School children on Fort Myers Beach are anxious to reach the end of the current school year and get busy with fun, summertime activities. None are more excited than the outgoing fifth graders at Fort Myers Beach Elementary, who graduate May 24th and prepare for the transition to middle school.

Summer Johnson, a Fort Myers Beach fifth grader, is headed next school year to Lexington Middle School, 16351 Summerlin Road, along with many of her classmates. She chose Lexington because it's a "nice school” and her friends are going there. Johnson looks most forward to making new friends at the off-island school located closest to the beach. Before attending her first classes there, she plans to travel to Canada and Puerto Rico to visit family.

Johnson's classmate, Allison Graeber-Witt, is also headed to Lexington, where both her brother and sister attended. She said her siblings had a good experience there and she likes the middle school's "sports focus.” Graeber-Witt looks forward to "meeting new people and playing volleyball, soccer and track.” She has travel plans over the summer break to include a one or two-week trip to New York. Her summer plans include Vacation Bible School at a church near Iona, as well. Read more...

Stars Align For Film Festival
Caption: "Crackers” was the People's Choice winner,
Best Short and Star Acheivement award went to Sal
Richards (center). With Sal are Doug
and Greg Principato

Nearly 12 months of hard work and planning paid off last weekend as the 6th Annual Fort Myers Beach Film Festival was a huge success - receiving coverage on a national level and, despite returning from a five-year hiatus, achieving the best opening day in the history of the festival, according to Chairman Mark List. "All the events were well attended and the theaters were mostly full - with some of them being standing room only, ” he said. "We are still receiving cards, letters, emails, Twitter – all kinds of responses. The filmmakers all had a great time and said they were treated like royalty.”

The Sand Paper obtained copies of several of those responses and they definitely show the level of excitement felt by those who attended the festival. Read more...

Judah on Seafarers

Many of our readers have been wondering what is going on with the site where Seafarer's Mall used to sit. Most are aware that, a couple of years ago, the County Commission used Tourist Development Council (TDC) money to purchase both that property and the land that is now Crescent Beach Family Park and that the county decided to tear down the Mall building with the idea of turning the site into a parking lot. Since then nothing has happened and that has a lot of folks wondering why. Late Wednesday afternoon, the Sand Paper was invited to sit down with Commissioner Ray Judah, who explained the county's plans for the property both now and in the future.

"I want to alleviate everyone's concerns that this property will add to the traffic problem on Estero, " Judah began. "And, first and foremost, I want to say that we plan to discuss all of this work with the Town Council as well as the local merchants in the area and get their input before we do anything."

Judah then gave a brief background of how the county had gained ownership of the site, explaining that, when they initially approached the seller about acquiring the beach property they were informed that the two properties were a package deal and that the county must buy them both. Read more...

As the buzz of the season winds down to a close, the buzz about the Fort Myers Beach Film Festival is kicking into high gear. With less than one week before the first film is shown, organizers of the Fort Myers Beach Film Festival learned that yet another World Premiere film will flicker across the screens at Beach Theater next weekend – 'Crackers'. Directed by Gregory Principato, 'Crackers' stars Film Coordinator Elizabeth D'Onofrio's brother, Vincent – who will hopefully make an appearance at this year's festival. The film will screen on the same ticket as a film that Elizabeth has a big role in, 'Slice' – so folks can see both films on Saturday at 9pm.

The Sand Paper also spoke with the director of another World Premiere film, 'The Descending' – Kyle Thompson - who actually lived on our island as a child, and he told us a little bit about how he got into filmmaking.

"My dad still lives in Fort Myers, and my brother was born there, ” Kyle said. "When my folks got divorced we moved up north, where I went to a performing arts high school in New Jersey.” Read more...