A look at some of the good, the bad and the questionable:
Sex ed in the sunshine
A starfish to Collier County Public Schools Superintendent Dennis Thompson and School Board Attorney Jon Fishbane.
Both of them were quick to quash School Board member Richard Calabrese’s idea at the Tuesday night board meeting to hold an executive — private — meeting to decide where the board wanted to go on sex education and then bring those thoughts back to a public meeting.
Calabrese’s comments came as the board and audience discussion was getting so drawn out and tangled that at least one fellow board member, Steve Donovan, remarked he didn’t know what was going on.
Thompson, then Fishbane, matter-of-factly told Calabrese his idea was absolutely out of the question: Whatever the board did on this issue would have to be conducted, as painful as it may have been to witness, in the full sunshine of public view.
Authoritatively No. 1
A starfish to the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Tiburon Golf Course, for being named the top golf resort in all of Florida.
The designation comes from a publication that should know — Golf Digest.
Bearish on zoo debt
A sand dollar to the handling of the public purchase of the Naples Zoo.
Embraced by a Collier County referendum in 2004, the landmark is retiring its 10-year, $40 million financing six years early. After this year the quarter-mil tax will vanish from Collier property levies.
A special ceremony will be held at the zoo on Oct. 23 to mark the event. Showmanship dictates that the bond will not be burned; instead, it will be fed to the zoo’s new black bears — “Florida’s largest carnivores!”
‘Please deposit 50 cents’
A sand dollar to the Mobil Gas Station at Immokalee Road and Airport-Pulling Road for featuring a blast from the past that comes in handy for folks who can’t afford a cell phone or left theirs at home.
It’s a pay phone.
When’s the last time you saw one of those?
To prove it, Daily News staffer Chuck Curry provides the photographic evidence.
A wish come true
A starfish to citizens determined to make a difference, for the better.
Sometimes that can be achieved posthumously, and modestly.
East Naples’ Shadowlawn Elementary School teacher Jim Duyser’s dying wish a year ago was for students to have good sneakers.
His widow, Anne, is now using memorial donations to follow through on that, and the first five youngsters have become beneficiaries — complete with new kicks and framed certificates for “Outstanding performance and the desire to excel in physical education.”
Give us input, get a T-shirt
Do you have an idea for a starfish, sand dollar, sandspur or coconut?
E-mail it to us at starsearch@naplesnews.com. If we use it, we will send you a T-shirt identifying you as a Daily News “star” collaborator.
Marco Art Center gets a facelift
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
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