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W E D N E S DAY, N O V. 2 7 , 2 0 1 3
Proceeds from Nautical Market and Craft Show to aid waterway
~ Indian River County
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It’s theVero
perfect pairing:
a
By Lisa Rymer
The Newsweekly
holiday shopping event and an
effort to save the Indian River
Lagoon.
On Dec. 14 and 15, the Rotary
Club of Vero Beach will host the
Nautical Market and Craft Show
at Riverside Park featuring 150
vendors and Florida artisans.
A crowd upward of 6,000 is
expected to attend the two-day
happening under the oaks.
This is the fourth year the
Rotary Club has held the Nautical Market. A new addition this
year is the Craft Show, which
organizers hope will draw even
more visitors.
Proceeds from the event will
help support the Rotary Initiative for Submerged Seagrass
Awareness (RISSA) and the
Oyster Bed Project.
“We have vendors from the
Keys and Miami, everything
boat related,” said club member
Paul Tripaldi, president elect.
“We have visited some of the
state’s largest craft and antique
shows to bring those vendors
here.”
Attendees can expect to find
wholesale dive gear, fishing gear,
kayaks, long boards, outdoor
furniture, outdoor lighting fixtures, dock builders, clothing,
special sunglasses and a wide
assortment of handmade arts
and crafts – including jewelry.
“If we don’t have it there, it
doesn’t exist, said Tripaldi. “And
the pricing is unbelievable.”
“If you’re looking for
Photos provided
Revving up for a fundraiser combining awesome holiday shopping with saving the lagoon are Rotary Club of Vero Beach board and
committee members (front): John Meikle, president; Trish Scattergood, secretary; Kathy Sullivan, vice president; Rip Tosun, past president;
(back) Paul Tripaldi, president elect; Don Bell; Billy Chavers; Brian Fredericks; Daniel Fourmont; Ron Forman and Larry Parks.
something special either for
yourself or as a gift for someone
else this Christmas, the Nautical
Market and Craft Show is something you don’t want to miss,”
said club member and Realtor
Opey Angelone, event co-chair
with CPA Billy Colton.
Last year, the club donated
$7,000 from the Nautical Market to the seagrass initiative, a
joint effort of the Sunrise and
Vero Beach Rotary clubs and
Indian River County government to protect a 440-acre submerged grassflat in the lagoon
just south of The Moorings.
“It’s a breeding ground for fish
that can be destroyed by boat
propellers or the bottoms of
boats,” said John Meikle, Rotary
Club of Vero Beach president.
“It’s very shallow there and the
seagrass doesn’t grow back,”
Local architect and charter fishing boat captain Paul
Dritenbas, a member of the
Sunrise Rotary Club, spearheaded the effort several years
ago in response to the tremendous loss of seagrass from the
lagoon.
It’s estimated that 70,000 acres
of seagrass along the Indian
River have been destroyed from
algae blooms blocking sunlight
necessary for seagrass survival
at an economic impact of $1.2
billion. The Moorings Flat is
the largest remaining tract of
seagrass.
With community support and
the required permits, which
took years to obtain, Dritenbas
was able to place cautionary
buoys around the perimeter of
the grassflat in October warning
boaters of its presence.
Now, a project creating oyster
beds to help filtrate pollutants
and algae from the lagoon as
Story continues on 3
Sebastian actress a star on Treasure Coast
By Lisa Rymer
The Newsweekly
Who says you have to move
to Hollywood to make it in the
movies?
Angela Di Pasquo of Sebastian
is doing just that right here on
the Treasure Coast. The 21-yearold actress/singer has been cast
in her second locally produced
horror flick, “Petrified,” which
is scheduled to start filming in
January.
Based on the legend of the
devil’s tree in Port St. Lucie’s
Oak Hammock Park, the story
is a fictionalized account of
a real-life serial killer and the
events in the aftermath of his
conviction.
In the early 1970s, Gerard
John Schaefer, a Martin County
sheriff ’s deputy, used his badge
to lure young women to an old
oak tree in a remote wooded
area of Port St. Lucie. There, he
raped and murdered at least two
teenage girls, burying their bodies in a shallow grave at the base
of the tree.
Schaefer was convicted and
received two life sentences, but
there was evidence he killed
many more women, some of
whose belongings were found
among Schaefer’s possessions.
In the mid ‘90s, he was stabbed
to death by a cellmate. The tree
became a legendary symbol of
fear, generating stories of supernatural occurrences and weird
coincidences.
“It’s Florida, there’s always
crazy things happening,” says Di
Pasquo, who decided to be an
actress during her high school
years in home school.
After appearing in “My Fair
Photo by Lisa Rymer
Angela Di Pasquo and her grandfather Vincent Di Pasquo share creative interests, longterm goals
and a special bond.
Lady” with the Vero Beach Theatre Guild, she earned an associate’s degree in theater from
Indian River State College,
where she was cast in the play
“Steel Magnolias.”
Di Pasquo learned about
auditions for “Rescue Me,” on
www.craigslist.org.
“I took her to the audition to
make sure she was okay,” said
Vincent Di Pasquo, Angela’s
83-year-old grandfather who
lives nearby in Sebastian.
He also drove her to the audition for “Rescue Me,” another
horror genre film produced
in Saint Lucie County which
Angela learned about on Craigslist. That movie is currently in
post-production and may have
found a studio interested in
distribution.
In fact, Craigslist has resulted
in a trifecta for Angela, whose
first (and only) paid job for a
rehabilitation center’s television
commercial was found on the
website. Vincent accompanied
her to that audition too.
“Ninety five percent of the
Craigslist film stuff are scams –
they’re not okay,” warns Angela.
“You can tell how they’re written,
if there’s a lot of sexual stuff, they
want money from you. You have
to research the people posting
the ads; you can find legit things
if you’re savvy.”
She inherited her street smarts
from her grandfather along
with at least a portion of her
talent. The pair seems almost
inseparable. Vincent writes
lyrics, Angela sings them and
a visiting cousin from California produces the music videos,
sometimes posting the performances on You Tube.
“It’s a whole family affair,” says
Angela.
A retired chemist from Philadelphia, Vincent graduated
from college at the age of 50
after attending 12 years of night
school.
“I had two kids graduating
from high school at the same
time,” says the father of four. “It
was a triple graduation.”
Nowadays, in addition to
song lyrics, some of them quite
humorous, he writes poetry and
short stories. “A Baseball Tale”
was narrated by Angela on CD.
“I’m not good a public speaking,” says Vincent.
Angela has a home recording
studio -- “it’s not sophisticated,”
she says -- where she works until
the pre-dawn hours on various
projects.
Between creative endeavors, Angela is employed by a
company that gives out product samples at Publix. Vincent
and his wife of 64 years, Nancy
Di Pasquo, come to every job
assignment and take Angela to
lunch on her break.
“She’s like a daughter to me,”
says Vincent.
“I like old people,” says Angela,
whose current boyfriend, Joe
Leon, is much older. A professional actor from New York, the
couple met on the set of “Rescue
Me” and has since collaborated
on several projects, including
the website www.MayDecemberSociety.com.
Angela’s a pretty brave young
woman all around.
“I do all my own stunts. I’ve
even gotten punched in the face,”
she says about filming “Rescue
Me,” the story of two girls who
Story continues on 4