Battling man, woman turn on man trying to help

Story by Mark Chapman on July 30th, 2010 at 8:45 am

A man attempt­ing to come to the aid of a woman involved in an alter­ca­tion early this morn­ing instead became the focal point of an attack.

Accord­ing to a media release from the Sara­sota County Sheriff’s Office, a 58-year-old man saw a man and a woman involved in an alter­ca­tion about 1:27 a.m. in the 200 block of  West Cowles Street and decided to help the woman. The man was then cut by the woman and hit with a base­ball bat by the man involved in the fight, accord­ing to the release. The vic­tim was treated at Engle­wood Com­mu­nity Hospital.

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Lunch is a given at church, but solar-cooked hot dogs is a first

Story by Nancy Guenther Chapman on July 30th, 2010 at 2:52 am,
with photos by Nancy Guenther Chapman

Pat Knox, left, comes out to get lunch from the buf­fet Thurs­day in front of Foursquare Church. Karen Oak­ers, right, pre­pared the main course in the solar cook­ers in the foreground.

A black pot in a plas­tic bag sat sur­rounded by a sil­very car shade for sev­eral hours Thurs­day morn­ing in front of Foursquare Church.

Some­one was cooking.

Karen Oak­ers, who vis­its the church reg­u­larly, wanted to show the Rev. Sue Ban­nan a solar cooker. She had hot dogs in two pots, one in  the home­made setup, the other in a cooker she bought from Solar Cook­ers Inter­na­tional. She also had a jar of Sun Tea brewing.

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Ponies supplant donkeys at Pioneer Days celebration

Story by Mark Chapman on July 29th, 2010 at 4:28 pm,
with photos by Nancy Wille and Cathy Redman

Sub­mit­ted by Pio­neer Days Committee

One of the big events dur­ing the 1978 Engle­wood Pio­neer Days Cel­e­bra­tion was Don­key Base­ball at the old Recre­ation Cen­ter on Orange Street. It’s dif­fi­cult to be sure what the don­keys thought about it, but the kids – and more than a few grownups — loved it.

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Englewood man charged with drug trafficking

Story by Mark Chapman on July 29th, 2010 at 4:13 pm,
with photos by courtesy CCSO

Christo­pher Lee Prew

Sub­mit­ted by Char­lotte County Sheriff’s Office

Char­lotte County Sheriff’s War­rant Squad detec­tives arrested an Engle­wood Beach man for on drug traf­fick­ing charges after a Nar­cotics Unit under­cover investigation.

Christo­pher Lee Prew, 38, of Shore­view Drive, was charged with traf­fick­ing in Oxy­codone, Pos­ses­sion of Oxy­codone and Pos­ses­sion of Drug Para­pher­na­lia stem­ming from a June 1 under­cover oper­a­tion that took place at Prew’s home. The pills pur­chased were sent to an FDLE lab for test­ing and came back pos­i­tive for Oxy­codone; a war­rant was then issued for his arrest.

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EUMC to offer after-school program, expanded VPK

Story by Nancy Guenther Chapman on July 29th, 2010 at 1:38 am,
with photos by Nancy Guenther Chapman

Kris­ten Fisher, direc­tor of Foun­da­tions Preschool at Engle­wood United Methodist Church, in what is now the choir room at the church. It will soon be remade into an addi­tional class­room for her preschool, help­ing to emu­late the kinder­garten pro­gram at Engle­wood Ele­men­tary School.

Foun­da­tions Preschool is expand­ing its pro­gram this fall, adding a class­room so it can bet­ter pre­pare pupils for kinder­garten at Engle­wood Ele­men­tary School.

Also on the agenda: the first after-school pro­gram offered by the preschool.

The changes are made pos­si­ble by a win-win game of musi­cal chairs at Engle­wood United Methodist Church: The choir will move into a large room off the main room in Fel­low­ship Hall, and the preschool will take over the space.

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Smokey transformer fire disrupts traffic, knocks out power

Story by Nancy Guenther Chapman on July 29th, 2010 at 1:20 am,
with photos by Nancy Guenther Chapman

Fire­fight­ers wait for noti­fi­ca­tion from Florida Power and Light before dump­ing water into the burn­ing transformer.

A late after­noon fire in an elec­tri­cal trans­former on Placida Road shut off power nearby, sent thick black smoke sky­ward, diverted traf­fic and attracted onlook­ers from Mer­chant Cross­ing and Palm Plaza shop­ping centers.

Engle­wood Area Fire Con­trol Dis­trict Bat­tal­ion Chief Peter Ojeda did not know what caused the fire. Sta­tion 71 received the call at 5:26 p.m.

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Englewood Winn-Dixie not part of company’s cutbacks

Story by Mark Chapman on July 28th, 2010 at 1:53 pm

The Winn-Dixie in Engle­wood is not part of the super­mar­ket chain’s 30-store cut­back, accord­ing to the store manager.

Rumors of Winn-Dixie’s demise are appar­ently quite premature.

The east Engle­wood store is not part of the 30-store cut­back reported in sev­eral print news­pa­pers today, accord­ing to store man­ager Al James.

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