Dear friends,

I loved each and every one of your letters discussing your favorite part of school! As we have now entered the beautiful season of Fall, and the weather begins to cool down, I can’t help but wonder, friends, what is your favorite season? Perhaps Winter, because of the fun holidays and cold weather? Maybe Summer because school is out and days are filled with laughter and swimming! Whatever it may be, please let me know!

Your friend,

Matt

Editor's note: Please send letters, pictures and jokes to calendar@starbanner.com and write "Matt Manatee" in the message line. The deadline is 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7. A selection will be published on Friday, Oct. 21. We are not providing T-shirts any longer.

Dear Matt Manatee,

My favorite part of school is art. I get to paint cool things. Last year in art I remember that I made a hot cocoa cup with marshmallows that had smiley faces. This year I made an owl painting, and my art teacher loved it.

Your friend,

Ashlyn Shannon

Third grade, Ocala Springs Elementary School

Dear Matt,

My favorite part of school is recess! At recess I get to move my body, have fun, and play with my friends.

Your friend,

Alexandre Javier

Second grade, Marion Charter School

Dear Matt,

My favorite thing to do at school is reading. I like to read with friends and learn about history. It is also fun to read funny things!

Your friend,

Jacob D’Angelo

Second grade, Marion Charter School

Dear Matt,

My favorite thing to do at school is when we do math. I love learning about how to add numbers.

Your friend,

Giancarlos Orejuela

Second grade, Marion Charter School

Dear Matt,

My favorite thing about school is Science. The first reason is because I can be smart. The second reason is because I learn about Dinosaurs. The third reason is because I learn about sea life. It is easy to see why I like Science.

Your friend,

Carsyn Hamilton

Second grade, Sparr Elementary School

Dear Matt,

My favorite thing about school is math. The first reason is because it is fun. The second reason is because I am really good at it. The third reason is because I love math. It is easy to see why I like math.

Your friend,

Colton Goosey

Second grade, Sparr Elementary School

Dear Matt,

My favorite thing about school is recess. The first reason is because I run. The second reason is because I can play. The third reason is because I play kickball. It is easy to see why I like recess.

Your friend,

Gabriel Turbeville

Second grade, Sparr Elementary School

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Heritage Capital Group, Inc. ("Heritage"), an investment banking and financial advisory firm serving middle-market and emerging growth companies in the US and worldwide, is pleased to announce that its client, Sparr Building & Farm Supply ("Sparr" or the "Company"), has been purchased by Nation's Best.

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Sparr Building & Farm Supply is a family business that has served customers in Central Florida for more than seven decades. The Company has four stores that blend the best characteristics of a lumber yard with a farm and ranch store. The Company's "one-stop-shop" experience makes it easy for customers to pick up livestock feed, animal nutrition products, fencing, lumber, lawn and garden, pet supplies, building materials, paint, and many other products. The rich equestrian history of Ocala, Florida also led Sparr to develop expertise in horse fencing and products.

Nation's Best is one of the country's fastest growing independent home improvement companies. Sparr will join Hall's Hardware & Lumber and Panhandle Lumber & Supply in Florida as Nation's Best extends its presence in the Southeast. As part of Nation's Best's strategy, Sparr Building & Farm Supply will maintain operations under its existing name with its key leadership team overseeing company operations alongside Nation's Best, which will provide the strategic and financial support necessary to drive optimal growth and profitability.

Heritage served as the exclusive financial advisor and intermediary to Sparr Building & Farm Supply. The deal team included Bill Nicholson and Doug Kravet.

"Doug and Bill had the perfect combination of M&A and real estate deal experience that we needed," commented Sam Howard and Paul Howard, owners of Sparr. "They helped us navigate a complex transaction and keep our team well-coordinated as we tackled both big and small issues. Looking back, it's hard to imagine completing this transaction without them."

Heritage Capital Group provides objective advice to private companies in the areas of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, business valuations, debt and equity capital raises, corporate restructurings, and financial and strategic advisory services focused on enhancing the value of business enterprises. Heritage Capital Group is a FINRA registered broker-dealer, and a member of Oaklins, the world's most experienced mid-market M&A advisor, with 850 professionals globally and dedicated industry teams in 45 countries worldwide.

Media Contact:Katie Quackenbush904-354-9600337900@email4pr.com

SOURCE Heritage Capital Group

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NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis announced three initiatives aimed at recruiting and retaining teachers in Florida, which will be proposed during the next legislative session.

DeSantis said the initiatives include:

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DeSantis announced the proposals from River Ridge High School in New Port Richey.

Pasco County Schools entered the first week of classes with 350 teacher vacancies. Pasco Schools Superintendent Kurt Browning said one week later, 195 openings remain.

