Medical Weight Loss in Palm Harbor, FL

Palm Harbor Museum brings its first Meet Me At The Museum Book Signing Event of 2024—featuring Terry Fortner in a Meet-and-Greet gathering on Saturday, February 24th from 1 to 3 PM at Palm Harbor Museum. You'll have the opportunity to chat with Terry about the newly-published 40th Anniversary Edition of her grandmother's acclaimed book, Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise, to ask questions and have Terry sign copies of these extraordinary stories by her grandmother, Myrtle Scharrer Betz (1895-1992). Light refreshments will be served.

Over the years, there have been so many requests for this out-of-print Florida treasure that offers Myrtle's first-hand accounts of growing up on Caladesi Island well before a hurricane split the island and created a second island that was named Honeymoon Island. Betz was a born storyteller with a one-of-a-kind life. With compelling honesty and humanity, she describes her experiences as the only child ever born on Caladesi Island, capturing the natural wonders, discomforts, challenges, and joys of pioneer life on a Florida West Coast barrier island, and providing one of the richest portraits available of pioneer life in Florida when it truly was the natural, tropical paradise that tourists and residents alike can only imagine today.

Spanning the time from when her Swiss immigrant father, Henry Scharrer, first arrived in America in 1883 until his death in 1934, Myrtle describes his experiences as in 1888 he homesteaded 156 acres of the undeveloped island that is now Caladesi Island State Park. Betz's memories of pioneer living as it transitioned into the Progressive and then the Depression eras and her observations, her father's wisdom, and her family's respect and care of their island and the sea will captivate you.

This just-released 40th Anniversary Edition contains additional photos, illustrations, a checklist of "Birds Seen On or Around Caladesi Island 1918-1935," chronological details and a "Timeline" addendum authored by Terry Fortner that clarifies the history—extending to the years before and after the narrative itself.

Please visit Palm Harbor Museum on Saturday, February 24th between 1 to 3 PM. Terry will have books available and will sign copies for you at this event and chat with you personally.

If you are cannot attend, you will find this book at the Nature Store at Honeymoon Island State Park and in area bookstores such as Back In The Day Books in Dunedin and in the Heritage Village gift shop.

Image credit: Photos from collection of Terry Fortner (Top L) Terry Fortner hugs the historic Harp Tree at Caladesi Island (Top R) 40th Anniversary Edition of Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise (Below) Myrtle Scharrer Betz on Caladesi Island.

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — A lifelong University of Michigan super fan, Dorothy Emling, 87, will attend the 2024 Rose Bowl college national championship playoff football game on Monday against Alabama, fulfilling a 50-year bucket list wish.

“I’m so ready,” she said. “I’m so pumped.”

What You Need To Know

Emling lives in Palm Harbor with her daughter but grew up in Lincoln Park, Mich., where she said everyone who lived Downriver rooted for the Wolverines. The great-grandma said she has always wanted to see Michigan play in the Rose Bowl.

“It’s been on my bucket list for 50 years,” she said. “I was supposed to go back in 1997 and my hubby got sick and we couldn’t go and that’s the year that they won the championship.”

Emling’s son, David Buko, 58 who lives in Freeland, Mich., granted his mom’s wish and called to surprise her with the news while she was at the doctor’s office.

“He said, ‘What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘Well, my knee went out. He said, ‘So, do I have to take a wheelchair and push you?’ I go, ‘Where?’ He goes, ‘The Rose Bowl,’” said Emling. “I go, ‘The Rose Bowl?’ The nurse comes in and goes are you alright and I said, ‘I’m going to the Rose Bowl.’”

Emling will meet her son in California on Saturday where they’ll attend both the Rose Bowl parade and game.

“My son has a chair for me. So, I can watch the parade,” she said. “Right on the Rose Bowl street that they go by. I’m so excited.”

The great grandma packed one bag for the trip that was full of nothing but Michigan apparel. She’ll also meet her Palm Harbor friends, Pat and Chris Howes, both 72, whose grandson Noah, plays on the Michigan football team as a tight end.

Emling said it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime and joked that she can finally pass away.

“I can go in peace now,” she said. “Go to heaven.”

PALM HARBOR, Fla. (WFLA) — Two Palm Harbor businesses are now temporarily closed after a truck drove into one of them on Wednesday.

The crash happened on Alderman Road around 3:47 p.m., according to officials.

The front of the Texture Salon is completely boarded up. The gym right next door, Anytime Fitness, is also closed.

Sunshine Liquors provided surveillance footage to News Channel 8, showing the truck going slowly, then all of a sudden – the driver hit the gas.

