Business News and trends.
By Geoff Fox APOLLO BEACH – Christopher Akel was busy analyzing data on a web site he recently created for a merchant services company in Georgia. A 42-year-old Long Island, New York, native Akel started Razor Digital last year. The company mostly builds, manages, maintains…
Read More Apollo Beach web designer offers services up and down East Coast
By PAUL CATALA Toni Armstrong has had the roughly century-old treadle sewing machine ever since she was a teenager in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Although Armstrong, of Apollo Beach, hasn’t used the sewing machine – mounted on a veneer cherry wood table – in decades, she…
Read More A Veterans Crafty Retirement
By Geoff Fox Daniel Cyral is helping make the world smoke-free – one smoker at a time. Cyral is a hypnotist, and he is aware that not everyone believes in the benefits a hypnotist can offer. “Whenever I get people who tell me they don’t…
Read More Hypnotist Daniel Cyral looks to save smokers and help U.S. veterans
By Geoff Fox RIVERVIEW – The clubhouse in the sprawling South Pointe community was full of chatter, paint, some wine, and an assortment of small ceramic Christmas trees. A group of more than 20 people, mostly women, had gathered for a Hammer & Stain workshop…
Read More Hammer & Stain offers a creative outlet for crafty locals
By Yvette C. Hammett APOLLO BEACH – As an active Navy man, Michael Ball had little time to connect with his community, get to know the people that keep the wheels turning or get involved in events that bring people together. Now that he has…
Read More Retired Veteran Goes All in for the Apollo Beach Community
By Yvette C. Hammett Anne Via Myers’ mother framed her first piece of art – a bowl of fruit Myers had colored, complete with highlighted shading on the grapes. She was three years old. “I have been drawing my whole life,” the Riverview portrait artist…
Read More Riverview Artist Had an Eye for Art Since Childhood
By PAUL CATALA Since 1961, something fishy has been going on at this Gibsonton business. On about five acres off Big Bend Road, tens of thousands of fish are kept in tanks before they are sent to more permanent housing in aquariums around the world.…
Read More Gibsonton’s Segrest Farms has provided an array of fish species for homeowners, public aquariums
BY GEOFF FOX APOLLO BEACH – Jill Scott shook her head and laughed softly as Zelda, a 5-year-old tuxedo cat, splayed herself horizontally near the cash register at Bark & Purr Persnickety Emporium and began licking her paws. Scott scratched Zelda’s head and the two…
Read More Bark & Purr owner promotes healthy pet care, economic development
By GEOFF FOX APOLLO BEACH – There was a multi-colored, psychedelic-looking upright piano on one side of The Vibe Music Store’s front door. On the other side were a pair of electric guitars, both custom-painted to look like instruments straight out of the 1960s. Doti…
Read More At The Vibe Music Store, everything’s laid back and sounding sweet
By RICK MAYER APOLLO BEACH − Shelly Molter says her South Shore Boutique specializes in personalization. The stylish clothing and gift shop includes a three-letter embroidered monogram in the price of purchases. “Just about everything in here can be monogrammed,” says Molter. “It’s all done…
Read More South Shore Boutique’s personalization takes flight with monograms, service