier detection may
which apply public health principals to law enforcement. at Cleveland Clinic Indian River. Both have played a role in that, said Jennifer
managing chronic disease, the U.S. re- Gifford Health Center is not the only receive district funds and both were Frederick, program liaison for the Hos-
lies on doctors’ visits. Yet, according to Hospital District project that falls un- credited for falling prenatal mortality pital District, who presented the com-
Health Catalyst, clinical care accounts der population health; the district’s rates in the latest bi-annual Commu- munity’s updated numbers to the board.
for only a fifth of the factors that de- post-Parkland school violence pre- nity Health Needs Assessment.
termine health – with the other factors vention initiative to increase mental Another statistic generated by the
ranging from behaviors like smoking health services in Indian River County Two years ago, what was then Indian assessment pointed to positive impact
and sex, to environmental factors like schools would be considered popula- River Medical Center began a screen- from a hospital effort: Stroke mortality
clean air and water, to cultural deter- tion health management. So would ing program for lung cancer after a col- rates from 2014 to 2016 were lower than
minants like income and education. many of the services offered by the laborative research effort known as the the state and the U.S. rates, at 29.1 per
Community Health Needs Assessment 100,000. Indian River Medical Center
discovered an unusually high rate of has had a Joint Commission-accredit-
ed Primary Stroke Center since 2007,
and with the recent addition of a team
of interventional neurologists, the hos-
pital hopes to become accredited as a
Comprehensive Stroke Center, a rare
honor for a small community hospital.

“The hospital’s going to run with
this one, obviously,” said Rick Van Lith,
Cleveland Clinic Indian River’s vice-
president of strategic planning. “And
it won’t just be around interventional
clot-removal available around the
clock. It’ll be [assessing] risk factors
and healthy living and seeking care
immediately – a three-point empha-
sis. We’re just starting with this.”

Another bit of data caught the hos-
pital’s eye: the high rate of skin cancer,
which is more than double the state-
wide rate, according to Van Lith.

“Fortunately, we’ve got Dr. Jim
Grichnik, he’s an expert in early diag-
nosis and skin cancer. This is going
to turn into something like the lung
cancer issue where it’s not about the
procedure, it’s about making sure you
don’t have a problem. And we’ve got a
lot of work to do with that. We’re lucky
to have him on board.”

As part of the assessment exercise,
an advisory team of local healthcare
agency leaders generated a prioritiza-
tion list. At the top: access to health-
care. Now, the Visiting Nurse Asso-
ciation is slated to lead the effort to
improve access and has already pre-
sented an ambitious plan to reach out
to medically underserved neighbor-
hoods with its mobile unit.

The district funded a trial run of
the VNA program with an expectation
that data will show whether it is worth
funding further. Among its first for-
ays into the community is a Saturday
stop at Gifford Health Center, where
its nurse practitioner can provide pri-
mary care to patients who work during
the center’s weekday hours.

Also on the priorities list: healthy eat-
ing and exercise. The county’s Health
Department will be leading an effort to
improve nutrition and increase physi-
cal activity in the hopes of slimming
down county residents, more than 60
percent of whom are overweight. 

RUN RUN SANTA:
KRIS KRINGLES JOG AND JINGLE

ALL THE WAY P. 20

Tamie Cooper, Kaeden Cooper
and Sophie

12 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

ELC was place to be for ‘WinterGreen Night Lights’

Stan Levin, Nancy Puglio and Mary Gamble. PHOTOS: MICHAEL JACKSON PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
Michelle Montaya and Olivia Molina.
BY KERRY FIRTH in our diverse Indian River Lagoon.
In the room next door, youngsters Skyy Fritz and Kirsten Farmer.
Correspondent enjoyed making their own greeting
cards and ornaments, diving into a
The Environmental Learning Center pile of Florida ‘snow’ constructed
opened its 64-acre campus to visitors from recycled newspaper, and tossing
for a nighttime walk on the wild side, snowballs of recycled plastic.
complete with bonfires, hikes, canoe
tours, hands-on arts and crafts, touch The more adventurous types were
tank experiences and sunset pontoon treated to a unique nighttime hike
boat rides, all enhanced by thousands through the mangrove forest, with
of holiday lights and luminaries to il- no artificial lights at all. Walking
luminate the way. The annual Win- in darkness and silence, explorers
terGreen Night Lights Festival was ex- listened intently for the soft sounds
panded to three nights this year due to of nature and kept their eyes peeled
the enormous popularity of the event. for the elusive bioluminescent beetle
that lives in mud burrows beneath
Entering the Visitors Center, guests the mangroves. As if on cue, a few
were treated to a “Recycled Plastics – of the lady beetles showed off their
Mixed Media” art show created by Vero distinctive green glow, to the delight
Beach Art Club members that featured of the hikers.
artwork created from recycled plastics.
“The girls glow to attract a mate,”
“Plastic isfree,andthereisanendless whispered naturalist guide Sara
supply,” explained artist Leigh Bennett. Piotter. “Since there are three or four
“Working with plastic is a tedious task, of them flashing right in this area,
because it is three-dimensional and there must be a male nearby and the
requires cutting, painting, gluing and competition is fierce. Lucky for us, we
piecing together an art form. But the get to see the show.”
end result is pleasing and it keeps the
plastic out of the landfill and away While hundreds enjoyed the
from the wildlife.” family activities on land, others
were happily exploring nature on the
Bells were ringing thanks to 10 water. The sunset pontoon boat tours
members of the First United Methodist sold out quickly as did the canoe
Church Hand Bell Choir, who excursions, where paddlers had the
entertained visitors and put everyone added pleasure of gliding through
in the holiday mood. mangrove tunnels lined with holiday
lights.
Outside, many followed the path to
the Children’s Nature Playscape, weav- While the WinterGreen Night
ing through the twig trail and walking Lights Festival happens only once a
through a stand of life-size bamboo year, the Environmental Learning
wind chimes making their own mu- Center is open Tuesday through
sic. Visitors could also hold imaginary Sunday, and regularly hosts events,
tea parties in the fairy garden, or roast boat tours, hikes, lectures and classes,
S’mores while swapping stories around connecting people with nature and
a roaring bonfire. empowering them to become active
stewards of the environment.
Others ran to the Discovery Station
and Touch Tank Experience, where For more information, visit www.
they could hold starfish and sea urchins discoverelc.org. 
and learn about the marine life living



14 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

PHOTOS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 Scott Farrah.
Jack Williams.
Mary Gamble. Madison Bromberg.
Riley Guifarro.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 15

PEOPLE

Bev Shea, Sgt. Mathisen and Molly Steinwald. Skyy Fritz.

Back Row: Anastasia Ruleman, David Ruleman, Tracy Ruleman, Daniel Ruleman, Melissa Ruleman, Molly
Steinwald, Sara Piotter, Michael Noel, Terry Noel, Charlie Noel. Front Row: Alexis, Gabriel, Samuel and Amani.

16 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

Glove story: Student invents ‘Helping Hand’ for blind

BY STEPHANIE LaBAFF to his Helping Hand on the market,
Staff Writer but they are costly ($4,500 to Shareef’s
$50) and often cumbersome. Most
Saint Edward’s Upper School stu- importantly, in addition to being
dent Omar Shareef is offering a sig- reasonably priced, his device can
nificant “Helping Hand” to the visu- function without the Internet,
ally impaired through the use of an meaning that anyone anywhere can
assistive-technology device that he “see” with their hands.
has invented. The device is designed
specifically to help the visually im- “I developed this so a visually
paired and blind – as defined by the impaired person can walk into a
American Foundation for the Blind – new environment and ‘see’ what’s
by enabling them to hear what they around them, to give them a sense
cannot see. of independence,” says Shareef. “It
originally started out as a research
“It has a camera on it,” Shareef project for a science fair. But, given
explains. “You point it in the the overwhelming enthusiasm and
direction of different objects, faces a lot of the reactions that I got, I
or text, and the device recognizes decided that it would be worthwhile
items using various AI [artificial to take it further.”
intelligence] algorithms.”
It was while visiting an orphanage
The Helping Hand is a glove that in India with his father that Shareef
enables wearers to point to an object first became aware of how difficult
and press one of three buttons on social independence can be for the
the pointer finger to identify objects, visually impaired. He was 10 years
faces or text. Since that the original old at the time, and the sight of
design, Shareef has also created a children being ignored and jostled
handheld device and glasses. around stuck with him.

He says there are similar products “In India, they don’t really have

Omar Shareef with the Helping Hand. PHOTOS: DENISE RITCHIE

Established 18 Years in Indian River County the infrastructure to help these kids nical expertise, he began to build a
go through their daily lives. I saw prototype device.
(772) 562-2288 | www.kitchensvero.com what a struggle it was for them, espe-
3920 US Hwy 1, Vero Beach FL 32960 cially compared to the sighted kids,” “I have a great background in
Shareef recalls. computer science. I knew I could
do something with what I know to
Six years later, Shareef was help these people. So, I set out to
buddied up with a visually impaired build this glove,” says Shareef. “I
student from the Wabasso School love to create things, and my love
during Pal Day, and observed that for artificial intelligence, computer
his new friend was uneasy whenever programming and science in
he encountered an unfamiliar general, goes beyond words.”
environment.
Because of his coding mindset,
“He was anxious and I realized he says learning new algorithms
there has to be some way I can wasn’t difficult, but he had no prior
alleviate these issues for them.” knowledge of artificial intelligence.

Shareef garnered an interest in “So during the summer I went
technology and computer sciences online, learned the various
in the fifth grade, acquiring coding artificial intelligence algorithms,
skills with the help of a Raspberry read different research papers on
Pi (a tiny computer used to learn artificial intelligence and computer
programming). vision, and set out to build the
device. What’s really crazy is that
“My sister, Sana, would come in a lot of these algorithms weren’t
and annoy me in my room. So, I at- even available two years ago,” says
tached the Raspberry Pi to my wall Shareef.
with a motion sensor and a keypad.
As soon as she would open the door, He began tinkering with the
it would make a buzzing noise un- idea during the summer of 2017
til I entered the passcode. Kind of a as a research project, which he
sister deterrent,” says Shareef with a presented at the Regional Science
chuckle. Armed with that early tech- and Engineering Fair hosted by the

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 17

PEOPLE

Education Foundation of Indian Omar Shareef demonstrates another prototype using eyeglasses. he hopes to be accepted by Stanford
River County. because of its proximity to Silicon
To test his product, Shareef “They didn’t like the idea of the Valley.
After taking top honors locally, consulted with students from the glove because they rely heavily on
Shareef went on to the State of Lighthouse for the Blind, asking the sense of touch,” explains Shareef. He has also founded Second Sight,
Florida Science and Engineering them to try out the glove and a nonprofit organization whose
Fair, again winning first place. provide feedback. That first-hand Despite the recognition Shareef mission is to empower the visually
Then it was on to the 2018 INTEL perspective ultimately led to his and his product have received from impaired and blind by developing
International Science & Engineering developing handheld and eyeglass television and media publications, artificial intelligence technologies,
Fair in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he versions of Helping Hand. he remains focused on senior-year allowing users to perceive their
received third place. activities and college applications; surroundings to increase social
independence and mobility.
The design of the glove is rather
simple, says Shareef, explaining “The nonprofit will help me to
that the components include a facilitate the development and
minicomputer, a battery pack, distribution of the device that I
camera and an audio output source created,” he says.
(headphones or speakers). The key,
he says, is that everything runs To thank the various teachers, sci-
locally. It does not need an Internet ence fair judges, prototype testers
connection or WiFi. and others who have helped him
along the way, Shareef hosted a Din-
“If you’re relying on this device to ner in Darkness event at the Pelican
tell you what’s around you in a place Yacht Club in Fort Pierce this past
you’re unfamiliar with and suddenly October.
you don’t have WiFi or Internet,
that’s going to be a pretty big issue,” Guests were plunged into dark-
he explains. ness and challenged to eat their din-
ner in the dark; putting his sighted
The second-generation device has guests in the shoes of those with im-
several improvements to original paired vision or no sight at all.
design – it has greater accuracy and
speed, it’s more ergonomic, it can “There are 253 million people who
recognize 500 objects and it also has live with visual impairments in the
a panorama feature. Additionally, world and 36 million of them are com-
the facial recognition feature can be pletely blind,” says Shareef.
trained to recognize 400 different
faces and is nearly instantaneous. His vision is clear: to put as many of
these low-cost devices into the hands
of the visually impaired as possible. 

