10:25 Update – One southbound lane is reopened.
Traffic Alert: 6:20 a.m. Wed, March 10:
The PCSO Traffic Unit is on the scene of a vehicle versus semi on U.S. Hwy 27 South just south of the intersection with Cypress Gardens Blvd in Winter Haven, with two confirmed fatalities in the vehicle.
The southbound lanes of Hwy 27 just south of that intersection are shut down completely until further notice. Please use an alternate route. Drive safely, everyone.
On March 8, 2021, PCSO detectives arrested 38-year-old Christina Siddell of Lake Wales for burglary with assault (F1). Siddell is a school bus attendant and paraprofessional at Alturas Elementary School.
According to the affidavit, Siddell met her former boyfriend and his new girlfriend at the Lake Market (4812 Timberlane Road) in unincorporated Lake Wales, to retrieve her dogs from her ex-boyfriend.
The victim and witness told deputies that “Siddell pulled into the parking lot at a high rate of speed and exited her vehicle in an aggressive manner. The victim stated Siddell approached the passenger window and banged on it, before snatching the passenger door open. The victim also stated Siddell then yelled at her stating she was going to ‘whoop her ass.'”
That’s when, according to the victim and witness, Siddell began pulling her by her legs to drag her out of the truck. The victim was able to kick Siddell off and close the truck door.
“We expect more from our public sector employees – especially those we entrust with our children.” – Grady Judd, Sheriff
Siddell was arrested for burglary with assault because she forced her way into the vehicle and battered the victim. She was transported to the Polk County Jail where she currently has no bond until her first appearance later today.
PSWCD Board Meeting-March 16th, 2021
Meeting Located at:
1702 Highway 17 S., Bartow FL, 33830
Attend in person or via Zoom meeting using the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86908679327?pwd=aTBmNnp5UUE1VlV3RlpiSXRSZWxRdz09
Meeting ID: 869 0867 9327 Passcode: 1aAQyn
CenterState Bank Wins People’s Choice For Chili On The Ridge
by James Coulter
As someone of Hispanic heritage, Carmen Rodriguez knows that a little bit of spice goes a long way. So it was only natural that the chili that she and her teammates from CenterState Bank won people’s choice at the annual Chili on the Ridge.
Stacy Stokes, the team leader, undoubtedly credited their success to Carmen’s cooking. They had been participating in the annual chili cookoff in Haines City for three years, and this was the first time Carmen took charge of the cooking.
“Carmen put her special twist on it this year and gave us People’s Choice,” Stacy said. “Everybody liked it…She cooked like she was cooking for her family.”
As to her success, Carmen credits her rich Hispanic heritage. As her upbringing taught her, anything and everything tastes better when you add just the right amount of spice to it.
“I am Hispanic, so we use a lot of spices,” she said. “Anything I found in the pantry, I put it in there.”
Stacy and her team from CenterState have been attending Chili on the Ridge for three years. Despite the current COVID-19 crisis and the rainy weather earlier that day, they enjoyed attending the event and considered the turnout significant.
“I think we have done well,” she said. “We had larger turnouts, the weather was not on our side, and people may have been afraid to come out. I think what we were given, everyone did well.”
CenterState Bank was one of more than a dozen teams that participated in this year’s Chili on the Ridge competition at Lake Eva Park in Haines City on Saturday. Their team won the people’s choice.
Winning first place overall was Amped Up Chili. Steven Tiner, the team leader, credited his success purely to luck, as his chili was created through trial and error.
“I owe my success to lucky recipes,” he said. “Keep throwing stuff in a pot and see if it works.”
For his recipe, his chili was prepared with three different types of meat: brisket, chuck roast, and bottom round roasts. Through various chili powder and seasoning, he was able to cook all three portions of meat together in a savory blend.
He was a Rotary Club member of Haines City for the past five years, and he has participated in their annual chili cookoff for the past four years. He enjoyed being able to compete this year, even despite these uncertain times and even more uncertain weather that morning.
“It is awesome,” he said. “It is all about people coming out to a community event. Everybody is coming out and enjoying themselves and trying to raise money for local scholarships.”
Chili on the Ridge is one of the two signature events hosted by the Rotary Club of Haines City. Both are hosted as fundraisers to raise proceeds for scholarships to local high school students.
Because of the current COVID-19 crisis, their chili competition last year could not be hosted as scheduled. This year, special precautions were taken to ensure public health and safety, with vendors spaced apart and hand sanitizer stations set up throughout the perimeter.
Though there was rain earlier that morning, the clouds in the sky managed to part and let the sun shine through in time for the award ceremony later that afternoon. Overall, the turnout proved decent, and attendees enjoyed the excellent food, music, and company, explained Travis Keyes, Rotary President.
“We had a good number of people come through, [and] everybody has enjoyed themselves,” he said. “We have a lot of community participation, [with] even some people from out of the area from Kissimmee and Winter Haven.”
Circle Of Friends Celebrates 14th Annual Chili Cook-Off
By James Coulter
Most great chili is made from beef. Marty Elrod’s award-winning dish is made from chicken instead. Such an original take on chili allowed him to win the prize for most original chili during the 14th Annual Chili Cook-Off hosted at Circle of Friends Ministry in Lake Wales on Saturday.
