By Gary Curreri

Michael Hutchens defeated Matt Lazarus, 224-223, to win the men’s open championship in the Broward County United States Bowling Congress Association’s Top Eight Tournament at the Strikers Family SportsCenter in Sunrise recently.

The 36-year-old Pompano Beach man was sitting in third place during qualifying until he rolled a 274 to seize the top seed. 

“I loved it,” Hutchens said. “It was awesome! I love the sport because it is competitive and you can beat anybody,” Hutchens said. “It doesn’t matter what generation you are from, what you like or what your personal interests are. Anything about this game, it doesn’t matter. We are all here for one thing and that is to bowl, and that is what I love.

“You can be a rocker, you can be country or you can be rap,” he continued. “You can be anything you want.”

It was his debut in the Top-8 tournament. He moved to Florida from Indiana in 2013. He bowls at Diamond Strike Lanes in Pompano on Wednesdays, Strikes@Boca on Thursdays and Sawgrass Bowl in Tamarac on Fridays.

The top eight bowlers from around Broward County competed in the one-day event in six divisions –Boys and Girls, Men’s and Women’s Open, and Senior Men and Women. 

“I just wanted to show that I belonged, that’s it,” said Hutchens, who said he has bowled more than a dozen perfect 300-games. “I usually average between 225 and 230, but averaged 240 today. To me, bowling is about fun. It is the enjoyment of the game, meeting new people and everybody fits in because we love one thing and that’s bowling. We all want to win.

We all want to enjoy it, but at the same time we want everybody to be good.”

The competitors in the tournament bowled three games of qualifying and the top four bowlers in each division bowled step ladder finals. The fourth-seeded bowler took on the third seed and that winner bowled the second seed, and the that winner bowled the top-seed for the title.

To qualify for the event, bowlers need to bowl in two leagues in two different houses (bowling alleys) or two leagues in the same bowling center. They have to compete in at least 2/3 of the league to qualify for the Top-8. Juniors needed only one league to qualify for the annual tournament.

By Gary Curreri

The First Tee of Broward recently held its 4th annual Mentors Day at the Pompano Beach Golf Course. The Mentors Day was created four years ago by students from the Pine Crest School golf team as a way to introduce groups of deserving young people to the game of golf. 

This year, they once again partnered with the youth organization, Love Our Nation and Tee-2-Green students at Pine Crest and members of the Pine Crest boys golf team.

This was the third year that Pine Crest senior golfer Dylan Glatt coordinated the program. He was assisted by three other boys, varsity golfers in mentoring, and they were seniors Sam Fruit and Rafael Salazar and freshman Mitchell Jacobs.   

“The student mentors taught practice range safety, demonstrated the full swing, chipping and putting, and then the children got to try it out for themselves,” said Jack Bloomfield, director of operations for the First Tee of Broward County. “At the end of the instruction portion of the program, the children participated in a putting contest.”

“It was a wonderful day,” Bloomfield added. “I would also like to thank the Pompano Beach Golf Course for hosting the event.”

The program concluded with a luncheon for all of the participants sponsored by Galuppi’s on the Green Restaurant. Following lunch, each child was presented with a goody bag filled with golf-related prizes sponsored by the PGA Superstore, Jack Nicklaus, Edwin Watts, The Pompano Municipal Golf Course and the Glatt Family.

Pompano Beach men’s golf results

The Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association held a Two Best Ball of Foursome tournament on Aug. 7 at the Pines course.

The team of Dave Dowling, Jim Greeley and Dennis Sejda carded a 113 to take first place ahead of Al DiBenedetto, Robert Raser and Roy Wilhoite who finished two shots back with a 115. Finishing in third was the team of Gary Gill, John Grether and Bob Mascatello, who shot a 123 and won on a match of cards.

Wilhoite won the closest to the pin contest on the third hole by hitting his shot to 12-feet from the hole. He also calmly made the putt for a birdie.

