ST. LUCIE COUNTY — With the swoop of a small plane carrying County Commission Chairwoman Paula Lewis and the splash of water cannons from fire trucks, St. Lucie County International Airport will christen its new 4,000-foot runway on Thursday.

The $15.3 million runway is about 2,500 feet northwest of the existing pair of runways. It has been under construction for more than a year.

“We had a lot to do,” Lewis said. “We moved power lines, we acquired a piece of property for light of sight from the control tower, and I’m excited that it’s finally finished.”
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VERO BEACH — Jury selection begins Monday in the DUI trial of Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird and prosecutors will get to use key evidence the defense wanted excluded.

County Judge David Morgan refused defense attorney Bobby Guttridge’s request Wednesday to toss out the May 16 arrest, which the attorney said was based on an invalid stop. (more…)

STUART — Three people were attacked by a swarm of bees on Monday that came from a hive about the size of a car engine.

“I have never experienced anything like this before in my life,” said Kendall Todd, owner of Affordable Pressure Cleaning in Palm City.

Todd and his brother were pressure cleaning Becky Engebretsen’s driveway in the 1800 block of Northwest River Point Drive, when they first started noticing some bees. After spraying the bees with water, more continued to show up until finally they were forced to take off on foot.
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Theresa Caputo of Stuart, in black, hugs another woman Wednesday at the scene of a memorial that was built along Cove Road near Stuart. Caputo, a mother of three, said her children all knew and grew up with those killed. (DEBORAH SILVER/Treasure Coast Newspapers)

A few teenagers in board shorts and T-shirts lifted their sunglasses just long enough to wipe away their tears and hug one another in the grass along Cove Road Wednesday afternoon as they stood above a swelling memorial site.

Amid her tears, a mother bent down, reached through the letters, flowers and mementos and clutched a golf ball in her hand.

Angela Coady said she knew one of her son Nick’s friends had put it there intending for it to stay, but when she saw it she decided she had to take it with her.

“The last time I saw him he was going to play golf. He was happy as a lark,” she said. “The next time I saw him, he was dead.”

Nick Coady, 18, and his friends — Christopher Harold Briglio, 18, and Connor William Graver, 16, — were all killed early Tuesday when the Jeep Grand Cherokee that Coady was driving slammed into the back of a John Deere truck and overturned.

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FORT PIERCE — It’s common to do it to pets and boats.

But cars?

If your 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda is nothing short of divine, you may want to submit it to the Blessing of the Cars as part of their 10:30 Sunday morning worship service. You could bring your Smart Car, too.

Saints Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Church at 1002 Bahama Avenue is inviting residents to the event.

The car blessing will commemorate the Feast of the Prophet Elijah.

“Tradition relates that Elijah was carried up to Heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 1:12),’’ the pastor, Fr. Michael J. Sopoliga, wrote.

Byzantine Catholics are among the 23 “Churches” within the Catholic Church, officials said.

The Byzantine Catholic Church in Fort Pierce celebrates the 4th Century Eucharistic Liturgy of the early Christians. The church’s Slavic kitchen also is known for great pierogies and stuffed cabbage.

So anoint your engine with 10-W-40 if it needs it and visit www.byzcath.org/fortpierce, or call (772) 595-1021, for more information.

By Matt Prichard, TCPalm.com

MARTIN COUNTY — Work on the north jetty at the St. Lucie Inlet is on schedule and should be completed sometime around Aug. 1, Martin County coastal engineer Kathy Fitzpatrick said Wednesday.

“It’s going great,” Fitzpatrick said, adding the project is about 75 percent finished.

Work began in April, but high seas and rough weather that month delayed the $7.3 million project and no real progress was made until May. The $1.2 million local share of the cost is being split between Martin County and the Florida Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems.

The base of the stone jetty is being expanded by 14 feet and the jetty is being raised to 8 feet above the average low-tide depth. Almost 13,000 tons of rock is being laid in three layers and concrete pilings are being installed at the end of the new jetty and the end of the detached breakwater nearby.

The pilings will support lights to mark the navigation channel, which runs between the north jetty and the breakwater.

It will be the first time the channel through the broad inlet will be marked for boaters returning from sea.

“We’re very happy,” Fitzpatrick said. “I imagine there are people who avoid this inlet if they are coming in after dark and before dawn.”

With the new jetty to reduce storm waves and lights to guide boaters in, the inlet will be a much safer place, she said. Boaters will have a clear indication of where they need to be to stay in the channel and out of trouble.

Martin County ran into federal permitting hurdles when it tried to light the channel, Fitzpatrick said, so when the Army Corps of Engineers was contracting out the jetty work, the county asked to have the light pilings included in the contract. The corps, a federal agency, did not have the permitting problems the county ran into, she said, and the pilings are going in.
By Jan Lindsey, TCPalm.com