ALACHUA ‒ On a busy Friday night on April 29, customers at Sonny's in Alachua were greeted by some unusual waiters. Four police officers from the Alachua Police Department (APD) volunteered their time as “Celebrity Waiters” to collect tips at Sonny's restaurant to support the Special Olympics program.

Officers Thomas Stanfield, B. Railey, T. Brown and Sgt. C. Hunt joined the regular wait staff to serve beverages and interact with the customers to raise money for Special Olympics Florida in an event known as “Tip a Cop.”

Accompanied by three athletes from the Special Olympics, Jason Cacciotti, Richard Sullivan, and Gabby Taylor, the officers went from table to table introducing people to the athletes, explaining the significance of the program and collecting donations to help fund the athletes’ training and events.

The Special Olympics was the vision of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family that included Rosemary, who had an intellectual disability. The mission of Special Olympics is to provide year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for people with intellectual disabilities who wish to participate, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness and gain confidence in themselves.

Neither athletes nor parents are charged a fee to participate in the program, and activities exist for those of all ability levels, from the highly functioning to the severely challenged.

The programs are funded by donations and organized by volunteers. Each state has its own Special Olympics organizations with all funding raised staying within the state. Special Olympics Florida serves over 60,000 athletes and offers training and competition in a variety of team and individual sports, with the help of over 38,000 coaches and volunteers statewide. However, besides state events, there are national and international competitions as well.

The “Tip a Cop” event is an official Law Enforcement Torch Run Campaign fundraising event that is organized throughout the country with law enforcement officers and department personnel volunteering their time as “Celebrity Waiters” to collect tips at a restaurant in support of Special Olympics.

In Alachua, Sonny’s Restaurant offered to sponsor the event and the restaurant was at full capacity for most of the evening. Many of the customers were there especially for the event, but there were more than a few surprised patrons who did not expect to be served by police officers in full gear and uniform during their dining night out.

“The Alachua Police Department with the help of Sonny's and the Special Olympics Florida Athletes raised $1,757 and 100 percent will be given to Special Olympics Florida,” said Officer Stanfield. “In addition to this event, all the law enforcement agencies in Alachua County will be participating in a “Torch Run” on May 6 in Tioga to raise more funds for the Special Olympics. The race route will start at Jonesville Publix and end at Tioga Towne Center,” Stanfield said.

On May 20 the Special Olympics State Summer Games will be held in Kissimmee, Florida and from June 5-12 the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games will be held in various Florida cities.

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HIGH SPRINGS ‒ Almost every kid dreams of being a treasure hunter at some time in their childhood. Hollywood fosters that dream with movies such as Indiana Jones and National Treasure that portray treasure hunters as larger than life characters on dangerous missions that result in successful quests to find fabled treasure. In real life, few of us will ever realize that dream or find any treasure.

But for Shawn Cowles, treasure hunting and adventure in faraway lands is a lifelong career. On April 21, he shared his adventures through a lecture at the High Springs Museum to a packed crowd. On as table next to him he displayed the tools of his trade and examples of the treasures he has found including a large black mass of silver coins found in the most famous treasure find in modern times.

He worked for the Mel Fisher organization on Florida’s 1622 fleet shipwrecks, Atocha and Santa Margarita, where he helped recover $420 million worth of gold, silver and jewels. As an independent consultant and diver, Cowles has been involved with prominent land find and shipwreck projects in North America, South America, and the Pacific Ocean. Some, like Guam’s Nuestra Senora del Pilar, were in waters up to 350 feet deep, using mixed gas and closed-circuit technology. He has been searching for treasure since the age of 21.

His passion for treasure hunting began as a child when he and his father were renovating their ancestral home and Cowles found a 300-year-old coin from 1798. From then on treasure hunting became his passion and career. After college he tried his hand in the music industry, eventually winding up in Key West, Florida. He was also a trained diver and ended up joining Fisher's expedition on one of the biggest treasure finds in history.

Over the years, Cowles also worked as a consultant on several treasure expeditions and became a consultant for Discovery Channels Treasure Quest show for two seasons searching for a possible treasure in the Bolivian mountains at Sacambaya. The legend is that Jesuit Priests buried a vast amount of treasure somewhere in the valley that is estimated to be worth $2 billion.