By Karen Lustgarten

Just three months into the newly-created position of Innovation Strategist for the newly-created Boca Raton Innovation Office, Pedro Moras is in a whirlwind of meetings with city officials, heads of different departments, representatives of organizations, citizens, the start-up community, the business community and leaders of Smart cities in other states and countries. He’s in the information gathering stage, researching to determine where Boca Raton lies as a technology hub on the Smart city spectrum.

His input into Boca’s existing technology and innovation ecosystem is coming from various sectors to identify gaps, strengths, where the city needs to improve and where residents want it to be. At this stage, he’s determining what the city needs to do and the period of time to get there in order to champion Boca Raton as a Smart city and an innovative ecosystem attracting talent.

“The time it will take, the investment it will take, the impact it will have in the community and how do all these things interconnect” is part of the goal setting said Moras. “I didn’t want to come into this position as Innovation Strategist with an arrogant approach saying this is what the city should be doing. I’d rather take a step back, learn, get feedback and we start building a strategy for everyone.”

Smart City goals

The Smart city concept integrates information and communication technology (ICT) and various physical devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) network to make city operations and services more efficient, and to connect to citizens. Surveillance, automated transportation, smarter energy management systems, water distribution, urban security and environmental monitoring are examples of IoT applications for Smart cities.A Smart city would thus be a city government that not only possesses ICT technology, but has also implemented this technology in a manner that positively impacts the quality of life to make a community more livable.

Smart cities that Moras admires include San Diego, Seoul, Singapore and New York City, “…which is evolving in an interesting way by how they are merging Smart city and the start-up ecosystem,” he noted.

In cities like Hong Kong, technology applications, such as sensors and analytics around air quality, is a major priority because of their high air pollution issue. In Boca Raton, air pollution is important, but he said we don’t have a compelling issue about air quality.

“As we continue our research, one of the goals is to understand and prioritize the unique needs of our city so that we can begin mapping out which Smart city applications and technology make the most sense for Boca,” he said, saying that one major goal is creating a holistic Smart city strategy. Based on early assessments, Moras sees mobility (transportation and traffic) and green technology as important areas of focus here.

He noted that Boca is using quite a bit of technology — sensors in traffic lights, gathering data points.

“Of all the technology we have in the city, how do we bring in that data in a holistic manner and create an intelligent system that allows us to make sense of all that data in order to make better decisions?” he asked.

He said there are many systems in the city being used effectively“…but they are pretty much like silos [isolated from other systems]. So how do we make all these technologies talk to each other?” Some of the integration is already happening he said.

“When we talk about Smart city, we are specifically asking what are the gaps in the city, where do we want to be and what are the projects that are going to get us there? Then, we bring in the right players who we met with across the city and externally. We want to take the mission and vision created and manifest them into something visual where we can see what Boca Raton will look like over the next 10 to 15 years and start building a clear path to getting there. We’re at that stage right now,” he said.

For Boca Raton to be a technology hub, there needs to be an interconnection of things.

“We started talking about the concept of creating a stronger entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem. A big piece of that is engaging the start-up community, and how do we make the start-up community stronger? How do we give the right resources and funding for the start-up community and define what types of start-ups we want to attract into our environment? So there’s a lot of strategic work that needs to happen,” he said.

Entrepreneurial emphasis

Pedro Moras is familiar with entrepreneurial start-ups. Born in Brazil and raised in South Florida, he will be tapping into his experience to help further grow the city’s start-up and innovation culture, and promote Boca Raton as a Smart city — an innovation and technology hub.

Prior to his new position, Moras co-founded a successful pet food technology start-up (PetMio) that utilizes advanced artificial intelligence technology to create customized pet nutrition products. He was managing partner at the Konnected Minds Group, a Miami-based innovation consultancy, and was a founding member of the Transformational Innovation Group at Jarden Consumer Solutions (now Newel Brands), a corporate new ventures group focused on new product and business opportunities.