"Which is much better, not as good as where we were this time last year," he said. "I believe that the initiatives that the governor is proposing today will go a very long way to helping us recruit and retain great teachers in Pasco classrooms."

Hillsborough Classroom Teacher's Association President Rob Kriete said the governor's plans are focused in the wrong direction.

"We love our veterans, and we love our first responders. We would argue that our teachers and support professionals are already first responders, doing what they can for our students every single day and that they need to be paid what they deserve," said Kriete.

Kriete said Hillsborough County is down roughly 900 teachers. He said the key to get them back is better pay and more time to focus on their job.

"The job is more difficult than ever before. I mean, the mental health challenges that students are exhibiting puts more pressure on our employees, our teachers, and support professionals," he added. "Those that are actually working in the schools are working wall to wall. They're not getting a period off where they could actually work on their lesson plans or grade papers. They're exhausted, so people are leaving the field."

Kriete said the answer isn't to borrow workers from other professions.

"We train teachers through the programs that we have in the district, through the state certifications, and quite frankly, through our universities to get prepared for that. Whether that is in how we operate our classroom, how we design our lessons, and how we actually diagnose and help each student in the classroom. That's much more nuanced and difficult than maybe the governor actually understands," Kriete added.

Florida Education Association President Andrew Sparr mirrored Kriete's sentiments and said this announcement is too little, too late.

"What the governor should be talking about is instead of waiting till the next legislative session, he should be talking about what he's going to do today," Sparr said.

Sparr agreed teacher pay is a high priority. Florida ranks 48th in the nation for teacher pay.

But DeSantis said his administration has taken great strides to increase pay.

"We have done the largest teacher pay increases in the history of Florida over the last two to three years. And we focused a lot of that on increasing the average minimum salary across the state of Florida. Three years ago, it was barely $40,000. Now with the budget we just enacted, the average minimum salary throughout the state will be over $48,000," DeSantis said.

"In 2010, the average teacher pay ranked 36th in the nation. Today we rank 48th. While average teacher pay ranks 48th in the nation, beginning teacher pay has actually gone up to 16 in the nation, which means he's literally taken money out of the pockets of experienced teachers and giving it to those just coming into the profession," said Sparr.

Florida's 2023 legislative session starts on March 7.

Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The 20-minute suite is based on four selections from King's 2020 album of the same title.

Thursday, March 16 (7:30 pm) marks the world premiere of composer/guitarist D. J. Sparr's orchestral reimagining of Kaki King's Modern Yesterdays, performed by the American Composers Orchestra under Daniela Candillari, with King as guitar soloist. The 20-minute suite, which features immersive video projections by Attilio Rigotti and Orsolya Szantho, is based on four selections from King's 2020 album of the same title, with the addition of The Divided Mind, a brand-new piece co-composed by Sparr and King.

Modern Yesterdays caps a lively and stimulating program that includes the world premiere of Carlos Bandera's Materia Prima, the New York premiere of Ellen Reid's Floodplain, and Carlos Simon's Fate Now Conquers performed by the American Composers Orchestra, including musicians llmar Gavilan (Harlem Quartet), Edward W. Hardy (The Woodsman), Monica Ellis, Kevin Newton and Brandon Patrick George (Imani Winds). Tickets for the concert, which takes place at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, are available at carnegiehall.org.

D. J. Sparr, a sought-after electric guitar soloist in his own right, has been hailed by The New York Times for compositions that embody "the boundary erasing spirit of today's new music world." King - described by Rolling Stone as "a genre unto herself" - has gained a widespread following for her propulsive guitar works, which often involve tapping on the fretboard with both hands.

Translating King's rhythmically intricate, non-notated pieces into this New Medium called for considerable ingenuity and imagination. It was Sparr's task to create an orchestral accompaniment out of whole cloth while preserving King's role as soloist. Working closely with King, Sparr developed ways to highlight the distinctive features of her writing.

Said Sparr, "Kaki uses unique open tunings, which can translate nicely to open strings and harmonics in the orchestra. Plus, some of her guitar harmonics have natural partners and equivalents in the winds and percussion. It's all just one big guitar!

"The accented notes of her rhythmic patterns don't always line up precisely with the strong beats of the measure - which makes it sound so exciting. That makes orchestration fun, because I can highlight the syncopated rhythms." The movements of Modern Yesterdays are as follows:

Default ShellGodchildCan't Touch This or That or You or My FaceThe Divided Mind*Puzzle Me You*Co-composed by King and Sparr

Following the premiere of Modern Yesterdays, D. J. Sparr and librettist Mark Campbell's chamber opera Approaching Ali will be staged at Opera Las Vegas, March 18 + 19, and then at Opéra Louisiane, March 31 + April 1.