18 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

New ‘Center’ of attention: UP enters fundraising Phase II

BY MARY SCHENKEL 44,000-square-foot, multi-function but then to go beyond that by pro- on June 30, when UP purchased
Staff Writer campus, scheduled to open in the viding a medical facility and educa- a former citrus warehouse for $2
summer. tional facility, and a social service million in cash. Phase II is currently
From its inception, United Against department where we hope people underway to raise $3.9 million to
Poverty has been advancing toward “What we have a vision for is a can overcome the battles they face retrofit the building. They expect
a long-term vision, one the organiza- campus,” said founder and CEO Aus- every day by teaming with them, construction to begin the third week
tion is now on the cusp of fulfilling. tin Hunt in a 2008 video, back when partnering with them and by taking of January, funding to be fulfilled by
UP has entered Phase II of its Lifting the nonprofit was called the Harvest their burdens upon us. So that’s the the spring, and the building to be
Lives out of Poverty Capital Cam- Food & Outreach Center. “A campus dream that we have.” complete by the summer.
paign to fund its New UP Center, a that is large enough to house the
food subsidy program that we have, Phase I of that dream was realized “We’re very much trying to
produce a top-notch building for
our participants, but to do it in the
most cost-effective way possible,”
says Annabel Robertson, executive
director. “What I think is so
prophetic, is it’s the goal that we’ve
worked toward for the last 10 years.”

Over the years, UP has cultivated
essential collaborative partnerships
with various social service providers
whose programs focus on such areas
as services for veterans, children
and the elderly, housing and
transportation.

As trailblazers, UP was the first
social service agency to incorporate
the Department of Children and
Families at its facility, reasoning that
the sooner people are helped, the
less time they would need benefits.

“That was Austin’s idea,” says
Robertson. “It’s a great synergy
and it’s a model that DCF has
since duplicated across the state of
Florida.”

AARP is also on site to provide
assistance to seniors, who represent
37 percent of their Cost Share
Grocery enrollees.

The New UP Center will continue
its groundbreaking initiatives
through an on-campus Primary
Care Collaborative. Details are
still being formulated, but include
relationships with the Indian River
County Hospital District, Treasure
Coast Community Health, the VNA
and Whole Family Health.

“The idea of having a medical
clinic in the building that provides
access to preventative primary care
and also urgent care are the two
issues that are being examined,” says
Robertson.

Citing statistics from a recent
Hospital District Community Needs
update, Trip Snelson, UP project di-
rector, points out that low-income
residents were three times more like-
ly than mid- to high-income indi-
viduals to report being in fair or poor
health, and were five times more
likely to report fair or poor mental
health. Additionally, 44 percent said
they had difficulty accessing medi-
cal services, making it advantageous

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 19

PEOPLE

Annabel Robertson, Marybeth Cunningham and Austin Hunt. PHOTO: DENISE RITCHIE

to provide greater access to medical physically housed in the new facility
services at the New UP Center.
may still have a presence in the space,
While decisions as to who will
provide what medical services utilizing the classrooms, common
have yet to be determined, they
envision services such as primary areas or community conference
care checkups, walk-in care for
urgent needs, behavioral health rooms.
and substance abuse care, and
employment and school physicals. They are also in the nascent
They expect some services to be
provided in an on-site mobile unit stages of an e-commerce expansion
offering regularly scheduled access.
program wherein clients could
“One of the aspects of this
collaborative is the excitement develop entrepreneur skills to
around health education, because
it is an educational center,” says earn revenue in the e-commerce
Robertson.
marketplace.
Partners will be able to provide
classes in such areas as general “Years ago people would go down
health, fall prevention, stress
reduction and mental health. The to the market in town, set up a booth
Cost Share Grocery area will have
space for cooking and nutrition and sell product. Now we have a
lessons to help people make healthier
food decisions. world-wide marketplace and people

UP serves a population living need to learn those skills to be able
below 200 percent of Federal poverty
guidelines, the same population its to leverage that opportunity,” says
partners serve. DCF and AARP will
continue to co-locate on campus, Robertson. “This program will be
and 17 other organizations have
expressed an interest in having space about teaching those skills as well
at the facility.
as small business planning. Being
“Our goal is to ensure that we’re
providing access to services that are engaged in commerce is critical
critical to lifting families from eco-
nomic instability to economic self- to people increasing their income,
sufficiency,” says Robertson.
which for most of the population we
Mentioning veterans, elder care,
early childhood, housing, trans- serve is the best way to lift them out
portation, medical, mental health
and substance abuse programs, she of poverty.”
explains, “Those are those critical
building block areas that we know UP’s focus is on both protecting
are necessary to create stabilization.
Having those partners in a single income, such as through the Cost
location where we can directly help
people access those services is what Share Grocery, and producing
we’re looking to establish.”
income, including through
Those collaborative partners not
their STEP (Success Training for

Employment) Job Training program,

which currently has 322 enrollees.

Around 120 employer partners

provide opportunities for students

to apply for jobs. Of the 105 students

who graduated in 2016 and 109 in

2017, 95 percent obtained jobs.

“We would welcome the

opportunity to show people our work

first-hand and earn their support for

this important project,” says Snelson.

Snelson says naming rights have

been committed for some of the

spaces, including the Kastory STEP

Transformation Center, Corr Collab-

orative Partner Center, and Galant

Social Enterprise Center, but that

many others are still available.

For more information, visit Upirc.
org. 

20 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

Run Run Santa: Kris Kringles jog and jingle all the way

Run Run Santa participants are joined by “Joey Pepperoni.” PHOTOS: LEIGH GREEN AND STEPHANIE LABAFF

BY STEPHANIE LaBAFF on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and their babies with a face-to-face visit,” the red-clad racers as a green-faced
Staff Writer Blitzen” – as more than 600 costumed said Andrea Berry, HSC CEO. “We are menace, but the crimson Santas didn’t
St. Nicks were the ones making this able to support breastfeeding, talk let him spoil their good cheer as they
’Twas the day before Christmas festive run. about sleep safety and postpartum jingled all the way to the finish line.
Eve and all through Downtown Vero depression – all the things that come Afterward, the sea of jolly old sorts
Beach, a sack of Santas geared up for Streufert, who grew up in Vero into play when you have a new baby at gathered for a post-race party with
the second annual Run Run Santa Beach, was moved by the work her home. We’re able to do that because of food, drink, giveaways and awards.
1-mile fun run from Pocahontas Park, mother, Maureen Cairns-Campeau, the generosity of our community and
hosted by Brittany Streufert and Mike a certified lactation and child events like this.” Many participated in all three Run
Acosta of Power of Pizza Charities. development counselor at Healthy Run Santa races as part of the Can’t
Proceeds benefited the Indian River Start Coalition, has carried out with All runners in the race had donned Stop this Santa Challenge, running
Healthy Start Coalition’s Babies new mothers and their newborns. Florida-style Santa suits. From big in Orlando, Viera and Vero Beach.
and Beyond Program, which assists Santas to little Santas, the jingle All the Kris Kringles really kicked up
women and their families before, “She’s made such a difference in so joggers ranged in age from 1 to 84 their heels but none could outpace
during and after pregnancy. many mothers’ lives,” said Streufert. and hailed from 26 states and five this year’s top male finisher, Michael
countries – one from as far away as Ellenberger, who set a new course
There was no need for Santa to call “We are so honored to be the Australia. record of 5:01.81. Top female finisher
out to his reindeer: “Now Dasher, beneficiaries of the run. It supports Aurielle Henry took the lead for the
now Dancer, now Prancer and Vixen; our Babies and Beyond program, The Grinch did his best to hamper women with a time of 6:25.75. 
which touches 95 percent of all the the holiday spirit, dashing amongst
moms in Indian River County and

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 21

PEOPLE

Mary Hofmeister, Aurielle Henry and Patti Thorp (second-, first- and third-place female finishers). PHOTOS CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
Shane Streufert, Michael Ellenberger and Brandon Rinchack (second-, first- and third-place overall).

Jane and Wells Swanda with the Grinch. Brittany Streufert and Maureen Cairns-Campeau. Tim Neill announces the Run Run Santa 1-Mile Fun Run.

22 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

PEOPLE

Jessica Kroll and Jesse Maund.

PHOTOS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21
Isobel Kennedy, Nicollette Kennedy, Camilla Colontrelle, Dylan Colontrelle and Cov Kennedy.

The Grinch and Charlotte Englert. Clarice Fisher and Avery Feinstein.

Naomi Pierre, Maj. Eric Flowers and Patricia Pierre.

ALL ABOUT ‘EVE’:
VERO RESONATES WITH

ARTIST BARROSO

24 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

ARTS & THEATRE

All about ‘Eve’: Vero resonates with artist Barroso

BY ELLEN FISCHER
Columnist

“She asked me not to show her face. I Concept Alternative, a business that Among the faces in Barroso’s mural Stewart; and 32963’s own society edi-
thought of this as a symbol of diversity. represents a group of international art- are those of former Vero Beach Muse- tor Mary Schenkel.
She is a symbol of someone who has ists. While none of their faces are in- um of Art executive director Lucinda
no voice,” says Niurka Barroso. She is cluded in the photo mural, some of them Gedeon; Vero’s beloved Alma Lee Loy; A number of local artists are repre-
speaking of the woman in her “Faces of have works on display alongside “Faces Sharon Smith Theobald, president/ sented here as well (including the writer
Eve” photo project, whose back-of-the- of Eve” in the concomitant “Women by CEO of Art Appraisals International; of this article), not only in the photo mu-
head “portrait” features a sleek brunette Women” art exhibition, featuring the Vero Beach Wine and Film Festival ral, but also in an exhibition in the sec-
head sporting a long, loose braid. artwork of 43 women. founder/executive director Jerusha ond largest of Raw Space’s three gallery
spaces. Some of those women, whose
On display at Raw Space in Vero
Beach through Jan. 29, the 140 head-
shots show women of all ages and from
all walks of life. They are arranged in
a mural-sized format 13 ½-feet-high
and a little under 16-feet-wide; 20
heads long, seven rows high. The vis-
ages of all but that one anonymous
woman confront the viewer from the
wall opposite the gallery’s main en-
trance.