In leading the development of Boca Raton’s Smart City and innovation ecosystem strategy, Moras says he has a lot to unpack beginning with researching Boca’s existing situation. Innovations are happening here he said; he is seeking details about them and areas for improvement.

“Understanding this will allow us to create a detailed Smart city vision and strategy,” said Moras.

Karen Lustgarten is president of Multi-Media Works, a multiple award-winning media company specializing in video, PR, print and social media with offices in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. She founded a newspaper in Washington, DC, was a syndicated columnist and a bestselling author. www.multi-mediaworks.com.

By Gary Curreri

Thomas Christensen, a 2019 graduate of Pompano Beach High School, captured the most prestigious award that the Junior Golf Association (JGA) of Broward County has to offer.

The 18-year-old from Coral Springs won the coveted Julius Boros Award, which goes to the male golfer who had the lowest stroke average for the summer golf series. His scoring average was 72.4. He is headed to the honors college at the University of Florida (UF).

“I’ve always wanted to go to the UF since I was a little kid,” Christensen said. “Both of my parents went to UF and I grew up watching Tim Tebow on TV, so it was kind of my thing. I had to go to UF, and I am happy that I get to go.”

Christensen has played in the JGA of Broward since 2009, but he took some time off when he got frustrated that the other golfers in his group hit the ball farther.

“I had moved up the divisions, but I got to a point to where I didn’t hit the ball far enough to keep up,” he said. “I wasn’t really enjoying it.”

That was when he was 11-years-old. He came back after a two-year layoff after growing about 6 in. in height and working more on his game.

“I was around 5 ft. tall playing in the junior division, and the rest of the golfers looked like giants to me. They were like 5-10 and 5-11,” said Christensen, who is now 6 ft., 3 in. tall. “I was definitely a lot smaller than the rest.”

He finished third in the three-day, season-ending tournament, and, in addition to winning the Boros Award, he also won the Purdo Award for the highest grade point average for a male golfer and also the Bedford Scholarship.

“Going into the past few seasons, it wasn’t about winning every event,” Christensen said. “Every day, I came to this final event of the championship, and I see the guy who gets to go up and get his name engraved on the large Julius Boros Award trophy, and I have always wanted to do that.

“So, this year,” he continued, “it as mostly about earning that award and not so much about winning the individual tournaments. I wasn’t trying to do anything too fancy, just put up some good solid numbers.”

Christensen said he continues to improve.

“I am still learning a lot about my own game,” Christensen said. “I am finding myself in situations where I can post numbers. I like to make several birdies in a round. The key is putting it together every single hole.

“I feel like I am due for that,” Christensen said. “It hasn’t quite happened yet, so I am going to keep working at it.”

By Gary Curreri

Highlands Christian Academy continued its long tradition of hosting a basketball camp this summer. Reg Cook, the school’s former AD, and Boys Varsity basketball coach, started the camp in 1986 with 19 campers in attendance. This year’s camp had 25 campers and consisted of children in the 3rd through 8th grade.

“We had a great group of campers,” said Highlands Christian basketball coach Paul Pridemore, who is also the school’s athletic director. “They learned a lot of fundamental skills that they can build on. The most exciting thing that happened was we had one camper that accepted Christ as his savior.”

Trophies were awarded for competitions like free throws, hot shot, full court layups, Mikan layups, one-on-one, in addition to the best defender, most improved and camper of the week.

In addition to basketball, Highlands Christian Academy also held a softball camp and a volleyball camp that ended this week.

Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association results

The Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association held two tournaments recently for its players. A total of 29 golfers competed in the Two Best Ball of Foursome tournament on July 17 at the Pines Course and the team of Jim Blake, Frank Cutrone and Willie Smith shot 116 to win by two strokes. The team of Bill Hazlett, Robert Raser and Dennis Sejda shot a 118 and won on a match of cards over the third place team of Robert Blau, Gary Gill and Jim Greeley, who also carded a 118. Jim Blake won the closest to the pin contest on hole No. 15.