While he jokingly quipped that the secret behind his chili was too tight-lipped to share safely, he owes his success to his dish using chicken rather than beef, all prepared with the perfect blend of spices and seasoning, he explained.
“People are more apt to try something that is different than having the same old bland thing every time,” he said.
Elrod has been attending the annual chili contest for many years. He appreciates how the event helps raise proceeds for the Circle of Friends Ministry and its special needs students.
“I like helping,” he said. “I feel like I am doing something. “I wanted to help with the community. And this was a really good organization that helps out children.”
For the 14th consecutive year, Circle of Friends Ministry hosted their annual Chili-Cook Off on Saturday. More than a dozen chili recipes were entered and sampled for a chance to win three divisions: Most Original, Spiciest, and Overall.
Winning the Spiciest category were Lake Wales locals Skylar Smith and Rebecca Wood, and winning the Overall category was Melissa Walsh of the Cabinet Country.
Walsh owns Cabinet Country, with her business right down the road from Circle of Friends. As a close friend of the director, Crystal Higbee, Walsh was more than willing to participate for the sake of helping its special needs students.
“When she reached out about it, I was all too happy to enter,” she said. “I think it was really good, very well organized, and with the number of people that they entered, I think it was great.”
The award for Best Overall chili was $200 in cash, Most Original was $100 Visa gift card, and Spiciest was also a$100.00 Visa gift card.
Aside from the prizes for the chili competition, attendees and contest participants alike could enter a silent auction with baskets jam-packed with high-end products, tickets, and gift certificates donated by local businesses, as well as door prizes conferred every 30 minutes.
“Our special needs students will be performing for the first time to their newly-recorded theme song and introducing our new logo by wearing their new shirts for the performance,” wrote Crystal Higbee via Facebook.
Circle of Friends is a non-profit organization in Lake Wales that provides vocational training to special-needs students, providing them with valuable life and job skills to lead an independent life.
“The turnout is good for the way everyone has been doing with the pandemic,” Crystal said. “For the cause, that is the success for how we serve our special needs students and the community. It exceeded expectations.”
Spring Obsession To Spring Up At Lake Crago Park This Saturday
by James Coulter
Spring is in the air, the time of year to get started planting a garden. While some amateur gardeners are content with run-of-the-mill flowers and vegetables, other people yearn for more “exotic” foliage, plants that you usually can’t find locally.
If you’re looking for a unique spruce to spruce up your home landscape, or a peculiar petunia to plant, or a veritable vegetable to harvest, you can find what you are looking for, or what you may not have known you were looking for, at the upcoming Spring Obsession this Sat., Mar. 13 at Lake Crago Park in Lakeland.
“We have a lot of vendors with a lot of plants and trees you cannot find anywhere else,” explained Kathy McGee. “For me, I enjoy seeing all the unusual plants that you don’t generally see with Home Depot and Lowes or the different nurseries.”
Hosted by the Rotary Club of Lakeland, the annual outdoor garden show showcases a diverse selection of plants and trees, along with birdhouses, jewelry, home decor, and other ornamental items for your outdoor area. Many of these vendors are outside the local area from Orlando and Tampa, so you’ll be sure to find something you otherwise couldn’t obtain locally.
The local children’s museum will also erect a children’s tent to provide fun activities such as arts and crafts to the youngest attendees. Two seminars will also be hosted on agriculture and landscaping topics.
Hamburgers, hot dogs, and other barbecue items will be served by Rotarians, while various door prizes from local businesses will be announced throughout the day to random guests. All proceeds from the event will be used to purchase defibrillators for the local police department to place within their squad cars for emergencies.
Spring Obsession was initially hosted in Munn Park by various Downtown Lakeland vendors. The Rotary Club had since taken the reigns of its operations five years ago, around the same time that McGee came on board.
The outdoor event would be hosted last year as initially scheduled, but it was canceled only a few days prior due to the current COVID-19 crisis. Spring Obsession will be hosted this year at a new venue at Lake Crago Park.
“This year, we decided it was a good year to move it from Munn Park where there is limited parking, and everything is crowded together, to go to the new Lake Crago Park,” McGee explained. “There we can space out more; we have more spacing between all the vendors. We have the same amount of vendors that we had last year.”
The new venue will provide not only more space, but also a lovely landscape to host an event. As the park is brand new, having opened last year, the event will also help promote the area and encourage people to visit it and perhaps even frequent it soon.
Due to the current pandemic, special precautions are being taken to ensure public health and safety. Masks will be required, hand sanitizer will be provided at vendors, and temperature checks will be required for entry to the two seminars.
Furthermore, as the event was canceled last year, additional advertising was implemented this year, with radio ads, print ads in local publications such as The Ledger, and on their own Facebook page.
“It is a beautiful park,” McGee said. “We are trying to make it a really good event so people keep coming back and people can keep coming back each and every year.”
