Features

Nosey says...

In the old days it seemed to take forever to get something done, but today things are done in the blink of an eye. We all know that Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner during the assault on Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor back in 1812, but it wasn't until 1814 that words were put to music and it was being published all over the country. It was over a hundred years later, in fact in 1931, when President Herbert Hoover made it our National Anthem.

It’s been almost 30 years since Pat Wilson graduated from Williston High School, but the boy who became the man Jim Pitt has never forgotten the town, community, school and friends who helped shape his character.

Pitt, an actor who plays a space shuttle captain in James Cameron’s Avatar that opened Friday, dropped in last week to catch up with old friends and remind people he is still the person they knew.

While ABC’s “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” taps into the community spirit to help one family, the show also offers a way volunteers can make a difference for the entire community, and no carpentry skills are needed.

 Through Dec. 14, donors in Chiefland can also get involved by stopping by LifeSouth’s donor at 2202 N. Young Blvd. in the Winn-Dixie Center Shopping Center.  All donors will get a limited edition Extreme makeover: Home Edition Blood Donor T-shirt.

Suwannee Valley Players announces the second weekend of its production of “Not a Creature Was Stirring ... not even a moose,” a comedy written by Pat Cook.

The Levy County Quilt Museum will hold its 26th annual quilt show starting on Nov. 26.

Winnelle Horne, the museums director and co-founder, said the event would run for 10 days and feature over 100 quilts made by the Log Cabin Quilters. About 2/3 of the quilts are hand made, and people wishing to purchase a quilt can expect to pay anywhere from $150 to several hundred dollars.

There’s no charge to attend the show, she said, and food will be available. The last Saturday of the event, Dec. 5, will have music and a chicken and dumpling dinner.

Airheads from all over the state converged on a 45-acre farm located between Cedar Key and Chiefland recently for the Second Annual Suwannee River Tech Day and Camp.

The international Airheads Beemer Club is for riders who own BMW bikes with air-cooled engines. Most anything that happens with an Airhead Beemer can be repaired on the side of the road with the tool kit that BMW provides — with the right knowledge, of course.

That’s why the Airheads motto is “Simple by Choice.”

Three miles from Williston off a bumpy hilly road, a passage through scrub and pasture leads the unsuspecting traveler to the utopian sanctuary that Dr. Raymond Webber calls home.

More than 400 species of plants thrive on his 100-acre bit of paradise that has been more than 16 years in the making.

“Not many people in Florida have their house built into the side of a cliff,” Webber, an endodonist by trade, explains as he begins his trek through the assorted gardens that he has designed.

Indeed, the vista from this porch is breathtakingly beautiful.

A local Levy County group joined the fight against two global epidemics — hunger and obesity — by participating in the "Lose For Good" campaign. 

As local Weight Watchers members lose weight, they’ve also been collecting food to donate to Bronson United Methodist Church to help their neighbors in need. Within seven weeks, the group lost 854.6 pounds, and collected 488 pounds of food. 

The sunlight strained at the edges between clusters of bromeliad-laden tupelo trees, water oaks and cabbage palms.  

Thin shafts of light breaking through the canopy revealed flitting birds and clouds of mosquitoes hovering over black water dotted with the heart-shaped leaves of cow lilies.

Snakes, in search of prey, slithered in and out of the murk below, and fiddler crabs scurried over rocks and tiny islands of gnarled tree roots.