Florida Highway Patrol said the driver, a 76-year-old man, accidentally accelerated and lost control of the truck.

Diane Cooper was on the other side of the salon, in her office at Anytime Fitness, when it happened.

“The truck had actually come through this wall. My office is at the corner right there, so it hit my wall, broke the wall, and I have a big IT stack behind me. It’s very heavy, it pushed that into me and pushed me into my desk,” she said.

Cooper said when the truck crashed through the next-door business, it sounded like a big explosion.

“I mean, it was kind of instantaneous, that was the thought, but then everything pushed into me. So, obviously, we knew something happened behind us,” Cooper said.

Due to the force, Cooper said a large table got pushed across the room, sending glass everywhere.

Thankfully, she said no gym members were at the front.

“I was really shocked. First of all, I was kind of hurting because it pushed me into my desk. So, my stomach here in the middle was hurting, and my hip on this side,” Cooper said. “But, I guess my adrenaline was pumping, and my first thought was, ‘Is everybody okay?'”

Gym members were trying to go to the gym all day on Thursday only to find it closed.

“I ride the bikes, and she rides the treadmills, and I thought, ‘What if anybody would ever drive through here and hit the windows?’ Obviously, it can happen, and it did,” said Dallas Klytta.

Dallas Klytta and his wife are both members of the gym. He said he wonders how long the gym will be closed.

“Obviously, it’s not going to be open tomorrow with the wall hanging through the doors,” he said.

FHP said nobody was taken to the hospital.

“That’s good news that during the holiday season here, nobody got injured. So, we’re all glad for that,” Klytta said.

Texture Salon posted on social media and said they will be up and running again as soon as possible.

This year, America will turn 247. The Nation declared independence from Great Britain on July 4th, 1776. Now, imagine being alive for nearly half of that time and being able to recall major milestones in history. 140 years separate a Palm Harbor woman from that day in history! “My name is Lorraine King. I just turned 107 years old," she said as she smiled at the camera. These days, needlepoint occupies Mrs. King's time. She's quite the creator—that may be one secret to her longevity.

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — This year, America will turn 247. The Nation declared independence from Great Britain on July 4th, 1776. Now, imagine being alive for nearly half of that time and being able to recall major milestones in history. 140 years separate a Palm Harbor woman from that day in history!

“My name is Lorraine King. I just turned 107 years old," she said as she smiled at the camera.

These days, needlepoint occupies King's time. She's quite the creator—that may be one secret to her longevity.

“This is my therapy. What would I do? Sit here and die," she said. "As long as I’m creating something, I have to live to finish it.”

She also has a few ounces of a very specific wine each night: “Cherry Kijafa," she said with conviction. She’s been drinking it for at least 50 years.

When you sit down with King, the stories seem endless. But, if you asked the doctor who delivered her in July of 1917, his optimism for King’s survival was pretty grim.

“The doctor said don’t bother to name her. She won’t live two days because she has a murmur," she said. "I still have a murmur every time the doctor checks it. So you can live with a murmur.”

You can climb mountains too—she’s ventured five in her lifetime. She once got lost on Mount Washington when she was in high school and trekked through the night only to come out the other side in a different city.

“Oh, it was terrible," she recalled.

In 1940, she and her husband took a trip to Washington D.C., and while sightseeing, they took an underground train to the capitol building.

They paid a visit to the New Hampshire office, where she’s from, and got free tickets to the White House. The next day, “I get to the White House, I open the door, there’s no guards, no policemen, no gate, it’s all open!”

King said she never did get a glance of the president at the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, but then again, she doesn’t recall seeing anyone.

“Well, it was very neat, but I didn’t see anybody!" she laughed.

A few years later, King would become one of the first Americans to own a television.

“It was in a frame, and it was round, and there was a lot of snow, and it wasn’t always clear," she said.

She’s upgraded over the years—a flat-screen TV now sits in the back room of her house. She doesn't have a cell phone, though. She had one for a short while but said she never used it and prefers the landline. Maybe she’s on to something.

One thing’s for sure, King is up by 6 a.m. and in bed by 8 p.m., meaning that routine is part of her incredible life. So, what does she think about being alive nearly half as long as America?

“I think that’s amazing," she laughed.

We do too, Mrs. King. Happy birthday!

Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Mourning the death of his cousin and desperately wishing to speak with him again, 72-year-old garden designer Itaru Sasaki built a telephone booth in his garden in 2010 in Otsuchi, Japan, complete with a disconnected rotary phone.

The concept behind it was that those who are grieving can “speak” with departed family and friends, sending messages “on the wind” to the spirits of those loved ones.