As a performer, he will take the solo role in his guitar concerto Violet Bond with the Memphis Symphony under Robert Moody, March 24. He will then premiere Daron Hagen's Concerto for Electric Guitar and Orchestra with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton, July 29 + 30.

A B O U T...D. J...S P A R R

Composer and electric guitarist D. J. Sparr, who Gramophone recently hailed as "exemplary," is one of America's preeminent composer-performers. He has caught the attention of critics with his eclectic style, described as "pop-Romantic...iridescent and wondrous" (The Mercury News) and embodying "the boundary erasing spirit of today's new-music world" (The New York Times). In addition, the Los Angeles Times praised him as "an excellent soloist," and the Santa Cruz Sentinel said that he "wowed an enthusiastic audience...Sparr's guitar sang in a near-human voice."

He was the electric guitar concerto soloist on the 2018 GRAMMY-Award-winning, all-Kenneth Fuchs recording with JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra.

In 2011, Sparr was named one of NPR listeners' favorite 100 composers. He has composed for and performed with renowned ensembles such as the Houston Grand Opera, Cabrillo Festival, New World Symphony, Washington National Opera, and Eighth Blackbird. D. J. was the Young American Composer-in-residence with the California Symphony from 2011-2014. His music has received awards from BMI, New Music USA, and the League of Composers/ISCM. Sparr is a faculty member at the famed Walden School's Creative Musicians Retreat in Dublin, New Hampshire. His composition works and guitar performances appear on Naxos, Innova Recordings, Albany, & Centaur Records.

A passion for musical performance grew from family encouragement at a young age. Three-year-old D. J. mimicked playing the guitar by holding his great-grandmother Violet Bond's straw broom in hand. Noticing this, Violet gave him a toy guitar for his third birthday and a Ukulele for his fourth birthday. By age five, D. J. was taking guitar lessons and was soon performing for a "captive" audience at his local music store, Coffey Music, in Westminster, MD.

In high school, D. J. spent his late-night and weekend hours writing and recording music with a Fostex X-26 4-track recorder. He attended Baltimore School for the Arts as a jazz guitar major. Surrounded by classical music, he began to write compositions for various instruments. He attended summer composition programs at The Walden School and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. D. J. continued honing his compositional craft at the Eastman School of Music (BM) and the University of Michigan (MM, DMA) studying with composers William Bolcom, Michael Daugherty, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, & Augusta Read Thomas.

D. J. lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his wife Kimberly, son Harris, Nannette the hound dog, and Bundini the boxer. D. J. Sparr's music is published by Bill Holab Music.

MARION COUNTY, Fla. – Charles Dennis Engelhardt’s legacy of state lottery winnings took a strange turn this month when the DEO and Florida Lottery withheld his $600 Florida Lotto X winnings to cover part of a “current debt balance” of $1,799 for an unemployment overpayment.

Engelhardt told News 6 the notices made no sense because he and his wife retired in early 2014 and have had no reason to collect unemployment benefits over the last 8 years.

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“We were making close to what we were making before we retired,” he said, speaking with News 6 from his home in Sparr, Florida. “Then in July 2014, we hit the lottery.”

On July 25, 2014, to be exact, the Engelhardts won the Lucky Money jackpot of $2 million. According to the Lotto press release, “he chose the one-time lump sum payment option” of $1,442,664.80.

“We were set, our kids were set,” he said.

Ironically, in 1992, Engelhardt won the $228,231 Fantasy 5 top prize with no red flag from the state. But this time, the smallest of his three lotto jackpots exposed what a DEO investigator called a clear case of fraud.

“It had to happen after 2014,” Engelhardt reasoned. “Because in 2014, when we hit the lotto, they would have done the same check as they did for the $600.”

The DEO traced the unemployment benefits to the Frank Crum payroll company in Clearwater. News 6 asked Engelhardt to use the company’s website to see if there was a W-2 tax form for 2014.

What he found was a W-2 showing he had earned and paid taxes on more than $2,300 in 2014. The name, address and social security number on the document were completely accurate, but Engelhardt reaffirmed he was already retired and had no need for additional income or state unemployment benefits.

Engelhardt reacted to what appeared to be wages for a part time job in a text to News 6: “Never had a part-time job in my life.”

The DEO told Engelhardt it could take a few weeks to trace how much unemployment money was collected by the imposter. Engelhardt is expected to have his $600 lottery winnings reimbursed by the DEO.

If you have an unemployment issue, email makeendsmeet@wkmg.com or text the words “make ends meet” along with your issue to 407-676-7428.

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