Cowles’ knowledge led him to become the featured star of the show in the 3^rd season in 2019. “The environment in the Bolivian Mountains is pretty extreme and remote, so the crew had to travel light while still having the necessary tools to identify any possible locations,” said Cowles. Although they used five tools, the main tool was a metal detector that could identify metal deposits underground.

“We also used lightweight Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to look for caverns or empty spaces that could be vaults,” said Cowles. “Any metals we found were then checked with an alloy tester to see the composition of the metal.”

The expedition was stationed at Sacambaya a for six months and made significant finds, but not the motherlode—yet. Season 4 has been put on hold due to the COVID pandemic, but Cowles believes they are close to finding the fabled treasure.

Although treasure hunting is a career, adventure and travel are a way of life for Cowles and his wife, Adele Williams. Originally from Australia, Williams is a motorbike enthusiast whose quest for adventure and travel matches that of her husband and they have traveled extensively including several cross-country trips on their motor bikes. After season 3 ended, they took their dirt bikes on a grand adventure traveling from Key West to Bolivia.

“I figured that this would put us down in Bolivia prior to season 4 and give is a chance to travel, interact with local people along the way and hear their history and legends,” said Cowles. “We are both very interested in hearing people’s stories and culture.”

By the time they reached Bolivia, the pandemic had put the whole world in quarantine and they were stuck in Bolivia for 40 days. They wound up leaving their motorbikes there and flying back to the United States. With their Key West house rented, they hit the road in an RV and traveled America. As they returned to Florida at the end of their trip, they stopped in High Springs.

“We instantly fell in love with this area,” sad Cowles. They were attracted to the friendly people with a small-town attitude of community and the beautiful landscape. “Adele is also into horses so we wound up deciding to stay and buy a farm that also had room to expand to a B&B, said Cowles. The couple still plans to travel, but High Springs has become their home. “I may be a treasure hunter, but this area is a treasure in itself,” Cowles said.

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ALACHUA ‒ There is a new member of the City of Alachua Commission as Ed Potts was sworn in at the April 25 commission meeting. Interim City Manager Mike DaRoza administered the oath of office to both Potts and incumbent Mayor Gib Coerper, who ran unopposed in the April 12 election. Potts beat out opponent Gregory Pelham for seat 2 with 715 votes representing 53 percent of the 1,340 votes cast while Pelham received 625 votes representing 47 percent of the vote.

Commissioner Jennifer Blalock assumes the duties of Vice Mayor as the Commission voted unanimously to appoint her to position. Blalock joined the Commission in 2021 after winning seat 5 in a three-way race.

In other business, the Commission honored Alachua Police Department Officer Zachary Flaherty. On Feb. 25, Flaherty received a call of a medical emergency at the Alachua McDonalds Restaurant. Upon arrival, he found several people gathered around an unconscious man in the restroom. Flaherty recognized the symptoms of a drug overdose as he examined the unconscious man whose breathing was becoming labored and his lips were turning blue.

The man had ingested cocaine that had been laced with fentanyl, a Schedule II controlled substance similar to morphine but about 100 times more potent. Flaherty stabilized the man using Narcan, a prescription medicine used for the treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose. By the time the EMT's arrived the man was beginning to respond and Flaherty was told that his actions saved the man's life.

The Commission presented Flaherty with an award as Alachua Police Department officers applauded from the commission chambers. Flaherty said that what he did was not heroism—he was simply doing his job as any police officer would have done.

The Commission turned their attention to petitions regarding development and land use. Clay Sweger, of EDA Consultants, Inc., agents for JTFA, LLC and Kevin & Shima Carter, property owners, requested amending the Future Land Use Map (FLUM) on a 162.5-acre property from Agriculture to Community Commercial for seven of the acres, a Low-Density Residential designation for 115.5 acres, and Moderate Density Residential for the remaining 40 acres.