One week later, the Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association held an individual play – Odd Holes Minus ½ Handicap in Classes tournament on the Pines Course with Tom Pawelczyk winning the Class A Net Score with a 29.0. Dennis Sejda recorded a 29.5 to take second, while Bill Hadersbeck shot a 30.0 to finish in third in the Class A.

 In Class B, Mike Marruquin shot a 29.5 and finished in first place after a match of cards over Jim Greeley. Robert Raser carded a 30.0 to take third.

Dennis Rooy shot 27.5 to take first place in the Class C Division, while Bill Hazlett (29.5) and Henry Lesburt (30.5) finished second and third respectively. Lesburt won on a match of cards. The closest to the pin winner on hole (No. 17) was Bill O’Brien.

There were 30 players in the field.

Simply Soccer camp down to final week

Area residents have one final chance to take part in the Simply Soccer camp series that is in its 31st year of soccer camps for children 5-15 in nearby Coral Springs.

There are three sessions each day ranging from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., extended hours camp from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and a Tiny Tot program for kids ages 5 and 6 from 9 a.m. to noon. Full day campers must bring a soccer ball, swimsuit, shin guards, water bottle and lunch. You do not have to be a city resident to attend.

 The final week is Aug. 5-9. You can register daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Coral Springs Gymnasium, 2501 Coral Springs Dr., Coral Springs. For information on the camp, call 954-345-2200.

Highlands Christian Academy recently held a basketball camp with 25 campers (bottom photo). The camp also handed out awards (top photo).

By “Cinema” Dave

http://cinemadave.livejournal.com

Cinema Dave with music teacher Chai Latte. After teaching four lessons of ukulele, Chai Latte will conduct The Space Jam Ukulele Concert with her “graduate” students Thursday, Aug. 1 at 6 p.m.

It was a decade ago this month that I committed to publish my first book, The Adventures of Cinema Dave in the Florida Motion Picture World, which featured 652 pages of interviews, pictures and movie reviews from the Observer. Despite going through an economic recession in 2009, I was optimistic about the film industry.

Deerfield Beach was centrally located between multiple film festivals, the Delray Beach Film Festival, the Palm Beach Film Festival, the Miami International Film Festival, the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and multiple conventions and comic book film festivals.  Now, of those fests, only the Miami International Film Festival and the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival have survived. [But other festivals have popped up].

Thanks to the adaptation of small screen telephones [and the ability to stream movies on the Internet], consumer interest did change. With the exception of a film like a Star Wars and a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, seeing a movie as a communal experience has waned.  

If you do go to the movies this month, keep a keen eye out for The Peanut Butter Falcon, an independent film that features fine performances from Dakota Johnson, Bruce Dern, wrestler Mick Foley, John Hawkes and newcomer Zack Gottsagen. This entertaining movie, which features a roller coaster ride of emotions, is pure American cinema.

If you are looking to do something fun and free tonight, “The Space Jam Ukulele Concert” will be conducted at the Deerfield Beach Percy White Library starting at 6 p.m. This concert is the culmination of four weeks of ukulele lessons that library patrons have taken with music teacher Chai Latte. Honky-tonk pianist Kris Nicholson will tickle the ivories for this special evening. [He was part of the library’s “Blues School” event Feb. 2]. Join the fun this summer evening.

Cinema Dave with Kris Nicholson, the Honky Tonk piano player. After his contribution to Blues School last Feb. 2 at Deerfield Beach Percy White Library, Kris Nicholson guest stars in this evening’s (Aug. 1) free Space Jam Ukulele Concert.

Sept. 24, 1988 – July 21, 2019

Public Viewing:

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

5 to 8 p.m.

6 p.m. Military Honors

at

Fred Hunter’s

6301 Taft St.

Hollywood

Service:

Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019

11 a.m.

at

Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale

2401 W. Cypress Creek Road

Fort Lauderdale

(Those attending are asked to arrive no later than 10:30 a.m.)