The portraits include those of Neli
Santamarina, businesswoman, art pa-
tron and owner of the shopping plaza
in which Raw Space is located, and Sil-
via Medina, the experimental gallery’s
curator.

With Barroso, Medina co-directs Art

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 25

ARTS & THEATRE

faces the visitor can match to their art, Kim Gibson, Dylan Colon, Neli SantaMaria and Minakshi De. Patty Wright, Maria Sparsis and Beverly Swatt. women were bringing in the next sub-
include Jan Miller, Emily Tremml, Lila jects and then the next. Everything grew
Blakeslee, Deborah Gooch, Jill Kerwick, Allan I. Teger and Barbara Krupp. Cindy Gedeon, Dawn Miller and Deborah Gooch. PHOTOS BY LEIGH GREEN naturally, organically. That was the
Lou Mullan, Quentin Walter, Maria beauty of it.”
Sparsis, Minakshi De, Suzy Mellott and biker subculture.
Barbara Landry. In 2005 Barroso emigrated to Canada, At one point Barroso began to include
certain women of standing in the com-
It is a big show, and a big project made where she established a studio and was munity, because without them, a collec-
bigger by 10 adjunct programs – lec- later employed as a photojournalist for a tive portrait of Vero’s women would not
tures, workshops, yoga classes and even travel magazine, happily indulging her be complete.
a “Battle of the Sexes” fine art game love of the open road.
(co-presented by this writer) offered “I would like to make my home here in
throughout January. There will also be She alighted in Vero a year ago, af- Vero,” she says, wistfully.
an evening reception at the gallery on ter an initial visit about eight years ago,
Jan. 11 that promises to be packed with when she exhibited her work at the short- “But this project, ‘Faces of Eve,’ is an
special presentations. If the mobbed lived Intrepid Gallery in Pelican Plaza. itinerant project. I don’t know yet where
Dec. 14 opening night party is any indi- I will do it next. It has to be a place that
cation, you’ll want to get there early. “I fell in love with this town then. It resonates with me. Every time I photo-
resonates with me,” she says. graph someone it has to resonate.” 
According to Barroso, the “Faces of
Eve” project had its inception about a During recent rambles through Spain,
year ago, during her extended period of Portugal and Italy, Barroso found the
travel in Europe. topic of gender came up frequently in
conversation.
Something of a rolling stone, Barro-
so was born in Cuba and enjoyed the “I came to Vero connected with that
early part of her professional career subject. When Silvia asked me to be an
there. After receiving a degree in An- artist-in-residence at Raw Space, I want-
cient Languages from Havana Univer- ed to do something about the commu-
sity in the mid-1980s, Barroso wrote nity; something about the women here.
copy for an Italian news service before And so the project ‘Faces of Eve’ was
taking a job in with Fondo Cubano de born. I created the ‘Women by Women’
Bienes Culturales (Cuban Fund of Cul- aspect of the show, as well.”
tural Assets).
Setting up her camera and lights in
“I was director of publicity. So I started the smallest gallery at Raw Space, she
to work with photographers,” she says. photographed women from Labor Day
through mid-November. Barroso shot
“One of them asked me, ‘Why don’t her subjects at uncomfortably close
you write about photography? We need range, using a ring light that cast a
people who write about photography.’” form-flattening brightness across each
face (you can see twin reflections of
Soon afterward, Barroso began her the circular light in the women’s eyes).
research on the Cuban Photographic A uniform black background isolates
Club (1935-1962), a slice of Cuban his- each head in its own strict precinct; the
tory about which no literature existed. effect of the whole is like a chart of ce-
She eventually uncovered some 50,000 lestial bodies captured by an astropho-
negatives buried away in drawers and tographer’s lens.
dusty cabinets in people’s homes, of-
fices and forgotten storage nooks. The The portraits are arranged in no par-
negatives are now archived at Havana’s ticular order, save one dictated by the
Cuban Fototech, a museum dedicated artist’s sense of visual balance. The aim
to photography. was to present all the women as equals,
says Barroso, who notes that she at-
The same photographer who set her tempted to represent area women of all
on her research task, Adelberto Roque, social and cultural backgrounds, ethnic-
taught Barroso how to use a camera and ities and ages – the youngest is 18 years
develop film. After a year under his men- old and the oldest is over 90.
torship, Barroso was selected for a posi-
tion with Agence France-Presse (AFP) as In the long run, asserts Barroso, “it
a photojournalist. doesn’t really matter who you are. Every-
body looks the same.”
“I worked for them for 12 years,” she
says. During that time she took pictures If that is true, how were these women
of politicians and celebrities at home in particular selected for the project? In
and abroad, and for the first half of her short, the answer is word of mouth.
tenure was the only woman AFP pho-
tographer in Cuba. “First of all, I invited women from the
Raw Space mailing list; so all of those
Photojournalism strongly influenced
the photos she began to take as an in-
dependent artist. These included visual
essays about child patients in a Cuban
hospital’s oncology ward, and Cuban
subcultures, including hippies (also
known as “frikis,” or freaks) and trans-
vestites. Barroso was also part of a U.S.-
Cuba cultural exchange, in which she
spent months in Phoenix, Ariz., photo-
graphing the residents of the Pima Mari-
copa Reservation, as well as Arizona’s

26 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

ARTS & THEATRE

Coming Up: Anticipation for Riverside’s ‘Evita’ hits fever pitch

BY SAMANTHA ROHLFING BAITA into the characters and relationships sition of Ariel Grossman’s exquisitely
Staff Writer resulting in intimate rather than epic crafted “Ori,” which garnered raves
storytelling,” she says. Dodge’s goal is at the 2017 Riverside Dance Festival.
1 Definitely for your “Do Not Miss to “illuminate Eva’s motives, in an em- Curtain: Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2
This One” list: one of Broadway’s pathetic way,” allowing the audience p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets: $10 to $75.
to relate to Eva “with wonder, fascina- 772-905-2651 or info@balletvero-
greatest musicals, Tim Rice and An- tion, excitement, danger and passion.” beach.org.
“Evita” runs through Jan. 27. Curtain:
drew Lloyd Webber’s 1979, seven To- Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays,
7:30 p.m.; Wednesdays, Saturdays,
ny-winning smash hit “Evita,” opens Sundays and Jan. 17, 2 p.m.; Fridays
and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Tickets: start at
on Riverside Theatre’s Stark Stage this $35. 772-231-6990. 3 Shift down from the often-fre-
netic Holiday High Gear into
Tuesday, Jan. 8. This is a show you

can see for the first time, or again and Stroll Gear this Friday, Jan. 4, and en-

again, and feel the same exhilaration joy the friendly art-filled vibe of the

and excitement. Of course, “Evita” First Friday Gallery Stroll in Historic

tells the story of Eva Peron, one of the Downtown Vero Beach. The many

most fascinating women in history 2 On the heels (read ‘toes’) of Bal- diverse galleries and shops all along
let Vero Beach’s original Christ-
who, says the theatre promo, used her fit for a head of state. “Evita” blows and around Vero’s “Main Street” (aka
audiences away with its “electrifying
charm and charisma to rise from her score of pop, jazz and Latin influences, mas extravaganza, “Nutcracker on 14th Avenue), between 19th Street
including the unforgettable grand an-
penniless origins to political power as them, ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.’” To the Indian River,” comes Program and 23rd Street, open their doors in “a
direct and choreograph this exciting
the first lady of Argentina at the age of theatre event, Riverside’s Producing 2, “Premiers,” taking the VBHS Per- lively gallery reception atmosphere.”
Artistic Director/CEO Allen D. Cor-
27. “Acclaimed and adored as a cham- nell and Managing Director/COO Jon forming Arts Center stage this Friday Enjoy refreshments and chat up the
R. Moses have brought back to Riv-
pion of the people, Eva used her posi- erside Tony Award- and Drama Desk and Saturday, Jan. 4-5. According to artists always happy to discuss their
Award-nominated theatre director
tion as first lady to fight for causes she and choreographer Marcia Milgrom the Ballet Vero Beach promo, the apt- work. Each month, the galleries and
Dodge. “When I work on revivals, I dig
believed in, including women’s suf- ly named program includes the com- several businesses exhibit new art-

frage and improving the lives of the pany premiere of Matthew Carter’s work for you to check out, and be sure

poor. Her glamour, power and greed lush and romantic “French Songs,” to drop by the Main Street Vero Beach

ended with her heart-breaking death staged to Joseph Canteloube’s “Songs Studio and Gallery. Linger longer and

from cancer in 1952 at the age of 33, of the Auvergne”; a world premiere make an evening of it at one of the

one month after her husband’s second by Ballet Vero Beach Ballet Master downtown’s excellent eateries. Time:

inauguration. She was given a funeral Camilo A. Rodriguez; and the acqui- 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.. 

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 27

ARTS & THEATRE

Atlantic Classical Orchestra: New season, new home

BY PAM HARBAUGH pus Theatre at Palm Beach Stage Col- “Strength & Providence: Master- Dr., Palm Beach Gardens. The Lyric The-
lege, and at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Lyric works IV” will be performed April atre is at 59 SW Flagler Ave., Stuart.
Columnist Theatre in Stuart. 2 to 5 and features Maurice Ravel’s
“Le Tombeau de Couperin,” Dmitri Masterworks single tickets range from
Good things often come in smaller “Romance & Revolution: Master- Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 $30 to $60 at the Community Church and
packages – think diamond rings and the works I,” a big concert designed to elec- with soloist Julian Schwarz, and ends the Eissey Campus Theatre; and are $40
keys to a new Mercedes. trify and delight, will be performed Jan. with Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony to $65 at the Lyric Theatre. Subscription
15 to 18. No. 5 “Reformation.” tickets are $90 to $200 at the Community
Or, when it comes to orchestras, the Church and the Eissey Campus Theatre,
Atlantic Classical Orchestra certainly The concert begins with “Dark Moun- Community Church of Vero Beach is and are $120 to $220 at the Lyric Theatre.
fits the bill. tains,” a 2011 composition by Robert located at 1901 23rd Street, Vero Beach.
Paterson, which tells a story of a night- The Eissey Campus Theatre at Palm For more information, call 772-460-
While large 100-member symphonic time drive through the mountains of Beach State College is at 11051 Campus 0850 or visit AtlanticClassicalOrchestra.
orchestras, replete with dozens upon Vermont. Then, French pianist Philippe com. 
dozens of strings, woodwinds, brass and Bianconi will perform the Edvard Grieg
percussion instruments may be better Piano Concerto.
equipped to turn out the drama of Tchai-
kovsky or Brahms, a more nimble and Finally, the orchestra will perform
nuanced chamber orchestra is better Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony
able to send you into Beethoven heaven. No. 3, “Eroica.” Amado says this “semi-
nal and amazing piece” broke the mold
Audiences experience a higher de- for classical music and paved the way
gree of “intimacy and energy” from a for Beethoven to create his most well-
smaller, “leaner” orchestra, says Mae- known work, the Fifth Symphony.
stro David Amado, music director of
the 45-member ACO. “Love’s Blossom: Masterworks II” will
be performed Feb. 12 to 15. The program
“It’s like driving a sports car,” he says. begins with Aaron Copland’s majestic
“There’s more maneuverability.” “Appalachian Spring Suite.” Amado is
especially excited to be performing the
And speaking of maneuverability, Copland with a 13-piece orchestra.
audiences will now have to get used to
the fact that the Atlantic Classical Or- “That makes me super happy,” he
chestra’s Vero Beach performances are says. “The piece is so fragile … The aes-
making the move this season from the thetic comes from what you can do with
Waxlax Center for the Performing Arts 13 instruments.”
at St. Edward’s School to the Commu-
nity Church of Vero Beach. The move That piece is followed, with full or-
was necessary to enable the orchestra chestra, by the Jean Sibelius Violin
to grow its programming, which in turn, Concerto with soloist Tessa Lark, who
requires more stage space, says ACO gen- Amado describes as “amazing, amaz-
eral manager Cindy Roden. ing,” and it ends with the Schumann
Symphony No. 1.
It will also give them the opportunity
to present grand works on the piano or “Reflections & Impressions: Mas-
bring in choirs for requiems. terworks III” will be performed March
13 to 15. It includes Gioachino Rossini’s
Amado says this coming season “has “Overture to L’Italiana in Algeri,” Manuel
turned out absolutely beautifully (with) de Falla’s “El amor brujo: Ballet Suite,”
a wonderful breadth to it.” which Amado says has plenty of “smol-
dering Iberian energy,” and Georges Bi-
You can hear that scope when the At- zet’s Symphony in C.
lantic Classical Orchestra begins its 29th
season this January. Each Masterworks That concert features Flamenco danc-
Series concert has four performances: er Eva Conti, who is also a French horn
7:30 p.m. at the Community Church of player, and mezzo-soprano Tara Curtis.
Vero Beach, 7:30 p.m. at the Eissey Cam-