The property is located south of the intersection of Northwest U.S. Highway 441 and Northwest 188th Street. The property is undeveloped and is primarily comprised of lands used as a tree farm and planted pine. Low density allows for one dwelling per acre or a potential of 115 new houses while moderate density allows for four dwelling per acre or 160 houses for a potential of 275 new houses along with 4,000-square feet for a neighborhood amenity center and commercial businesses along U.S. Highway 441 frontage.

The Commission approved the FLUM request as well as an accompanying rezoning request on first reading and will consider the matter again at a second and final reading to be scheduled.

The Commission also issued final rezoning approval to a planned development – residential (PD-R) for Fletcher Trace. Ryan Thompson, of CHW, Inc., petitioned on behalf of Waco Properties, Inc. for consideration of rezoning the property from Agricultural to PD-R. This project was previously known as Savannah Station Phase 3, but is now named Fletcher Trace.

The 118.2-acre property is located east of CR 235, north of Northwest 110th Avenue, and south of the Pilot Forest Subdivision. The PD-R zoning permits a maximum of 472 residential units on the property. The development will consist primarily of single family detached structures, but approximately 22.5 percent of the units could be developed as single family attached units, with up to eight units in a single building. The proposed development will be constructed in one or more phases.

The Alachua City Commission next meets on April 9.

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ALACHUA ‒ After a two-year hiatus due to the Covid Pandemic, the Relay For Life Cancer event has returned to Alachua. This year the venue was moved to the new Legacy Park Amphitheater but the dedication of the volunteers and supporters remained unchanged. Despite the hiatus, the event and support of the community came back even larger than before.

Relay for Life is a team fund raising event featuring team members walking around a track. Each event is four to 24 hours in length and each team has a member on the track at all times to signify that cancer never sleeps.

In Alachua, 21 teams and nine sponsors fielded teams and made additional donations or had items for sale including the City of Alachua, Waste Pro, Campus USA, UF Health, Cisco, Santa Fe Kiwanis Club and Santa Fe High School. The school's FFA brought a pig, that based on donations, was to be kissed by a city official.

The concept behind the event is that no one has to fight cancer alone and that the community supports and celebrates the accomplishment and struggles of cancer survivors and caregivers. Many of the runners are survivors or people memorializing loved ones who died of cancer. Every year, Relay events are organized, staffed and coordinated by volunteers in thousands of communities and 27 countries to remember those who have succumbed to the disease, honor the survivors of all cancers, and raise money to help the American Cancer Society make a global impact on disease.

One in three Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. Even if the cancer is defeated or put into remission, the specter of the disease remains, as does the fear it could return. In 2021, there were 1.9 million new cancer cases diagnosed and 608,570 cancer deaths in the United States. That equates to over 1,600 deaths a day.

Although each community puts individual touches to their Relay For Life Event, there is a general format they follow. Each team and sponsors set up a fund-raising tent where people can make donations and sponsor a runner. Some teams also offer items for sale like baked goods, food, stuffed animals or even offer a service people.

After the opening ceremony, the relays begin in a specific order with the first one featuring the cancer survivors walking, The second one features their spouses and caregivers. This year, the third walking team was comprised of police, first responders and military members, several of whom were survivors as well. After that, the teams take to the course as well as the general public.

This year prior to the walk, there was a tribute to Robin True, who had been heavily involved in the previous Relay For Life events. True was a victim of Ovarian Cancer and had fought it for six years until she passed in 2021. Before the first walk, her extended family, friends and supporters gathered before the stage to accept an award from Alachua Mayor Gib Coerper as True’s son played the harmonica in tribute to his mother's life.

The event is always held when the sun sets and darkness falls, representing the darkness of the disease. Bringing honor and remembrance as well as hope, luminaries glow in dedication to cancer victims and survivors. Each luminary carries the name of a survivor or someone who has died of cancer as well as information about that person.

Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society's signature fundraising event that represents the hope that those lost to cancer will never be forgotten, that those who face cancer will be supported, and that one day cancer will be eliminated. Alachua’s Relay for Life at Legacy Park was organized to remember those lost to cancer, celebrate cancer survivorship and to raise money for medical research and programs conducted by the American Cancer Society.

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