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Pizza Palace closes Riverside store

By Susanna P. Barton The Pizza Palace on Margaret Street quickly and quietly closed last month following news that a national retailer would be taking over the space. Pizza Palace owner Elias Demetree said he is grateful to the Riverside/Avondale area for supporting his store over the years and is “actively looking” for another neighborhood […]

Garden Club presents check to Riverkeeper

Garden Club presents check to Riverkeeper

The Garden Club of Jacksonville planted a little “seed money” with the St. Johns Riverkeeper last month. During their end-of-the-year council meeting last month, Garden Club leaders presented the Riverkeeper with a $1,500 donation. The organization is one of the groups the club supports through civic outreach programs each year.

Children’s chorus headed to Ireland

The Jacksonville Children’s Chorus will be performing in Ireland this June as part of its first international tour. The young singers, many of them local residents, will spend six nights and seven days traveling throughout Ireland. Some of their stops include Dublin, Limerick, the Cliffs of Moher, Kilkenny and Wicklow. The choir will perform with […]

In the Garden: Crape Myrtles — love them, or not?

By Victoria Register Freeman   I have a friend who refers to the twin trees on each side of her Historic District driveway as Crap Myrtles. Her mispronunciation is intended to convey her distain for the multi-trunked trees even though their white blossoms present her with a riotous visual bouquet throughout the summer. I confess, […]

Go Giver: Sander Moody

Go Giver: Sander Moody

By Julie Kerns Garmendia   Sander Moody is a devoted father, husband, attorney and volunteer who relocated to Jacksonville from a successful law practice in New York City in 1998 when he and his physician wife, Laura, were ready to start their family. The couple chose an Avondale Tudor style home that had been remodeled […]

Go Giver: George Foote

Go Giver: George Foote

By Julie Kerns Garmendia   George Foote is the kind of dad and volunteer who can motivate an extremely busy middle school principal to alert the community newspaper that he should be recognized for exceptional contributions to Julia Landon College Preparatory and Leadership Development School in San Marco. Foote and his wife Michele, a senior […]

The Way We Were: Eleanor Ashby

The Way We Were: Eleanor Ashby

By Victoria Register-Freeman   The seed that blossomed into Eleanor Johnson Ashby’s love for history just might have been planted one day at the Jacksonville Terminal, a site know today as the Prime Osborne Convention Center. Wearing a yellow handkerchief linen dress sewn by her mother Imogene, a six year old Eleanor handed a bouquet […]

The Way We Were: Betty Sterling

The Way We Were: Betty Sterling

  By Laura Jane Pittman   When Betty Sterling and her husband Stu were looking to move from Memphis, TN in 1972 after Stu retired from being a Captain in the Navy, they had a wealth of familiar choices. The couple had lived in several U.S. mainland states, as well as more exotic locales such […]