ATLANTIC CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA

G Beethoven
Piano Concerto
Philippe Bianconi, piano Symphony No. 3 (Eroica)

Robert Paterson

Dark Mountains

Tuesday, January 15 Community Church

7:30 p.m. Vero Beach

CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA 772.460.0850

DAVID AMADO

Music Director & Conductor www. AtlanticClassicalOrchestra.com





30 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT COVER STORY

After a week of tests, the doctors Angela Sroufe said she was
came to Angela Sroufe with tragic “devastated” to learn that
news: Her 30-year-old daughter, Amie her daughter’s organs would
Woodward, was brain-dead from a go unused. Sroufe is seen
heroin overdose. Reluctantly, Sroufe with her husband, Edward.
agreed to donate her daughter’s organs.
lawsuits by lung and liver patients, and
As Woodward’s ventilator continued forced industry officials to reassess
to click, her heart monitor continued rules that have governed organ distri-
to beep and her blood continued to bution in America for decades.
circulate, keeping her organs viable,
Sroufe sat combing her daughter’s But tinkering with distribution will
hair, waiting for the transplant sur- do nothing to boost overall supply.
geon. To do that, medical researchers and
industry leaders say the system must
“I thought it would be worth it – all aggressively pursue more less-than-
the pain of keeping her like that – if I perfect donors like Woodward – people
knew a part of her was still here, alive often dismissed as too sick, too old or
inside someone else,” Sroufe said. too complicated – and persuade trans-
plant surgeons to accept their less-
But no surgeon ever came. Wood- than-perfect organs.
ward was infected with hepatitis C, and
– though the disease can now be cured Numerous studies, including two
after transplant – no local transplant major estimates by industry research-
program would accept Woodward’s ers, show that the system could be
organs. A national search turned up a recovering more than twice as many
Philadelphia surgeon who wanted her organs as it does now, primarily by ex-
kidneys, but that transaction fell apart, panding the types of donors it pursues.
too.
A Washington Post analysis of 2.7 mil-
Every day in America, 33 people lion death records from 2016 found that
die in need of new organs, and about as many as 27,000 people met estab-
115,000 people are languishing on lished criteria for organ donation – more
waiting lists. The chronic shortage of than twice the number of actual donors
transplantable organs has spawned that year. At its current average of about
three organs per donor, the industry
could have produced more than 75,000
organs for transplant that year – enough
to put the nation on pace to wipe out the
waiting lists within a few years.

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 31

The vast majority of untapped do- INSIGHT COVER STORY
nors were older than 50, The Post
found. About 40 percent of donors were ence our behavior, but I can’t believe it
never declared brain-dead, meaning doesn’t influence other [people’s] be-
that local transplant officials would havior,” said Tom Mone, chief execu-
have to take them off life support and tive of OneLegacy in Los Angeles, one
wait for their hearts to stop pumping, of the nation’s largest OPOs.
an often lengthy process that can leave
organs damaged. Increasingly, medical researchers
and industry leaders view less-than-
The death records did not reveal perfect organs as worth the risk and
how many untapped donors were effort, and are pushing for changes
infected with curable diseases such to federal regulatory standards. Ear-
as hepatitis C or were considered at lier this year, researchers hired by the
higher risk of disease because they industry to measure its performance
were intravenous drug users, former wrote that the supply of organs could
prison inmates or sex workers. How- be dramatically increased by pursuing
ever, the untapped potential appears older, sicker donors.
to be significant: Doctors transplanted
more than 1,400 organs from infected “Even poor donor quality kidneys
donors last year, more than double the can improve patient outcomes com-
number three years earlier. pared with remaining on the waiting
list,” they wrote.
Advocates say the federal govern-
ment has created strong disincentives This summer, doctors at Harvard
to using these organs. Under federal and Johns Hopkins wrote in the New
law, patients must be told if an organ England Journal of Medicine that “a
is infected or at increased risk. Though largely untapped opportunity” lies in
the infections can be cured, even very “suboptimal” organs “that have tra-
sick patients often turn them down. ditionally been considered unfit for
transplantation.”
Transplant surgeons are graded on
the one-year survival rate of their pa- “I call them good organs with bad
tients but face no penalty when pa- stories,” said George Loss, medical
tients die on waiting lists. That leaves director of the Ochsner Multi-Organ
many unwilling to accept less-than- Transplant Institute in New Orleans,
perfect organs, including those from which specializes in organs that have
older donors, which may not work as been rejected elsewhere.
well, especially in very sick patients
and younger recipients whose bodies Loss said he routinely uses livers
more often reject them. from people who were obese, heavy
drinkers or suffered from curable dis-
“What is the motivation to put our eases, including hepatitis C. His cen-
necks out there to use those organs if ter has doubled liver transplants over
we are going to get in trouble?” said the past decade – and in August suc-
transplant surgeon Ryutaro Hirose, cessfully transplanted a liver from an
transplant surgeon and associate di- 83-year-old donor.
rector of the University of California
at San Francisco general surgery resi- Too many people in the transplant
dency program. industry “are waiting for the perfect
organ every time for their sickest
If surgeons do transplant such or- patients,” Loss said. “That needs to
gans, it can cost more to help the re- change.”
cipient recover. And “if they need more
expensive drugs, more hospital time, Less than 2 percent of U.S. deaths
you are going to lose money,” said Alan occur under circumstances conducive
Reed, director of the University of Iowa to donation. Most people die before
Hospitals and Clinics Organ Transplant they reach a hospital where their or-
Center. “You can’t lose money and ex- gans can be preserved, or suffer from
pect to stay in the game.” conditions that make their organs un-
usable, such as most cancers and cer-
Given the lack of interest in these or- tain incurable infections.
gans, the local agencies charged with
recovering organs for transplant often Even with the best candidates for
put less effort into collecting them, donation, the path from hospital ICU
industry experts say. If an organ is re- to transplant surgery can be long and
covered but not transplanted, these convoluted.
agencies – a network of 58 nonprofit
groups known as organ procurement It starts when an alert goes up from
organizations, or OPOs – may not be the hospital to the local OPO, which is
paid. charged by federal law with recovering
organs from deceased donors in a spe-
Less-than-perfect donors also tend cific region. The OPOs approach fami-
to require more care and testing be- lies of prospective donors and attempt
fore their organs are removed, jacking to obtain consent. If it is given, they
up costs to the OPO that may not im- monitor the donor’s medical care to
mediately be reimbursed even if the make sure the organs remain healthy
organ is ultimately transplanted. until they can be removed.

“I personally try not to have it influ- OPOs then list the organs in a na-
tional database that matches them
with recipients. Generally, the organs
are offered first to transplant centers in

STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 32

32 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31 INSIGHT COVER STORY

the local area, and the search expands Sroufe leaves a letter for if they register as a donor, doctors case, the local OPO, the Indiana Donor
until a match can be found. her daughter at her grave in “won’t try to save you. They’re just go- Network, made an effort to recover her
Wabash, Ind., this summer. ing to try to take your organs.” organs but struggled to find a trans-
At the other end of the path are plant program willing to take them.
transplant surgeons on the lookout overcome the deep-seated fear some When a donor is less than perfect,
for organs that offer a good match families have of organ donation. organ recovery can be infinitely more “Very few transplant centers were ac-
for their sickest patients. In addition complicated. In Amie Woodward’s cepting [hepatitis C] positive organs”
to checking blood type and organ “There are still so many myths that in 2016, Mark Back, the OPO’s spokes-
size, surgeons look for organs that are exist,” said Kirsten Heintz, spokes- man, said in an email. Of 18 hepatitis C
close by. The farther an organ has to woman at Making Life Happen, an donors the OPO pursued that year, 11
travel, the more time it spends out- OPO in Louisiana. Many people think resulted in transplants.
side the donor, which can affect per-
formance. In general, hearts should When the OPO finally found a sur-
reach recipients within four hours, geon in Philadelphia who wanted
while kidneys can be transplanted af- Woodward’s kidneys, the transaction
ter 24 hours or more. unraveled because the OPO could not
find a local surgeon to remove them.
Time is short, and organs that are not Instead, the OPO told the Philadelphia
quickly claimed can be lost. Last year, surgeon he would have to send his own
4,905 organs were recovered but not team to Fort Wayne, an unusual and
transplanted, about one out of every costly request that forced him to turn
eight organs intended for transplant. the kidneys down.

