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Features

  • Joel Benefiel plays pretty for the...

    Funky bar, gifted jazz keyboardist, quiet night, regulars nodding approval. No crowd, no loudmouths, just music. It doesn't get any better.

    Since 2003 Joel Benefiel has held court at the Island Hotel's King Neptune Lounge on Friday evenings. He has brought jazz greats from around the world, organizing Jazz & Blues concerts for local jazz aficionados.

    Joel - solo, duet or trio - sharing a lifetime of musical experience.

  • Corrine Ryan's Leather Madness...

    Corrine Ryan, Cedar Keyhole's Artist of the Month, was 15 when she bought her Dad a leather drink holder at an art show. He loved it but more importantly looked at his daughter and said, "You can do this."

    Corrine's Leather Madness began. She spent her allowance on leather tools, leather and art books. She didn't just stamp art; she carved or tooled it from original designs.

  • Cedar Key's healer, Mary...

    An angel of mercy has quietly been providing a great service to the community of Cedar Key for the past 25 years. She does house calls, meets appointments at her Rosewood office, keeps us fit and limber, offers herbal oils, and wraps us in wellness. She is Mary Inskeep, Licensed Massage Therapist.

  • Easy Riding = Lots of practice

    Wondering what the new mandatory motorcycle safety courses are like, but not yet ready enough to leap in?

    As your guinea pig, I recently went to class at Gainesville Motorcycle Safety Training and received my motorcycle endorsement. Here's how it works:

  • Serving our country: Philabaum is...

    Cedar Key native Jeremy Philabaum has been commended by his superiors for his excellent performance on duty.

    Aviation Structural Mechanic (Safety Equipment) Third Class Petty Officer (AME3) Jeremy Philabaum, grandson of Cheryl Philabaum, of Cedar Key, has been awarded the "Maintenance Professional of the Month" Award for the exceptional efforts and performance of his duties.

    AME3 Philabaum is currently in the middle of a six month, multi-site, deployment with Patrol Squadron (VP) Four-Six and Maintenance Detachment Team Alpha (MDT-A) in the Persian Gulf region.

  • Oh, those 'Cedar Key Sunsets...

    Alabama, Johnny Nash, Bertie Higgins, Dennis Yost, Starbuck, Artimus Pyle and Bo Diddley are just a few of a diverse group of stars that Irwin has worked with in his long and storied career.

    Seeing the music industry eat up a lot of his friends, Irwin chose to take the low road some 20 years ago, moving to rural Levy County to chill out, spend time with the family, collect some royalty money and play a little music.

    It's worked out well in some respects.

  • The scalloping gourmet

    Are the crystal clear Gulf waters and the wonders beneath calling your name?

    Break out your mask and fins! Scallop season began July 1 and runs through Sept. 10.

    Anyone who has scalloped before knows the technique of snorkeling along picking scallops off the bottom of Florida's coastal bay areas.

    This is typically done in 2.5 to 4 feet of water - an excellent activity for the whole family to enjoy. Other techniques involve wading and scooping up scallops with a dip net.

  • FWC holding children's summer...

    The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announces a series of summer inshore fishing clinics for children at the Senator George Kirkpatrick Marine Lab in Cedar Key. This program is open to youths between the ages of 6 and 16.

    The one day clinics will take place in June and July. Participants will learn about fish identification, knot tying, casting, bait types, habitat types, gear care and more. The clinic will end with catch-and-release pier fishing.

  • Fantastic! Cedar Key School...

    There were tears during the slide show and tears at the presentation of flowers, but sunny smiles otherwise reigned Saturday morning as Cedar Key seniors walked into the gymnasium as students and skipped and danced out as alumni.

    The class of 2008 sent 16 seniors into the world this week, led by salutatorian Jaclyn Stefani. Eight scholarship recipients took home more than $6,000 in special awards, plus Florida Bright Futures scholarships which pay up to 75 percent to 100 percent of students' in-state tuition.

  • Salutatorian already on her way to...

    Jaclyn Stefani doesn't know where she'll be in 10 years. She's not sure where in the world she'd really like to live. But with a career track of Army nursing and her EMT and CNA certificates already under her belt, she's put herself in a great position to find out - one place at a time, if necessary.

    Stefani is the daughter of Peter and Gina Stefani, and Pete's big sister. She has the highest GPA in her graduating class - 3.666, and she'll be Cedar Key School's 2008 salutatorian.

  • No 'Tinkering' with...