As the men and women of the Broward Sheriff’s Office continue to mourn the loss of Dep. Benjamin Nimtz and prepare to honor his life next week, the outpouring of prayers and expressions of concern have been greatly appreciated. So many of you have asked how else you can help. The Sheriff’s Foundation of Broward County has created the Deputy Benjamin Nimtz Memorial Fund. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to support the education of Dep. Nimtz’s children. To find out more information about contributing to the fund, click here: http://sheriffsfoundationofbroward.org/campaigns/in-memoriam-of-deputy-ben-nimtz

By Gary Curreri
First Tee of Broward County Director of Operations Jack Bloomfield was the guest speaker at the Exchange Club of Pompano’s weekly luncheon recently.
The Pompano Exchange Club has been lending support to the First Tee of Broward County chapter for the past three years by playing in their fall golf tournament and annual Golf Marathon as well as volunteering at weekly programming.
“The Exchange Club is an all-volunteer, national service organization for men and women who want to serve their community, develop leadership skills and enjoy new friendships,” Bloomfield noted. “The Exchange Club is made up of nearly 1,000 clubs and 33,000 members throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.”
Bloomfield also thanked Exchange Club member Dr. Gene Perkins, who is the owner of Coastal Chiropractic in Pompano Beach, for his support.
Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association results
The Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association recently held several tournaments for its players.
 They held a Two Best Ball Of Foursome tournament at the Pines Course and the team of Jim Blake, Frank Cutrone and Willie Smith shot 116 to win by two strokes. The team of Bill Hazlett, Robert Raser and Dennis Sejda shot a 118 and won on a match of cards over the third place team of Robert Blau, Gary Gill and Jim Greeley, who also carded a 118.
Dennis Sejda won the closest to the pin contest on hole No. 15. 
In an Individual Play (Low Gross & Low Net In Classes) tournament, George Disch won the Low Gross honors for Class A with an 82. Len Ackley shot 69 and won on a match of cards with Chuck Brown for Low Net honors in Class A. Jim Blake carded an 88 to take first in the Low Gross competition for Class B.  Oscar Aleman won Low Net for Class B with a 71, while Robert Raser was second with a 72. 
In Class C, Jim DeCicco won the Low Gross with a 93. The winner of the Low Net competition was Willie Smith with a 65, who finished two shots ahead of runner-up Bob Mascatello.  The closest to the pin winner on hole No. 7 was Robert Blau.
The Pompano Beach Men’s Golf Association also held a One Best Ball Of Foursome tourney, which was won by Dave Dowling, Jim Greeley and Roy Wilhoite with a 51. The team of Len Ackley, John Grether and Mike Grimaldi took second with a 53. Jim Blake, Bill Delaney and Lee Hammer placed third with a 57 and the team of Tom Breur, Jim Foster and Willie Smith placed fourth and won on a match of cards after carding a 59. The winner of the closest to the pin on hole No. 3 was Bill Hadersbeck.

The City of Deerfield Beach would like to notify residents of lane closure along US1 South and North Bound inside lanes starting Monday, July 22, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. These lanes will be closed, as FDOT starts palm tree relocation. Access to crossings roads and residential/commercial areas will be open to traffic during the lane closure time.

Lane closures are scheduled as follows:

• Monday, July 22:        US1 SB and NB inside lanes from SE 7 Court to NE 4 Street.

• Tuesday, July 23:       US1 SB and NB inside lanes from SE 7 Court to NE 4 Street.

• Wednesday, July 24:  US1 SB and NB inside lanes from SE 13 Court to SE 15 Street & US1 SB and NB inside lanes from NE 52 Court to NE 51 Street.

• Thursday, July 25:      US1 SB and NB inside lanes from NE 48 Street to NE 39 Court.

If you have any questions regarding these lane closures, please contact Scott Thurman at Scott.Thurman@dot.state.fl.us.