Snags are common even under ide- In an email to researchers, the Phil-
al circumstances. Industry statistics adelphia surgeon blamed the OPO for
show that OPOs lose a quarter of their what he described as a prime example
most promising cases – about 3,000 of organ waste.
donors a year – because they are un-
able to secure consent. “I would have used them,” he wrote
of Woodward’s kidneys in an email ob-
Industry experts say OPOs could tained by The Post on condition that
boost their odds by hiring experienced the medical team not be identified. “In
grief counselors and educating staff the end, the OPO shut this down.”
about cultural and religious issues
in their communities. Many families But Rich Amos, manager of organ
don’t speak English or have religious services for the Indiana Donor Network,
concerns about desecrating the body. said the OPO did everything it could in
Woodward’s case.
But OPO officials say it is difficult to
“We spent a number of days trying

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 33

INSIGHT COVER STORY

to move forward,” he said. “All trans- The OPO “told us there was a surgeon falling far short of its potential. Blame donation system, to oversee with in-
plant centers refused the organs.” standing by,” she said. “If they needed has fallen heavily on the OPOs. dustry officials a comprehensive $1.6
more time to find one, we would have million study of donor potential.
Sroufe said she was “devastated” agreed to give them more time. They In 2012, the federal government con-
when the OPO told her they couldn’t didn’t ask.” tracted with the United Network for The study concluded that OPOs
find a match for her daughter’s organs. Organ Sharing (UNOS), a private non- should have collected organs from
She was stunned to learn later about For decades, federal regulators have profit group that holds an exclusive 37,000 donors in 2010 – five times the
the dispute over a surgeon. known that the transplant system was federal contract to manage the organ
STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

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34 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33 INSIGHT COVER STORY

number of actual donors that year. is not publicly available because of pa-
The results, the report said, “strongly tient confidentiality laws.
suggest that significant donor poten-
tial exists that is not currently being “We can’t continue to allow [thou-
realized.” sands of] Americans to die each year
waiting for lifesaving organs that we
OPO officials complained that the know are available if only this system
study vastly overstated the number were being managed by competent
of potential donors, in part by under- individuals operating in the light of
estimating the difficulty of recovering day,” said Sen. Todd C. Young (R-Ind.),
organs from people who are not de- one of several lawmakers who have fo-
clared brain-dead, so-called cardiac- cused on the issue.
death donors. So researchers based at
the University of Pennsylvania teamed Industry experts note that a half-
up with OPO leaders to refine the dozen OPOs have dramatically im-
methodology. proved recovery rates in recent years,
in part by aggressively placing organs
Their conclusion, published last that were once deemed unusable.
year in the American Journal of Trans-
plantation, was that OPOs could have LifeShare of Oklahoma, for exam-
collected organs from as many as ple, has doubled organ recoveries over
24,000 people in 2012 – less than the the past five years, with more than half
previous estimate, but still three times of that increase coming from cardiac-
the number of actual donors that year. death donors or donors whose organs
The researchers then confirmed their were somehow compromised, said
results by looking at individual patient chief executive Jeff Orlowski.
records at two OPOs.
The key, Orlowski said, is pressing
Ken Moritsugu, former acting U.S. local transplant surgeons to explain
surgeon general and an author of the why they reject some organs, asking
study, called it “really a game changer. It what might be done to prove the or-
throws the whole system into question.” gans’ viability and building relation-
ships with innovative transplant cen-
For this article, The Post replicated ters elsewhere.
the University of Pennsylvania meth-
odology, using it to examine 45 mil- “There are multiple OPOs in this
lion death records from 1999 to 2016. country that found ways to increase
The Post filtered out people who did the placement of these organs,” said
not die as hospital inpatients, who Kevin Myer, chief executive of LifeGift
were older than 75 or who had one of in Houston, where recovery rates have
303 diagnoses that make donation un- increased by 40 percent since he took
likely. Among the remaining records, over in 2013.
The Post searched for people who had
one of 179 diagnoses identified by the “Just because your local center says,
transplant industry as signaling a likely ‘no’ doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t
donor. be calling . . . other centers” that rou-
tinely use them.
The Post found that OPOs excel at
capturing donors younger than 50, With a growing number of OPOs
especially people who are declared and transplant centers beginning to
brain-dead. However, OPOs recovered aggressively pursue less-than-perfect
organs from less than a quarter of po- organs, recovery rates have risen. Last
tential donors between the ages of 50 year, the system transplanted a record
and 65, and only 11 percent of donors 31,600 organs. (A sharp rise in overdose
65 to 75. For donors of all ages, much deaths has been another big factor.)
of the untapped potential lay in cardiac
deaths. Still, hurdles remain. William Chap-
man, director of abdominal organ
The Post also found wide variation transplant at Washington University in
St. Louis, said about one in 10 of his pa-
in OPO performance. While about a tients reject such organs.
dozen OPOs did a fairly good job of
maximizing donor potential in their “I find it very surprising when they
regions, most collected fewer than half say no,” Chapman said. “This is not an
the organs available. A dozen recov- elective surgery. And there are risks with
ered fewer than a third. all donors. You don’t know what some-
one may have done just last week.”
Alexandra Glazier, head of New Eng-
land Donor Services , an OPO based in Jorge Perez Remache, 46, of Queens,
Massachusetts, said the new method- N.Y., has told his doctors he would not
ology still overstates the number of accept a liver infected with hepatitis C.
untapped donors. “What we’re seeing His son, Alex Perez, said his family sup-
on the ground at the hospital, we’re ports the decision.
coming up with far less actual poten-
tial,” Glazier said. “I’d rather him have a healthy liver
that has no complications at all,” Perez
Some policymakers are growing im- said, adding that it was likely a viral in-
patient with that argument, as well as fection that ruined his father’s liver. “I
the lack of information about the in- don’t feel comfortable having him fight
ner workings of OPOs, much of which another virus.”

For years, Angela Davis, 49, of
Springfield Gardens, N.Y., rejected of-
fers of increased-risk kidneys, includ-

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 35

INSIGHT COVER STORY

ing one last year from a donor who had Jennilyn Green in recovery Among them is Jennilyn Green, 34,
abused alcohol and IV drugs. after her surgery to receive a cystic fibrosis patient from Lees-
new lungs. burg, Fla.
“I prayed about it, and I felt like
that kidney was not for me,” said “My biggest question was, What if
Davis, who runs a nonprofit dialysis the lungs fail? Would I be a candidate
support group and said it is common to get other lungs?” she recalled. Yes,
for patients to worry about the life- her surgeon assured her, she would.
style of their donor. So she packed her bag and set her
cellphone to play Pink’s “Get the Party
“Spirits transfer: ‘If this person was Started” when the clinic called.
a druggie and a gambler, living a wild
lifestyle, I don’t want that spirit inside The phone rang at 5:30 a.m. on Aug.
me.’ That’s what they tell me,” she 12: Surgeons had found a pair of lungs
said. that had been rejected by every trans-
plant center in the Midwestern region
This summer, after 11 years on the where the donor died. They were filled
waiting list at Mount Sinai Medical with fluid and not expanding properly.
Center, Davis relented. But by then it
was too late: Doctors concluded she If the machine could get them work-
was no longer healthy enough for a ing again, would she take them?
successful kidney transplant and re-
moved her from the waiting list. She Green said she hesitated at first.
likely will have to stay on dialysis for “With the added risks, I thought I could
the rest of her life. wait a bit,” she said. But “every day that
passed without the transplant I could
“Hindsight is 20/20,” she said. have gotten sick again, and I could
Some transplant centers are work- have died.”
ing hard to persuade patients to accept
less-than-perfect organs. The Mayo In the end, she said yes.
Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., for example, Four months later, she is recovering
is taking part in a four-year-old trial us- at home and walking an hour a day on
ing a new technology that rehabilitates a treadmill. For the first time in years,
lungs that have lost some function dur- Green said, she can walk up a flight of
ing the deaths of their original own- stairs without stopping to rest.
ers. So far, the rehabilitated lungs have “I have a long way to go, but I am
been transplanted successfully into 66 already so much better,” she said. “I
patients at eight transplant centers. can’t remember the last time I felt this
good.” 

36 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT OPINION

A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION WHOSE TIME HAS COME

On a Saturday morning, after failing at 10:15, I knew I wasn’t going to talk to a month (even worse than I thought) That turned out to be as low as nice
three days out of the previous seven to anyone locally. I imagined I was going and the rate she offered was $41 a month woman was going to go for a home-
find the Press Journal in our driveway, I to get someone in a Gannett call center – “70 percent less,” she said. In thinking delivered paper.
called the TCPalm customer service line. in Greenville, S.C., or Louisville, Ky. about that math, my head began to ache.
She thanked me very nicely for calling
It was while looking for the customer After nine minutes on hold, a sleepy Too much, I said. the “Treasure Cost Newspapers” (that’s
service number on the TCPalm website voice came on the phone. I had trou- “Please stay on the line,” she replied. how she pronounced it – Cost. Somehow,
that I discovered my credit card was au- ble placing the accent, so I asked the “I will provide a more great rate for you.” it seemed kind of fitting.)
tomatically being hit for $43.50 a month! woman where she was located. “In the While I was on hold, I looked up my
Philippines,” she replied. online account history. On Dec. 4th, my But after hanging up, it occurred to
That’s more than $500 a year – way credit card had been charged $49.76. me I needed something to read morn-
more than I thought I was paying! Think about this! The time in the Wow! I was actually paying $600 a year! ings at breakfast. Minutes later, I discov-
Philippines is 13 hours ahead of Flor- Then the nice woman came back ered I could get the print version of the
Even if they actually delivered the ida. So they force you to call TCPalm with an offer of $32.37 a month. Wall Street Journal home delivered to my
paper every day, would anyone in their customer service during the Florida Still too much, I said. door every morning for a year for $159.
right mind pay $500 a year for today’s business day so you can talk to people “Well, why don’t you change your fre-
Press Journal? working in the middle of the night in quency of delivery?” she asked. “How Hmmm. $159 for a paper chock full
the Philippines? That’s just insane . . . about this – $28.09 for Wednesday of great reporting to read, or $600 for
That’s when I decided to finally cancel. but I digress. through Sunday.” the Press Journal? Not a tough decision.
But upon calling the toll-free num- I declined again. If they thought I don’t
ber, a recorded voice informed me that The nice woman said they would need a daily on Mondays and Tuesdays, So that’s what we are going to do. Get
I could not cancel on a weekend. You like to offer me a “special rate” so I why would I want it the other days. the Wall Street Journal for about a quar-
can only cancel Monday through Fri- would remain a customer. ter of the cost of the local daily – and give
day, during “regular business hours.” the $440 we’re going to save this year to
When I called several mornings later She said I was currently paying $46.54 one of the non-profits we support. 

