Bill Caplinger and Paula Montgomery participated in the Escambia County School District “Raise the Bar” program on Saturday, January 18. The program is a day-long education event for teachers. Paula and Bill, both members of the League of Women Voters, participated with other LWV members in a skit written and presented by the League and designed to teach 5th Grade students about the XIX Amendment. The amendment became part of the US Constitution 100 years ago, in 1920, giving women the right to vote. Following the skit, each cast member gave a lecture explaining one of the amendments having to do with voting. Among them: the 13th (emancipation), 15th (black men can vote), 19th (women can vote), 24th (poll tax is illegal), and 26th (18-year-olds can vote). Adds Paula, “And we threw in a little plug for the ERA.”
Kate and Jack Wolverton recently admired the novel construction of banyan trees in south Florida, then “jammed” along with 35 bands and audiences on the Jam Cruise, touring from Miami to Ocean City in the Bahamas and Costa Maya, Mexico – a 10-day January excursion. Says Kate, “Mostly the jam cruise was about the music,” – a passion for UU drummer Jack, “nurtured by the music.”
The 35 bands played virtually nonstop, on the deck, auditorium, and in several bars on the ship, Kate reports. The travelers first spent four days in the Miami area, visiting with friends – four of whom joined them on the cruise – and touring the Everglades. Kate was particularly fascinated by the way the banyan trees grow, noting the trees send roots down from their branches, which then wind closer together creating a bark around the trunk.
Among highlights of the cruise’s stops: a visit to Mahahual, a town close to Costa Maya, where “a massage on the beach there was incredible” says Kate, who also admits “we did try some of the tequila.” The best of all for the couple, however, was the concert by classically trained pianist Holly Bowling and the memories it renewed. Jack and Kate had enjoyed her music once before – at a Kaiser auditorium concert in California in 1987, which is where, and when, they met.
~ Charlotte Crane