Word of the “Wind Phone” spread, and many others came to the phone booth to find comfort and healing as they spoke words they didn’t get a chance to say while their loved ones were living. Additional wind phones began to spring up in many other locations.

Now Palm Harbor will have its very own “Phone of the Wind” at the Palm Harbor Museum, constructed in honor of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Palm Harbor Historical Society, which operates the museum at 2043 Curlew Road (at Belcher Road).

The Wind Phone will be dedicated at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, in recognition of all who contributed to preserving and celebrating cultural history at the museum.

Funding for this project was provided by the Flingkei Book Club, the local chapter of a book club founded in 1962 by the late Alden Matthews, who lived in Japan at the time and later moved to Palm Harbor. It is a tribute to Matthews and to recently deceased book club members Ben and Mary Alice Griffith, Sallie Parks and Judy McSwine. The labor and design was donated by Aaron Fortner of Ozona, who created a Torii gate, traditionally found in a Japanese shrine, where it marks the transition from the everyday world to a sacred space.

The wind phone dedication is part of a Founder’s Day and Family Intergenerational Discovery Day celebration from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The public is invited to enjoy crafts, games, activities and museum exhibits, including outdoor signage and gardens, with refreshments including Culver’s frozen custard, all free thanks to a Faith Mission Grant awarded by the Pinellas Community Foundation. No reservations are necessary and everyone is invited.

The museum’s popular annual FUNdraiser Wine Around Palm Harbor returns from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4 outdoors on the museum grounds and patio by the newly-landscaped native plant gardens. Seven wine and food tables representing seven historic communities within the area (Palm Harbor, Curlew, Sutherland, Ozona, Crystal Beach, East Lake and Wall Springs) will offer highly-rated wines and local food pairings. Join in to experience sipping and tasting introductions, proceeding to more robust selections and to final tastes of sweet and savory specialties that feature foods from the histories of Palm Harbor communities, reflecting stories the museum tells.

Music will enhance the evening as those attending bid on silent auction items and view exhibits. Fairy lights around the museum and under the trees will provide a charming strolling experience as afternoon descends into evening. The event supports the museum, which preserves and shares the history of Palm Harbor and East Lake, a community of some 95,000 residents. Palm Harbor Museum is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and your donation is tax deductible.

Tickets and seating are limited and sell out. Individual tickets are $40. Reserved seating is available for individual guests as well as groups of four and six. Tickets are available at the museum during regular business hours (Thursdays-Fridays-Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or purchase tickets online at Eventbrite.

The museum is still accepting donations of gift cards, products, services, and other silent auction items, a way to support the museum and to spread the word of your services and products at the silent auction display and in the printed program.

Table sponsorships are available from $100, $250, $500 and $1,000. Call with questions, to donate, or to sponsor at 727-724-3054 or email [email protected].

Hermann Trappman, digital artist, painter, sculptor, historian, and environmental educator, returns to Palm Harbor Museum Presents with “The Tocobaga Tribe of Tampa Bay: A Cultural History” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1 at the Palm Harbor Library Community Room (first door on the right at front entrance of library), 2330 Nebraska Ave. Trappman will present a visual history program/discussion of the culture and history of Tampa Bay’s once-thriving ancient Tocobaga Tribe, who lived in villages in the Tampa Bay region from 900 CE to c1600 CE.

The Tocobaga were excellent hunters, potters and tool builders, thriving in our region until Spanish explorers arrived. The shell mound at Phillippe Park is among the few remaining archaeological sites of their existence on the west coast of central Florida.

Trappman has spent the past three decades telling the story of Florida’s natural and cultural history. He will be available for book signings following the program.

The Museum Presents programs continue at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6 with “Florida, A History in Pictures,” presented by Jeff Davies at the Palm Harbor Library. There is no charge to attend the programs and all are welcome. The library has plenty of free parking and is wheelchair accessible.

Join or renew your Palm Harbor Historical Society membership for 2024 by visiting the museum’s web site, [email protected] for information, stopping by the museum or calling 727-724-3054.

Active membership supports the expansion of collections and exhibitions, and entitles members to monthly programs, email newsletters, special announcements, advance notification of events and discounts for fee-based museum activities, an annual membership meeting and special members-only open house events. Find the museum on Facebook or check the website for more information. Sponsorships, partnerships and event space also are available. Volunteers are welcomed to help with diverse activities.

The Palm Harbor Museum is open for self-guided tours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Children are welcome. Admission is free but donations are gratefully accepted. Call 727-724-3054 for more information.

Sharon Lamm is the director of publicity director at Palm Harbor Museum.