Political correctness backfires: Old song becomes season’s top hit

BY SHELLEY KOPPEL, Staff Writer sing or dance or tell jokes. My father wrote the song said. “We started doing press and all these people
and for years, he and my mother were the hit of the started coming out (defending it).
I bumped into John Loesser the other day. John, social world, doing the duet.
who lives here on the island, is artistic director emer- “Stations started polling listeners and I under-
itus of Stuart’s Lyric Theatre and son of composer- “A few years later, my father decided to sell the stand 90 percent loved it. Stations, including Can-
lyricist Frank Loesser, who wrote “Guys and Dolls.” song for (the movie) ‘Neptune’s Daughter.’ My moth- ada’s Canadian Broadcasting Corp.,put it back in
er was furious until it won the Academy Award, and and it reversed itself. I saw a report that said that
After ‘darlings’ and hugs, the talk turned to the my mother forgave him.” all of the duets, including the one with Tony Ben-
topic of this year’s holiday season, the controversy nett and Lady Gaga, had an uptick of 50 percent
over some of the lyrics in one of Frank Loesser’s “It was never written as a holiday song,” Loesser in downloads. Some eight and a half million have
best-loved songs, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” said. “It was a lovely duet and people decided it streamed it since this came up. The controversy
would make a good holiday song. The song is sim- has backfired and it’s more popular now.
I wanted to find out what John thought about ply a flirtatious song between a couple. It’s about a
this year’s brouhaha over the 70-year-old song. couple who don’t want to leave each other.” “What I appreciate is there are a whole bunch of
young people who are (now) aware of it. If people are
“In the 1940s in Hollywood, if you were in the “When (the controversy) surfaced a few weeks offended, please don’t listen. We just hope people
arts, you were invited to parties but you were ex- ago, radio stations were pulling it off it off the air, enjoy it. It will outlive all of us. It’s to be enjoyed.” 
pected to do something, to be entertaining and including the entire country of Canada,” Loesser

HELPING OTHERS THIS YEAR you like to do? Look for opportunities that  Would I like to work with adults, chil- © 2018 VERO BEACH 32963 MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
will serve a purpose close to your heart that dren, animals, or remotely from home?
As New Year’s resolutions kick into gear, you think you’ll find to be fun and fulfilling.  Am I better behind the scenes or do I
have you considered becoming a volunteer Consider why you want to volunteer. prefer to take a more visible role?
for a cause you care about? Helping oth- Ask yourself:  What skills can I bring to a volunteer
ers kindles happiness…and could put the Do I want to… job?
Happy in your New Year. � do something I’m good at? Visit different organizations and get a feel
While it can be hard to find time to volun- � try something new? for what they are like, and if you think you’ll
teer, the benefits are enormous – for you, � do more with my interests and hobbies? click with staff members and volunteers.
your family and your community. � do something with my spare time? HEALTH BENEFITS
When researchers examined the relationship � make my community a better place Volunteering is good for your mind and
between volunteering and measures of hap- to live? body. Helping and working with others can
piness in a large group of American adults, � meet people who are different from me? have a profound effect on your overall well-
they found the more people volunteered, � do something with my spare time? being. As you stay in regular contact with
the happier they were. Being a volunteer � see a different way of life and new others, you develop a solid support system,
can be stimulating and provide a sense of places? which in turn protects you from depres-
purpose. It can help you reduce stress, make � try a type of work I might want to do as sion. Research shows that most adults with
new friends, reach out to the community a job in the future? disabilities or health conditions ranging
and learn new skills. And it doesn’t have to from hearing and vision loss to heart dis-
involve a long-term commitment or take a MAKING IT A GOOD MATCH ease, diabetes or digestive disorders show
big bite out of your busy schedule. It’s important to make sure your commit- improvement after volunteering.
ment matches the organization’s needs, Volunteering can take your mind off your
THINK ABOUT WHY and that you are capable of doing the job. own situation and add more zest to your life.
YOU WANT TO VOLUNTEER Consider the following questions: Your comments and suggestions for fu-
As you start thinking about what you may  What causes are important to me? ture topics are always welcome. Email us
want to volunteer for, take some time to  How much time am I willing to at [email protected].
identify your goals and interests. What do commit?
 Do I prefer to work alone or as part
of a team?

38 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT BOOKS

They sure don’t do human studies like they used to. disable those molecular on him because they had “nothing
After a young physician at New York Hospital named brakes, or checkpoints, left to bill for.” Schwartz’s white-cell
William Coley lost a patient to cancer in 1890, he be- and allow the immune count and other lab values were so
gan combing through hospital records for clues about system to rip: His dis- terrible, the doctor running a clini-
who had survived the usually fatal disease. Reading covery led to the first ap- cal trial feared that Schwartz would
one case, Coley noted that the patient’s seemingly proved “checkpoint inhibi- die on him and make the experimen-
miraculous cure followed a raging strep infection that tor” cancer drug, in 2011, tal immunotherapy drug look bad.
appeared to melt away the man’s head-and-neck sar- and won him a share of the He squeaked into the study any-
coma. 2018 Nobel Prize in medi-
cine. way – and today is cancer-free. On
Intrigued, Coley got a chance to test his hunch (no the other hand there’s Brad Jasper,
ethics board’s approval or patient’s informed consent If you read about cancer who was diagnosed with metastatic
required!) the following year, with a man suffering discoveries in the media melanoma in 2001. Jasper entered
from a neck tumor and given only weeks to live. Coley and have a good memory, a clinical trial for Allison’s CTLA-4
“basically winged it,” journalist Charles Graeber tells you are likely to react to the inhibitor ipilimumab in 2004, went
us in “The Breakthrough: Immunotherapy and the title of Graeber’s book with a into remission for several years but
Race to Cure Cancer.” The doctor injected the patient lot of eye rolling and maybe died in 2014.
first with a little bacteria and then with a lot, at one some understandable anger.
site on his body and then another, and finally with Despite decades of cancer “Ipi,” the field’s first success and
bacterial toxins collected from a corpse (“the good “breakthroughs” – potent one rightly applauded for turning
stuff, potent and fresh,” Graeber reports) and shot chemotherapies and molecu- an almost-always fatal cancer into
right into the ghastly tumor. larly targeted drugs – roughly 600,000 people in a survivable one, seems to cure only
the United States die of cancer every year. one-fifth of patients. The PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors,
After suffering near-lethal fevers, the patient ral- including one that has helped former president Jim-
lied. His tumor seemed to break down before Coley’s But Graeber makes a persuasive case that cancer my Carter survive the melanoma that spread to his
eyes. Although infection-causing injections killed two immunotherapy has earned the description. With brain, also work for only a minority of patients. Re-
of Coley’s next 12 patients, the doctor was convinced: checkpoint inhibitors like Allison’s, which target the searchers hope that combining the immunotherapy
If the immune system can be unleashed, it will kill tu- molecular brake called CTLA-4, followed by inhibi- drugs with each other or with chemotherapy or radia-
mors. tors of brakes called PD-1 and PD-L1 and then geneti- tion might increase that fraction; some 1,500 clinical
cally engineered T cells called CAR-Ts, once-hopeless trials are testing such combinations.
Coley was 100 years ahead of science’s understand- cancer patients are actually obtaining something Graeber meets the goal of every writer: to leave
ing of the immune system. He was dismissed as a physicians have been loath to mention: a cure. the reader wanting more rather than less. There are
charlatan, and once he started bottling and peddling very few places in this brisk account where you slog
his cancer-fighting toxins, he was also called a snake “Breakthrough” is full of gripping stories of white- through more biochemistry than you ever wanted to
oil salesman. Generations of oncologists and cancer knuckle experiments, of mice that lived, of pioneers see in several lifetimes. But he sometimes overshoots
biologists either heard nothing about Coley’s obser- who had to wrangle fellow scientists into investigat- in his brevity. The PD-1/PD-L1 story goes by too
vations or lumped them together with cancer quack- ing the interaction of the immune system and can- quickly, especially when it’s introduced by the tan-
ery. Immunology became a vaguely disreputable cer. These determined few valiantly fought a cancer talizing mention that the main players are “currently
backwater in cancer research. Stalwarts like Steven hierarchy that viewed the whole thing as a dead end. wrapped up in lawsuits.” It would have been fascinat-
Rosenberg kept it alive, but they seemed to epitomize Gatekeepers at prestigious science journals rejected ing to read more on who did what when, rather than
the cycle of soaring hopes and dashed dreams: in- research papers in the stubborn belief that the im- getting the limp cop-out that credit “will be decided
terferon, interleukin-2 and other immune-boosting mune system can’t attack cancer – data be damned. by history.” 
drugs came – were fleetingly heralded – and mostly Eventually, the data could not be denied.
went. BREAKTHROUGH
Graeber deserves credit for telling stories of both
It took an immunologist, not a cancer biologist, to the successes and the failures of immunotherapy. On IMMUNOTHERAPY AND THE RACE TO CURE CANCER
crack the code. James Allison realized it wasn’t that the one hand, there’s the saga of Jeff Schwartz, who
the immune system needed boosting. Instead, mol- was diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney cancer in 2011. BY CHARLES GRAEBER | 320 PP. $28
ecules on tumor cells that thwarted the immune sys- After surgery and chemotherapy, Schwartz’s doc- REVIEW BY SHARON BEGLEY THE WASHINGTON POST
tem needed to be disabled. Allison figured out how to tors gave him six months; he suspected they bailed

COMING ATTRACTIONS! RECOMMENDED CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND VERO BEACH BEST SELLERS

TOP 5 FICTION TOP 5 NON-FICTION BESTSELLER | KIDS
1. Heads You Win 1. The Point of It All 1. Squirm BY CARL HIAASEN
2. Dog Man: Brawl of the Wild
BY JEFFREY ARCHER BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
(Dog Man #6) BY DAV PILKEY
2. The Reckoning 2. Becoming BY MICHELLE OBAMA 3. The Snowy Nap
3. Cook Like a Pro
BY JOHN GRISHAM BY JAN BRETT
BY INA GARTEN
3. Where the Crawdads 4. The Meltdown (Diary of a
Sing BY DELIA OWENS 4. The Happy Cookbook Wimpy Kid #13)

4. Becoming Mrs. Lewis BY STEVE & KATHY DOOCY BY JEFF KINNEY

BY PATTI CALLAHAN 5. Killing the SS 5. Dear Evan Hansen

5. The Tattooist of BY BILL O'REILLY & MARTIN DUGARD BY VAL EMMICH
Auschwitz
BRAD TAYLOR BRAD MELTZER
BY HEATHER MORRIS
presents presents
DAUGTHER OF WAR THE FIRST CONSPIRACY

A Pike Logan Thriller The Secret Plot to Kill
George Washington
Penguin/Random House Books January 13th at 3 pm

January 12th at 3 pm

392 Miracle Mile (21st Street), Vero Beach | 772.569.2050 | www.verobeachbookcenter.com

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 39

INSIGHT BOOKS

“Have I ever been satisfied? Definitely for one Clapton’s jam session with Spencer Davis Group
singer-organist Steve Winwood. The band, with
night, yeah,” Eric Clapton told Rolling Stone bassist Rick Grech, made its live debut in June 1969
with a free concert that drew 120,000 to London’s
last year. He referred fondly to a 1968 show in Hyde Park. Four months, one big-selling album
and an arena tour later, the band broke up, in part
Philadelphia with Cream, his innovative and because of public pressure to play music by the
members’ former groups.
enormously successful band with drummer
Drawing from his extensive interviews with an
Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce. Nearly four array of Clapton’s former music industry associates,
family members and ex-wife Pattie Boyd, along with
decades later, the trio reunited for a four-night Clapton’s diaries and 2008 autobiography, Norman
takes readers on a whirlwind tour of Clapton’s long
stand at London’s Royal Albert Hall that sold career. Notably, the author didn’t interview Clapton
for the book.
out in less than an hour.
A stint with the rootsy folk-blues group Delaney
When it comes to musical genres, and Bonnie and Friends was followed by Clapton’s
self-titled 1970 solo debut, featuring J.J. Cale’s “After
bandmates, relationships with women and Midnight.” A musically exhilarating collaboration
with Allman Brothers slide-guitar genius Duane
even his place in the rock universe, Clapton Allman resulted in the double album “Layla and
Other Love Songs,” and the two became fast friends.
has always been driven by an unquenchable witEhrPicaCttlaiepBtoonyd “He was like the musical brother I never had, but
thirst for genuine satisfaction, Philip
Norman contends in “Slowhand.” It’s a wished I did,” Clapton said. His chart-busting
solo singles have included “I Shot the
comprehensive and often illuminating Sheriff,” “Lay Down Sally” and “Change
the World.”
account of the life and career of a By law, rock star biographies must