    With its thrilling juxtaposition of Miami Vice and the Irish Troubles, Pierce Kelley's latest legal thriller, A Tinker's Damn! may be his best work yet.

    Kevin Coffee, Kelley's latest protagonist, is an Irish immigrant growing up in New York City when the story begins. Poverty and prejudice lead him into the criminal world for the benefit of his family. With no father and no outside help, he learns to steal food so his family can eat. As an adult, he develops a morally ambiguous worldview, moving to Mariel boatlift-era Miami to become an opportunistic drug smuggler.

  • Getting back to the Garden: Cedar...

    Nysie Watson was born to be an herbalist, it seems.

    "All my life I've been aware of an alternate way of healing," she says. "We used to pick mushrooms - shiitake, chantarelles - my mother could name the names of almost all the plants we'd find in the Pacific Northwest."

    She got her degree in Ag. Horticulture from the University of Oregon, but that's not what made her an herbalist.

    No, it took two devastating back injuries and a bout with lymphoma to make Watson an herbalist. The lessons she learned fighting back injuries and cancer made a lifelong impression on her.

  • Racers go Hog Wild for LARC

    Saturday morning, Tara Mace got an unwelcome phone call. Her partner for the Wild Hog Canoe Race, the 31st Annual adventure to benefit Levy Association for Retarded Citizens (LARC) couldn't make it.

    Tara was stuck - where to find a partner at 6 a.m. on race day? She called her mom.

    Theresa McFarland answered her daughter's call and agreed to give it a whirl.

    "I hung up the phone and thought, 'I don't have any idea what I'm doing,'" she said.

    "I kind of twisted her arm," Mace admitted.

  • Diamond Sharks have woman's...

    She wears the pink and black Jennie Finch Mizuno batting gloves, rocks the pink and black Mizuno mitt, even checked out the pink and black cleats at Hibbett, "but they didn't fit."

    Her favorite color isn't pink, though.

    Cedar Key's starting first baseman Shawna Fenton wears pink gloves because "I like to aggravate the guys - you know, let 'em know you can wear pink and play good baseball."

  • Countdown to the Arts Festival:...

    Susan Livingston is taking the bones of the past and making them into art.

    The sculptor from Lutz has a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Florida State University, but put down her paints more than 30 years ago and never looked back.

    She began to produce clay sculptures, starting with some projects that took her back to childhood summers, when a much deeper past intervened.

  • Countdown to the Arts Festival:...

    Beneath the bright and cheerful colors is an urgent feeling - a need to preserve wild Florida before it's gone.

    Harriet Huss started her art career as a potter. Graduating from Eckerd College's storied art program in 1973, "It was a great time to be an artist."

    She was a professional potter for 15 years, but at one point, found herself starting to do more and more two-dimensional work - platters, tiles - mostly to have a surface on which to paint pictures.

    "I realized I really wanted to start painting," she says.

  • Arts Festival Countdown: After a...

    "I realized I had a chance to do what I really wanted."

    Atlanta-area water-colorist Jim Wilshire, one of the artists coming to this year's Old Florida Celebration of the Arts, double-majored in archaeology and anthropology at Georgia State University, but after graduation he took a corporate job in sales.

    "I had a family to support, so although those were my interests, I really wasn't able to pursue a career," he said.

  • Cheer, cheer for the All-Stars!

    Three nights a week - on winter nights when you can almost see your breath indoors, as well as on summer nights when every breath condenses in a river of sweat - you'll find the girls - and a few boys - in the steel building on U.S. Highway 27 in Williston, twisting and twirling, flipping and flying.

  • Big berries bloom in little CKS...

    "I'm a strawberry fairy!" These were the words from Cedar Key Pre-K student, Annie McCain, as she took her first fresh-picked strawberry and popped it into her mouth. The eighth grade Ag class assisted members of Cedar Key's Pre-K class in picking their freshly grown strawberries. It all started when Mr. Bruce Wilson donated supplies, plants and guidance to Cedar Key School's Ag and FFA program. Thanks to Mr. Wilson's generosity, the middle school students built a hydroponics system to learn about this modern Ag method.

  • For a better life, communicate

    Have you ever had a great idea you wanted to share, but didn't know how to start? Have you ever wanted to ask for something, but didn't know how to do it? Do you think you could be a lot more successful if you could just act on some of your plans?

    There's a link between the inside world of the mind and the outside world of other people. That link is communication. Some people are really good at it; others less so. The good news is, with practice, anyone can get better at it.

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The Cedar Key Beacon is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Levy County and Cedar Key Florida, and the surrounding area.