Optimist Club Youth Appreciation event
The Plant City Optimist Club hosted its annual Youth Appreciation event and awards ceremony on Monday night.
Eight Plant City High School students were recognized at the banquet, which was held at the Recreation & Parks Department’s administrative office. Will Alecock, Carley Cotnoir, Kyle Hamilton, Simran Kumar, Zamir’ Knighten, Hannah Manley, Danny Ramirez and Taryn Storter were honored for their achievements in athletics, academics and community service.
The Optimists also donated $500 toward the PCHS Senior Awards Ceremony, which will be held in Spring 2020.
Krazy Kup celebrates six years
Rough weather overnight Oct. 18 couldn’t stop Krazy Kup from celebrating its sixth birthday the following afternoon.
The coffee house, located at 101 E. J. Arden Mays Blvd., invited Plant City to come celebrate from 2:33 to 10:33 p.m. that day for free family-friendly fun. Guests could get their faces painted, take home all kinds of balloon art, laugh and be wowed by nationally-recognized magician Luis Campaneria’s show, compete in two rounds of Halloween-themed trivia led by Kameron Athey and, of course, enjoy the coffee house’s signature drinks and ice creams.
“It was exciting to see so many families engaged and to listen to the rollicking laughter of all those youngsters,” owner Frank Trunzo said.
PCHS band raising money for Carnegie Hall performance
Plant City High School’s band nearly made it to one of the grandest stages of them all — Carnegie Hall — in 2017. It couldn’t meet the high price tag back then, so now that the band has been accepted back onto the stage, it wants to make sure the kids won’t miss out on that opportunity again.
The band is looking for the community’s help to get 55 performers to New York City from April 9-12, 2020, for the National Band and Orchestra Festival — and that won’t come cheap. Director Joshua Blair estimates the four-day trip will come with a four-figure cost for each student, which works out to an estimated total cost of nearly $112,000 for the entire group. That includes miscellaneous travel and sightseeing fees ($1,650 per student), tuxedos and formal dresses (around $4,500 total) and food (roughly $75 per student per day). Blair estimates that the trip is nearly halfway to being paid for, but that there’s still a long ways to go.
“Nine students are struggling to be able to afford to go and we’re trying to find as many sponsorships as we can to help these students out,” he said. “Clubs and teachers at the school have been pitching in, and the community has pitched in.”
If you can name a fundraising activity, the PCHS band has probably done it by now. It just wrapped up an email and social media campaign that generated around $9,400, is finishing chocolate bar sales now and planning to sell cookie dough next month. The band has already sold t-shirts and discount cards. It’s also getting some help from the chorus and orchestra, as donation booths will be present at the three groups’ joint Veterans Day Concert (7 p.m. Nov. 12) and Winter Concert (7 p.m. Dec. 10). HteaO, the Lakeland iced tea store owned by PCHS principal Susan Sullivan and her husband David Sullivan, is donating part of the proceeds from tea sales at last week’s PCHS football game.
Bands like Plant City’s send audition tapes to the National Band and Orchestra Festival every year and, if approved, are able to book performance time at Carnegie Hall if they’re able to come up with the money for it. Blair said that while the band’s setlist hasn’t been completely set in stone yet, it will close its performance with the wind symphony “Give Us This Day” by David Maslanka.
The Plant City High School Music Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Anyone wishing to make a donation independently of participating in one of the band’s fundraising events or looking for more information can contact Blair at joshua.blair@sdhc.k12.fl.us.