musician who has had an outsize influence focus on wine and women, along with
song. So Norman dutifully details Clapton’s
on generations of guitarists. prodigious intake of heroin, cocaine, pills
and alcohol. Clapton finally committed to
Norman, a former journalist best known for his devoted Cream sobriety in 1987. The author spends much
time, too, on Clapton’s various infidelities and
2,000-plus pages of Beatles biographies, opens with fans.” Ongoing struggles his wooing of Harrison’s wife, former model
Boyd, who inspired the Beatles’ “Something” and
a scene at a lunch spot near the English city of Leeds – old grudges, management Clapton’s “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight.” The
new couple’s marriage was rocky: “The obsession
in December 1969. Surrounded by young female machinations, musical conflicts between blues he had nurtured at a distance for five years began
to ebb away the moment he won her,” Norman
fans, George Harrison introduces his pal Clapton devotee Clapton and his jazz-informed rhythm writes. After that nine-year marriage, Clapton
settled into a more stable family life in 2002 when
as “the world’s greatest white guitarist … Bert section – doomed the group responsible for he wed Melia McEnery; they have three daughters.
The book’s darkest passage arrives with the loss
Weedon,” the author of a popular guitar tutorial. It’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” “White Room” and other of son Conor, 4, who fell from a window of the 53rd-
floor Manhattan apartment where he was staying
a rare moment of comic relief in a 419-page tome combustible power-trio gems. with his mother, Lory del Santo, in 1991. “Tears
in Heaven,” written for Conor, became Clapton’s
that’s mostly as sober as its subject is not. Clapton made his name with an 18-month stint in second-biggest single, and “Unplugged,” the album
on which it appeared, sold 26 million copies, setting
The sequence takes place not long after the the Yardbirds, whose version of the blues chestnut a record for live albums.
Norman’s analysis of Clapton’s music, while
dissolution of Cream, whose brilliant but brief run “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” featured the first often insightful, sometimes veers into unfiltered
adulation, as when he contends that the guitarist’s
yielded sales of more 15 million albums, the third truly distinctive Clapton solo. Disappointed by the mastery of his instrument “can touch on the
sublime as if it comes from somewhere outside his
of which, the half-studio, half-live “Wheels of Fire,” group’s shift toward pop, he exited about the time so ordinary-seeming self.”
Exhaustive as it is, “Slowhand” might have delved
topped the U.S. charts and made history as the first “For Your Love” became its first charting U.S. single. more deeply into why Clapton’s music has resonat-
ed so strongly with the public for so long, and how
double album to go platinum. His successors in the group included two other other rock and blues guitarists now view the playing
of the man frequently called one of the greatest six-
That breakup was characteristic of Clapton’s artists who would later become rivals for the crown string slingers of all time. “Clapton is God,” accord-
ing to graffiti famously scribbled on walls around
musical wanderings: Nearly every time he joined of top British Invasion guitarist – Jeff Beck and central London in 1965. Do we still hear the spark
of the divine? 
or started a band, his dissatisfaction or straight-up Jimmy Page.
SLOWHAND
curiosity about exploring new musical terrain led True to form, Clapton joined British blues
THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF ERIC CLAPTON
him to bolt just when the group hit its artistic and/ godfather John Mayall’s band in April 1965 and left
BY PHILIP NORMAN | 419 PP. $30
or commercial stride. a little more than a year later, before the release of REVIEW BY PHILIP BOOTH, THE WASHINGTON POST

Cream, credited with setting the stage for heavy Mayall’s “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton,” which

metal, split when Clapton tired of Baker and Bruce’s became that group’s biggest commercial success;

relentless feuding. The two constantly clashed, and the seminal release, also known as the Beano

their apparent mutual aggression pact translated Album, featured Clapton’s first recorded lead vocal,

into onstage enmity, Norman writes. “In live a cover of Robert Johnson’s “Ramblin’ on My Mind.”

performance, their individual isolation and apathy After Cream, the supergroup Blind Faith unofficially

were painfully obvious even to the myopically began when drummer Baker barged his way into





42 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT TRAVEL

Apps can help
travelers learn
foreign languages
… to a point

BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT The last few years have seen a
proliferation of language-learning
The Washington Post software. These programs – many
of which have popular mobile apps
My parents moved from New Jer- – use such techniques as gamifica-
sey to Passau, Germany, when I was a tion, crowdsourcing and adaptive
toddler. After a few weeks of playing algorithms to help beginners learn
with the neighborhood kids, I spoke language basics.
fluent, Bavarian-accented German.
That’s probably not an option if you For example, Memrise, a user-gen-
want to learn a language before your erated language-learning platform
next international trip, but there are that uses flashcards as memory aids,
some new ways to learn key words can help you nail the basics. Memrise
and phrases before your departure. offers instruction in 25 languages,
and its basic level is free, with some
“The ability to communicate basi- advanced features like progress sta-
cally can be done pretty quickly with tistics available at $4.99 per month.
almost any language,” says Marc
Greenberg, who directs the School Duolingo, another program with
of Languages, Literatures & Cultures free and premium levels, offers
at the University of Kansas. “Acquir- courses in 37 languages. It’s one of
ing literacy – writing, speaking in all my 16-year-old son’s favorite lan-
circumstances, comprehension of guage-learning tools, probably be-
all types of communication – takes cause it treats the process like a video
a lot longer.” game, allowing him to collect points
for scoring well on the evaluations.
So why bother? Because not ev- Mango Languages, another well-re-
eryone speaks English. Knowing the garded program, includes notes on
difference between “Ja” and “Nein” cultural context and language. Many
can help you get around, and people of its best features are available only
generally are more receptive when to subscribers, who pay $19.99 per
you try to speak their language. month.

Besides playground immersion, Rosetta Stone is perhaps the best-
the best way to learn a language used known language program and one of
to be in a classroom. My parents the most expensive. You can buy its
used the Berlitz method when we classes – which focus on developing
moved to Europe. Today, there are spoken fluency – through an online
all kinds of options that use technol- subscription or on a CD.
ogy to give you a linguistic edge, and
perhaps even a cultural one. There’s also Babbel. With more

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 43

INSIGHT TRAVEL

I’ve had access to she already knows. But learning Russian took her
most of these apps five years in a classroom and a year in Moscow.
over the years, but “That isn’t always a realistic expectation for lan-
found that they were guage learning,” she says.

either too compli- The language experts I spoke with say you
cated or too time- shouldn’t allow the promises of a course or an app
consuming to help to fool you into thinking that you’ll easily learn
me learn a language a language before your next international trip.
Greenberg, the University of Kansas professor,
before an interna- says that having already learned at least a second
tional trip. Maybe language helps a lot, “so that language-learning
my experience of isn’t mysterious.” And experts agree that there’s
acquiring a lan- no substitute for on-the-ground experience prac-
ticing and speaking a new language.
guage early in life
and then trying to acquire “Think of learning a foreign language like learn-
another in a classroom (three years of French, ing to drive or playing an instrument,” says Mau-
which didn’t really reen Linden, a retired French and Spanish teacher
stick) also contributed from Miami. “Be satisfied with the basics for a
to my skepticism. long time and work slowly forward.”
I’m not alone. Dane
Kolbaba, who owns a What if you don’t have the time? You can always
pest-control company cut corners and let the app do the talking. A real-
in Roselle, Ill., also has time translation program like Google Translate
reservations about the can quickly, and reasonably accurately, translate
programs, both in the simple English words and phrases into another
classroom and online. language – and translate into English what some-
He spent two years one is saying to you. Be sure to download the lan-
preparing for a move guage so you are not reliant on cellular service.
to Venezuela, which
included intensive lan- Michele Frolla, a Londoner who writes a blog
guage classes. about travel and language, called the Intrepid
“When I got to Vene- Guide, says she recently turned to the Google
zuela, I was in for a rude Translate app while visiting Ostrava in the Czech
awakening,” he says. “I Republic. “I couldn’t understand the staff at the
had no idea what peo- train station, and needed to get a train to the air-
ple were saying to me port,” she says. “It worked like a charm.” 
and no idea how to re-
than 1 million active, paying subscribers, it’s spond. The accent was
among the largest language programs. It costs just too different for
$6.95 to $12.95 per month, depending on your lev- me than my American
el of use. According to the company, 73 percent of teachers’. It took me
its users could have a short, simple conversation about six months to re-
in a new language within five hours of using the ally understand every-
app. thing being said to me
– and only after speak-
There are so many language apps, all claiming ing Spanish 24 hours a
to be the best, that there are even sites to help day.”
you sort it out. You can find detailed reports on Martha Merritt, the
these programs on Compare Language Apps, an dean of international
independent testing site run by Roumen Vesseli- education at the Uni-
nov, a professor at Queens College in New York. versity of Richmond,
uses Duolingo to build
Vesselinov told me that he’s skeptical of some her vocabulary and to
claims made about apps, particularly claims fine-tune a language
that you can learn a language quickly. “Lan-
guage app users need to study, on average, 20 to
30 hours in a two-month period in order to cover
the requirements” for the first semester of col-
lege Spanish, he says.

44 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

ON FAITH

Positive benefits of pretending can lead to whole new life

BY REV. DRS. CASEY AND BOB BAGGOTT lived in a corner of his closet and of- has its benefits. story called “The Happy Hypocrite”
Columnists fered companionship on rainy days Scientists have validated the ben- about the remarkable potential of
and solace when other friends were pretending. In his story, Lord George
There are things that matter be- lacking in compassion. Pretending efits of pretending even into adult- Hell, whose life has been anything
cause they are tangible, solid, real hood. Pretending we are extroverts, but pure and upright, falls madly in
and objective. And there are things even if we don’t feel very confident or love with an innocent young woman
that matter precisely because they outgoing, can actually boost our level named Jenny. George impulsively
are not. The act of pretending falls of confidence. Behaving as if we are asks Jenny to marry him, but she re-
into the latter grouping of things be- enjoying ourselves can actually result plies that she will only marry a man
cause pretending is independent of in our feeling greater happiness. The with the face of a saint. George rush-
anything tangible, solid, real or ob- adage that tells us to “fake it till you es out and buys a saintly mask with
jective. Yet despite its basis in insub- make it” would seem to capitalize which to disguise his identity, and
stantial fantasy, pretending can be on this phenomenon. The so-called then he tries again. This time Jenny
immensely important in the course “positive feedback loop” rewards agrees to the marriage proposal, for
of life. When he was a child, our son those who pretend to feel or believe before her she sees a man with the
invented an imaginary friend that something with the eventual realiza- honest, trustworthy and loving face
tion of that very feeling or belief. of a saint.

But we think the positive benefits In Beerbohm’s story some time
of pretending may extend even fur- passes for the happily married cou-
ther. Maybe we could pretend our ple before a crisis occurs. An old ac-
way into a whole new identity or a quaintance finds George and Jenny
whole new life. and is determined to reveal George
for the imposter that he is. But when
Over 100 years ago British author the saintly mask is torn from George’s
Max Beerbohm published a short face, something extraordinary is re-
vealed. Beneath the mask, George’s
face has become the face of the saint
he was pretending to be.