Spring Obsession will be hosted Sat., Mar. 13 8 AM – 3 PM. The event will be hosted at Lake Cargo Park, 525 Lake CragoDr. Lakeland, FL 33805. For more information, visit their website at: https://springobsession.org/
Bloomin Art Festival Comes into Bloom in Downtown Bartow for 50th Year
by James Coulter
As an artist, Stephen Koury ventures out into nature in search of subjects for his paintings. From tall majestic herons to sweeping cypresses, he goes to where the wild things are, studies them, photographs them, sketches them, then returns to his studio to paint their stories on his canvas.
“When I am in the wild, I am looking for stories,” Koury said. “The stories are what unfold in the paintings. What these things are thinking about, what they are doing at the time, and that is what you are seeing here, stories going on in nature.”
Koury has been showcasing his painted landscapes and portraits at the annual Bartow Bloomin Art Fest. He admits he doesn’t “want to know” how long he has been coming there, but he has been attending for at least 20 years.
While he has won many awards at the annual art festival, this year marks the first he won Overall Best of Show. Having attended for as long as he has, receiving the highest honor was truly honorable for him.
“There aren’t any words about how I feel. Words can’t describe it,” he said. “I have been to Bloomin Arts for so long. It is one of my favorite shows in the world. I won awards here, but I have never won Best of Show. So, to win Best of Show…it meant a lot.”
While he was pleased to win such a prestigious award, winning awards is not what inspires him to attend the event year after year. Inevitably, it is the camaraderie among fellow artists and attendees that he appreciates most.
“I love people in the show,” he said. “It is so nice to talk to people, and that is the best part, getting to meet people and talk with them. It is the people who keep me coming back here.”
John Cheer traveled from Allentown, PA, to attend the annual art event. He showcased his unique artwork that elegantly combines ceramic and porcelain with a glass glaze. The process fuses glass and plate to create a sheen unlike any other.
“It takes years and years of practice and modifying to sharpen and get to a level you can get something remotely like this,” he said. “Not a single artist can come close to copying what I do.”
His unique approach to pottery and ceramics earned him an Award of Achievement. He spent the past 25 years working on perfecting his art style. Being able to have his hard work and practice recognized was indeed an honor that weekend.
This was the very first year he attended Bloomin Art Festival. He heard good things from a close artist friend, and he decided to check it out for himself. What he discovered more than met his expectations.
“It is a beautiful place, a beautiful town, and I decided to come and show the Bartow citizen all that is possible,” he said.
Kelly Rysavy is an artist with friends and family who live in the local area. They inspired her to come to Bartow and showcase her oil and acrylic painting of wildlife and landscapes, which inevitably won her Third Place.
This was her first year participating in the event. She loved being able to show her art, and she especially loved receiving an award for her work. Overall, her initial experience was a good one, especially during these uncertain times.
“The fact that I was chosen to be in the art festival was exciting because they are starting to open them out, and it is exciting to be in the area, to be outside in the fresh air, even the rain wasn’t bad,” she said. “Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, and people are happy here. They are getting out of their caves.”
The Bartow Bloomin Art Festival celebrated its 50th year. This year’s event proved to be incredibly influential after the annual art festival was canceled last year due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
More than 84 artists from across the country congregated downtown to showcase their art. Special precautions were taken to ensure public health and safety. Vendors were doubly spaced out with masks and hand sanitizer stations provided.
Overall, even despite these uncertain times, the Bloomin Art Festival came into full bloom with a good turnout and with high expectations for next year, explained Michelle Griffins, Event Co-Chair.
“We were happy to do it still and allow an opportunity for Bartow to shine and experience all the art,” she said. “That is our prayer, for COVID to be a distant memory at that point and being able to go back to the size we have been historically with more than 120 artists and a lot of additional activities.”
Lakeland Police Department is working an officer-involved shooting at Quarry Rock Road/Cobblestone Landing Townhomes. Media staging is just inside the entrance, to the left. Media brief will take place at 10AM.
**** Updated Details Here: Male Suspect Shot & Killed After Shooting Female Victim In Front Lakeland Police
At 1:27 p.m. on Friday, March 5, 2021, the PCSO ECC received a 911 call about a single-vehicle crash involving an ejection and fire on Imperial Lakes Blvd in south Lakeland (Mulberry). The driver, 25-year-old Baylee Simpson of Mulberry, was deceased upon arrival of first responders. No other vehicles were involved, and she was the sole occupant of the 2016 silver Toyota Yaris.
Preliminarily, it appears that Simpson was driving south on Imperial Lakes near Opal Drive when she struck the rear of a red Cadillac SUV. After hitting the SUV, she fled the scene northbound on Imperial Lakes. While operating her car at a high rate of speed, she failed to negotiate a left to right curve near the 4900 block, drifting into the center turn lane and then onto the grass median. The car went another 100 yards north in the median before striking an oak tree, ejecting Simpson. The engine was also propelled out of the car and into the southbound lanes. After impact, the car caught on fire and became engulfed in flames, which also burned Simpson.
The southbound lanes of Imperial Lakes were closed for approximately three hours; the northbound lanes were closed for six hours
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