INSIDE:
Spotlights on local high school class
valedictorians.
Pages 10-12
QVita has a certain couple smiling!
Pages 16-17
The street food vibe at Taco Bus fits
right in with the Wesley Chapel area.
Pages 24-25
Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News
Address:
29157 Chapel Park Dr., Suite B
Wesley Chapel, FL 33543
Phone: (813) 910-2575
Advertising E-mail:
Ads@NTNeighborhoodNews.com
Editorial E-mail:
EditorialDept@NTNeighborhoodNews.com
Publisher & Editor /Ad Sales
Gary Nager
Managing Editor / Photographer
John C. Cotey
Correspondents
Celeste McLaughlin • Mike Camunas
Lead Video Producer/Multimedia Specialist
Charmaine George
Photography & Videography
Richard Nasrallah • Benjamin Hobe • Amy Stewart
Graphic Designers
Georgia Carmichael • Valerie Wegener
Billing Assistant
Jannah Nager
Nothing that appears in Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News may
be reproduced, whether wholly or in part, without permission. Opinions
expressed by Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News writers are their
own and do not reflect the publisher’s opinion.
The deadline for outside editorial submissions and advertisement
reservations for Volume 28, Issue 10, of Wesley Chapel
Neighborhood News is Monday, April 27, 2020.
Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News will consider previously nonpublished
outside editorial submissions if they are double spaced, typed and
less than 500 words. Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News reserves the right to
edit and/or reject all outside editorial submissions and makes no guarantees
regarding publication dates. Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News will not return
unsolicited editorial materials.
Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News reserves the right to edit
&/or reject any advertising. Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News is
not responsible for errors in advertising beyond the actual cost of
the advertising space itself, nor for the validity of any claims made
by its advertisers.
© 2020 JM2 Communications, Inc.
Why This Issue Is Arriving In Your Mailbox So Late & Other Local Coronavirus News
An editorial by Gary Nager (see page 29 of this issue for a few of them) is
Dear Wesley Chapel
Neighborhood News Readers:
I apologize for the fact
that this April 10 issue of Wesley
Chapel Neighborhood News is
reaching you so much later than
you might have expected, but
there is a good reason for it.
Our printer since 2013
— Newspaper Printing Company (NPC),
located on Lois Ave in Tampa — has received
about a million dollars in paid print bills from the
Neighborhood News over the last seven years. Even
so, they have decided — in the midst of the worst
financial crisis of all of our lifetimes — not to
print or distribute our Apr 10 issue, without any
prior warning, because (go figure) it is taking me
10-15 days longer than what the management at
NPC has decided, as of last week, is acceptable to
them, to pay one older print bill.
In other words, rather than make sure you
— our readers — receive the important news and
information of your community in this issue on
a timely basis, we have had to immediately find
another printing company to print and distribute
this issue. Without being able to print our job
elsewhere, we would not have been able to get
this issue to you at all, much less a week later than
usual, and the Neighborhood News might have to
go out of business altogether.
Obviously, nothing that we’ve done before,
none of the hundreds of thousands of dollars
we’ve paid to NPC over the years, means anything
to that company’s management, so maybe hearing
from as many of you as possible, by phone call or
email, will. The Neighborhood News has never not
paid its print bills and has never gone a month
without paying off two of those older print bills.
NPC is just deciding now to not be willing to
extend any more days of “credit” to a business
that has been paying two print bills per month for
more than 25 years.
To that end, below is the contact information
for NPC. Feel free to call or email ASAP
to let them know how you feel about them
attempting to shut down your primary
source of news and information about your
community at this most desperate time.
Newspaper Printing Company — (813)
839-0035; Ryan DeWeese or Brian Harrison
OK, So Not Really ‘Good’ News...
For those of us who live and/or work in or
near Wesley Chapel, the only tiny bit of “good”
news I can point to at our press time is that all of
the weeks we now have had to mainly stay in our
homes is at least helping us get through what
could have been the worst portion of the Diverging
Diamond Interchange (DDI) construction
off I-75 at S.R. 56 without making life too much
more miserable for us.
In my experience, travel times across I-75
at 56 currently are the shortest they’ve been
since...well, probably ever...because so few of us
are on the roads at any one time. It’s definitely
sad that we aren’t really able to take advantage
of the lowest gas prices I can remember since I
started driving 1,000 years ago, but at least we’re
not usually sitting in the same kind of rush hour
(and even off-peak) traffic as we usually would
because there’s basically no place for us all to go.
And, although the Covid-19 pandemic
now has many of us wearing something to cover
our faces anytime we venture out to the grocery
or drug store (or a local restaurant for takeout),
at least we don’t have to seethe as we sit behind
four progressions of the same light...at least not
as often as we usually do, to get back home.
And, even though a lot of big-name local
businesses have had their openings delayed basically
indefinitely, construction on those projects
still progressing, so we should have a lot of great
Grand Opening events to attend whenever the
coronavirus curve finally starts to flatten — if attending
public events is still a thing post-corona.
Help Us Help You!
As a hyperlocal business that makes most
of its money from other local businesses, there’s
no doubt we’re already seriously feeling the
pinch of this pandemic, too — and have no
idea yet how much worse it’s still going to get.
But, after 26 years of serving only the New
Tampa and Wesley Chapel communities, I have
had to respond to many problems beyond my
control in years past. Even so, I’m more concerned
right now than I ever have been about
not just my business, but our entire way of life.
My promise to the 50 or so businesses that
still saw fit to place an ad in this issue — and the
similar number of businesses that hopefully will
still be able to advertise in our next New Tampa
edition — is that we are going to try to do as
much as we can to continue to support you not
only in print, but on our Facebook page, our
website and our YouTube channel — at no additional
charge, of course.
If you already are or see fit to become a
Neighborhood News advertiser at this grim hour,
anytime your hours change, or you have a special
offer to help keep your business as solvent as
possible, and anytime you make a Facebook post
or send out an email explaining what you are
doing (even if it changes more than once), we
will share it on our website and social media.
We want...no, make that we need...to try
to help you make it through this crisis and yes,
we still need the business, too.
Email ads@ntneighborhoodnews.com
or call (813) 910-2575 for more info.
Neighborhood News @NTWCNews For Advertising Information Call 813-910-2575 • Volume 28, Issue 8 • April 10, 2020 • NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net 3
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