Maybe it’s worth imagining our
lives in new ways. Maybe we could
initially pretend to be kinder, more
caring, more generous, more forgiv-
ing or more faithful than we are – and
discover that in executing the pre-
tense, we actually took on those char-
acteristics and became more like the
saints we were impersonating.

It’s tempting to look upon the tan-
gible, solid, real and objective aspects
of life as virtually unchangeable. But
enormous possibility exists beyond
the reality we witness today. Spend
a moment or two considering how
you would like your character, your
behavior, or your life to be different.
Any ideas?

Well ... just pretend! 

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 45

INSIGHT BRIDGE

NORTH

TWO DEFENSES, BUT NEITHER WORKS J3

By Phillip Alder - Bridge Columnist 7532

Ambrose Bierce, author of “The Devil’s Dictionary,” claimed: “Calamities are of two kinds: AQ85
misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”
AKQ
In this deal, there are two possible defenses against four spades, but neither will work if
declarer plays correctly. What are those defenses, and how can South survive? WEST EAST
76
East might have opened one no-trump, adding a point for his good five-card suit. (The QJ A2
Kaplan-Rubens method evaluates the hand at 16.2 points because it likes strong five- J 10 9 4
card suits, aces and kings.) Then, maybe South would have overcalled three spades, but J8532 A K 10 9 8
the lack of a singleton would have been a tad worrying. If South had passed, North would
presumably have doubled in the fourth position, and South would have bid two or three (or K63
four!) spades.
764
After East preferred to open one heart, South overcalled three spades to show a good
seven-card suit and some 5-9 high-card points. North bid game, hoping for the best. SOUTH

West leads the heart queen. East might overtake this, cash the heart ace and continue with K Q 10 9 8 5 4
the heart 10, hoping West can gain a trump promotion. But South ruffs high and plays a
spade to the jack. Declarer ruffs the next heart high, draws trumps and claims, discarding his 64
diamond loser on dummy’s third club.
72
Alternatively, East lets his partner take the first two tricks, then West shifts to the diamond
jack. South, realizing that the finesse is doomed, wins with dummy’s ace and immediately 10 9
takes the club winners to sluff his second diamond. Then he concedes one trump trick.
Dealer: East; Vulnerable: East-West

The Bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST OPENING
3 Spades Pass 4 Spades 1 Hearts
All Pass LEAD:
5 Spades

46 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT GAMES SOLUTIONS TO PREVIOUS ISSUE (DECEMBER 27) ON PAGE 66

ACROSS DOWN
1 Creator (5) 1 Light purplish-red (7)
4 Spotted (4) 2 Optical toy (12)
8 Work well together (3) 3 Loose garment (4)
9 Swear (9) 4 Hard to find (6)
10 Tack (4) 5 Clear (8)
11 Mishap (8) 6 Notwithstanding (12)
12 Large primate (3) 7 Joke (4)
13 Quantity (6) 11 Suitable (3)
14 Small firearm (6) 12 Make known (8)
16 Screen (3) 14 Vegetable (3)
17 Australian state (8) 15 Dirty washing (7)
18 Bill of fare (4) 16 Sight (6)
20 Dear (9) 17 Perspective (4)
21 Finish (3) 19 Signify; stingy (4)
22 Containing little fat (4)
The Telegraph 23 Highly unpleasant (5)

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Paid Training nine appear just once
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2020census.gov/jobs

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www.gsa.gov/fedrelay

The Federal Relay Service (FedRelay) provides telecommunications services to allow
individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, and/or have speech disabilities to conduct official

business with and within the federal government.
The U.S. Census Bureau is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Form D-467
September 2018

Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™ Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 47

INSIGHT GAMES

ACROSS 85 Help in the worst way? 46 Start of an algebra problem The Washington Post
1 Poser’s word 89 Hodges of baseball 47 Menacing comment
7 Blackens 90 Women’s links org. 48 Some beginners have it
12 Last place (with “the”) 91 Inline purchase 50 Alliances
18 Clerk’s query 92 Toy building-block company 52 Will Rogers’s middle name
20 Singer’s peak, perhaps 93 Visibility reducer 53 Equine sound
21 Relative of “parade rest” 95 Queen voiced by Idina 54 Crier’s cry
22 Missile type 55 Oscar-winning musical
23 Love Menzel 56 Anne, John, and Liv
24 Some oil ministers 96 Sharpens 58 “The ___ St. Agnes”
25 It has a driver stuck in its 97 Norma, for one 59 Easy-to-make dessert
98 Mull ___ 62 First name of California’s
head 100 Wheelchair-bound Glee
26 Decks “Governator”
28 The two character 64 Fall for a tear-jerker
30 Go on and on 102 Put to work 66 Sap
31 Cosmetics ingredient 104 Reason for singing 67 Paris’s home
32 Stickum of a sort 68 Singer Vikki
33 Horseshoe spike off-key, perhaps 70 Cart with detachable sides
34 Critical opening? 105 Exceedingly 72 Grieg’s Peer Gynt, for one
35 Time in office 106 Pitcher’s concern 74 Joey’s mom
36 Damn Yankees role 107 Deodorant features 75 Ray Charles No. 1 single,
37 Acrylic fabric 108 Percussion instruments
39 Vietnamese money 109 Things that go beep in the “I ___ Loving You”
40 Certain sandwiches 76 Smashes
43 Farthest point night 77 Like some lions
45 Mexican salamander DOWN 78 Pizza alternative
49 Sikorsky et al. 1 Chewing-gum ingredient 79 Type of tea, ___ souchong
50 Campus VIP 2 Film genre 80 Gap
51 Christmas tree 3 Regard 83 “___ get it!”
52 Regarding, in the Bible 4 Sufficient sum, 85 Like a type of skiing
53 Hockey maneuver old-style 86 Slangy nose
57 Smart guy 5 What “two” meant to 87 Way out
58 Newspaper aside Paul Revere 88 Warty ones
60 Actor Ron 6 Kind of sampling 91 Storehouses
61 ___ mail 7 Cautious 94 All tied up
62 Before, in Biarritz 8 Baby boys 95 Hits the wrong button
63 Tennyson’s Arden 9 It often comes after years or 96 Building annex
64 It may be set at months 97 First name in design
10 Diamond disagreements 99 ___ crow
$100,000 11 Spiral ornamentations 101 Till bill
65 Prior finish 12 Payment choice 103 Pioneer airman ___ C.
13 Greek letter
66 HO buys 14 Their, in Thierry Eaker
68 Create jack-o’-lanterns 15 1962 film starring a collie
69 One who gives the gift 16 Stubbornly stupid WORD WORKOUT By Merl Reagle
17 Bring back, as an old play
of sight 18 Attended
71 Straight 19 Michelle who sued Lee
72 TV journalist who Marvin for palimony
27 Giving the once-over
married Mike Nichols 29 Ring decision
73 It’s over your head 32 Overjoy
74 Newsstand 33 Trial break
75 Wave makers 38 NFL superstar of 1969
76 She said, “It’s even better 39 Shrinks and vets
40 Belt
when you help” 41 “All right, already”
79 Seat formed by two people 42 Aural prefix
44 “Hope springs eternal”
interlocking hands penner
81 “By the way, 45 Busy ___

old chap ...”
82 See 72 Across
84 Negative from Tin Pan Alley

The Telegraph

48 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

INSIGHT BACK PAGE

Hubby in failing marriage fears it may be beyond saving

BY CAROLYN HAX yourself vs. a satellite of your wife.
Washington Post
Dear Carolyn: A close friend is in a wedding next
Dear Carolyn: weekend. She just found out the bride’s mom died and
is to be buried on Monday.
My wife feels unfulfilled in our
They are going through with the wedding. I think
relationship and wants to move on. that is incredibly tacky.

We are great friends, and I’ll admit Five years ago my brother got engaged to a great girl.
Her family planned an elaborate engagement party
our marriage has gone flat. at some real expense. My mom died, unexpectedly, six
days before the party.It was horrible.The bride’s mother
She will seek counseling, but I canceled the party and sent a letter that my dad held
while he cried. It said that in light of the tragic death
feel she has already made up her mind. of the groom-to-be’s mother, this special but ultimately
trivial party will not be held.
I have put in writing the changes I need and want
My dad and I still can’t believe how thoughtful his
to make. I have addressed her complaints – that daughter-in-law’s parents were. Am I just weird about
this, or do you agree a funeral should – um – stop a
I am stubborn, un-alive, un-driven in my career, wedding?

emotionally dependent on her and have too few – Vermont

friends – which are valid. Vermont: I believe both hosts acted appropriately.
In the past case, the loss wasn’t suffered by the
I’m seeing a career adviser, volunteering, contacting host, but instead by a guest of honor – so the host
was, I agree, most gracious to cancel the event out of
old friends, turning off the TV, buying her flowers and respect. In the present case, the loss was suffered by
the host (and guest of honor) herself, and so it was
cooking her romantic dinners. Already I feel more up to her and her family entirely to decide how best
to honor the mom’s memory. If it were my daughter
confident and alive. I fear I am too late. When do whose wedding was six days after I died, then I’d want
the joyous event to go on. 
marriages become irreconcilable? She is the love of my your entire purpose in life to making it your entire
purpose in life to win back your wife. If you’re having
life, and I am determined to earn her love and respect. trouble seeing the distinction, good, because I have
no idea what it is myself. Maybe codependence
–D.C. updating its résumé vs. codependence eating a bag
of chips.
D.C.: Earn your own love and respect.
To answer your question, a marriage becomes You say you feel more confident and alive. Good
irreconcilable when one of you decides it is. stuff. That has to be what drives you now, and
That’s apparently up to your wife now, and while braces you.
everything you’ve undertaken to lobby her sounds
healthy and productive, the fact that you’re Not only because your marriage might be be-
lobbying her is anything but. yond saving, but because its only hope is for you
You’ve jumped from depending on your wife to be to save you – enough to become an entity unto

4

SCULLY-WELSH DOC:
‘VERY EXCITING TIME’
TO BE AN ONCOLOGIST

50 Vero Beach 32963 / January 3, 2019 Your Vero Beach Newsweekly ™

HEALTH

Scully-Welsh doc: ‘Very exciting time’ to be an oncologist

BY TOM LLOYD
Staff Writer

Dr. Alice Cintra, one of the newest

physicians at Vero Beach’s Scully-

Welsh Cancer Center, is a medical

oncologist – but wait a minute, aren’t

all oncologists medical doctors?

Yes they are. But

in today’s sophisti- ‘... with cancer
cated world of can-

cer treatment, there
are three recog-

you have to worknized oncology sub-

specialties: medical as a team. It’s
oncologists, radia-

tion oncologists and

not one doctor orsurgical oncologists.
And while Memorial
Sloan Kettering says another, right?’
“medical oncolo-

gists usually serve Dr. Alice Cintra.

– Dr. Alice Cintraas treatment team PHOTOS BY DENISE RITCHIE

leaders,” Cintra shies

away from claim-

ing a leadership role

after only about a month at the Vero

cancer facility.

“I like to collaborate,” she says qui-