Inside the Moon Rock the Dog A2 Moon on a Spoon A7 Traveling Moon A9 Live Music A18 Issue 679 The Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 April 20, 2017 Weekly FREE Photo by Bruce Bair Around The 10th year running! Island Island Eggstravaganza! Seashore Middle By Dale Rankin They lined up behind the tape by the Academy thousands before noon on Saturday, baskets in hand ready to harvest Students the eggs and goodies that taunted them from the short grass. With a Advance to blast from the siren of Constable Bobby Sherwood’s patrol car – the State in Science only thing missing was a booming voice saying, “Gentlemen, start your Olympiad children!” and they were off…the By Avica Burrill Great Annual Island Easter Egg Hunt Student Reporter at Billish Park was underway. This weekend, a team of Seashore With Easter in the rearview it’s now Middle Academy students will once safe to wear white pants and break again head to College Station to out the seersucker jackets and jump represent our region at the Texas back in the pool without feeling like State Science Olympiad. a polar bear. We’ve hit the sweet spot of the Island calendar and life is good SMA has been open 10 years, and on our little sandbar. every year the school has advanced to the state competition. However, The Trula B. has left The Island when it comes to Science Olympiad, SMA does not have the advantage. The other competing schools have ...and they're off! By Brent Rourk dogs and cotton candy, face painting, groups, dashed to their favorite a visit with the Easter Bunny spots and began to fill their baskets They gathered around the barriers at (surprisingly large and soft spoken), with eggs, hoping for the special Don and Sandy Billish Park Saturday socializing with their friends, and for numbered eggs that would give the We’ve had questions about what waiting for the horn that would the grand finale the annual Easter Egg ‘finder’ a special gift. happened to the beautiful blue signal the start of the 20th Annual Hunt. and white boat that has been an Island Easter Egg Hunt and affiliated The older kids ran and collected in Island landmark alongside the JFK festivities. Families turned out to The expansive park grass did not record time, clearing their section Causeway for about two decades. It enjoy what some might call an egg hide the eggs but rather by virtue of of the field in what seemed like a is named the Trula B and belonged hunt but others more appropriately its short height and contrasting green minute. They swarmed the field Three-year Science Olympiad to Islander Norm Baker but has now term an egg gathering since there was color made the eggs quite visible leaving it bare in no time, like a veteran Marlena Osgood shows set a course for Tampa Bay where no place for the eggs to hide in the to eager youths who clutched their swarm of grasshoppers devastating 5th grader Alex Smith a paper it will be a charter. A number of we thin ground cover at the park. Easter baskets and waited somewhat a tender crop - in this case a crop of chromatography test. Islanders have celebrated big days on patiently for the high noon siren Easter Eggs. Younger kids still ran the Trula B over the years, marriages, Lots of Activities to liberate them from the plastic but took longer to clear their sections, sprinkling of ashes at sea, birthdays, Whatever the name, it was another restraining strips set up to mark the taking perhaps two minutes, while and even a few divorces. great hit for kids who enjoyed the starting line. the toddlers and their parents took their time. Little tykes stopped, bent The new owners brought in the Pros resident park playground equipment, Kids, along with a sizable smattering from Destin to deliver the boat to several children’s rides and slides, hot of accompanying parents in all age Eggs cont. on A2 Florida but they encountered many difficulties including overheating the engine, running out of fuel in one SandFest 2017 Hearing on Zoning Variance for engine near Lake Pontchartrain , and getting lost in the Lydia Ann Channel. This Weekend Portion of Schlitterbahn Property We told Norm that the crack Moon Boat Captain Team could have done How do they do Set for Wednesday all that and probably run it aground at no extra charge! that?! How to get Special ISAC meeting Monday So long Trula B, you will be missed. there As we went to press Wednesday The land in question is zoned CR-2 Packery Channel restrooms and Dale Rankin afternoon we received word there will Commercial Resort District and is the be a public hearing before the city’s site of a portion of the golf course. showers approved Board of Adjustment next week on The residential land to the west of 7th grader Ashton Haney and The Corpus Christi City Council a petition by Upper Padre Partners. the property, along Dasmarinas Dr. partner Davis Spivey won first on Tuesday approved $422,000 for L.P. the owners of the Schlitterbahn is residential and zoned RS-6 Single place at the regional event. portable air-conditioned restrooms waterpark and surrounding land to Family. Seashore cont. on A4 and showers for the beach on both “consider a “variance to eliminate City officials said late Wednesday sides of Packery Channel. Funds for the zoning district buffer yard they are unsure of the exact Early Voting the project will come from the Island requirement between the “CR-2” scope and nature of the request. Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Commercial Resort District and the The hearing will be in City Council Starts Monday, #2. City staff said earlier this month When the 300,000-plus visitors “RS-6” Single-Family 6 District on Chambers at City Hall, at 1:30 p.m., the restrooms, which will be on skids descend on Port Aransas this the property described below: Wednesday, April 26. April 24 so they can be removed in case of an weekend for SandFest 2017 at some Island Fairway Estates, Lot 27C, After learning of the request Voting in the May 6 Special Election approaching storm, should be in place point in the event they will turn to the located along the west side of late Wednesday Libby Edwards, for Mayor of Corpus Christi will for the summer season 2017. It only person next to them and say, “How do Compass Street, west of Park Road Chairperson of the Island Strategic begin Monday, April 24. took fourteen years to get done, but they do that?” 22, south of Commodores Drive, and would never have happened without Action Committee said she will The artists who work in beach sand north of Whitecap Boulevard.” call a special meeting of the ISAC On The Island ballots can be cast at the persistence of the Island Strategic Schlitterbahn from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. Action Committee which over the pile up and carve sand in ways that (See the complete notice on A4). Committee at 5:30 p.m. Monday, often seem to defy gravity. So what April 24, at the Veranda to discuss the through Friday, and on Saturday course of the last six years reduced April 29th from 8 a.m.- 5 p.m., May the cost from $3 million to under half is the process and how do they get it request. That meeting will be open to to stay put? BIG Beach the public. 1st and 2nd 7:00 a.m. — 7 p.m., and a million. on Election Day, Saturday, May 6 7 No more sweating it out in the First it is the sand. The fine sand on Clean-Up If there are changes in the a.m. – 7 p.m. portable sweatboxes or heading for area beaches that finds its way down meeting time or site we will This Saturday! post them on our Facebook page Voters do not have to vote in the the dunes. We have entered the era of See Page A7 For Details! indoor plumbing everybody! SandFest cont. on A4 theislandmoonnewspaper. Voting cont. on A4 KIII Island Report A little Island history Every Wednesday, the Island Moon Newspaper and KIII television will team up to produce a weekly Island Packery Channel Jetties Report featuring stories about all After our story a few weeks back events, the channel cut through what things Island. The first story is about about plans to put air conditioned is now Lake Padre and emptied into the artists that make SandFest in Port restrooms around Packery Channel the Gulf of Mexico at the end of Aransas this weekend come to life. we got several inquiries about the where Whitecap is now located. The The Island Report is scheduled to air history of the channel and when it area where the seawall is now located each Thursday at 10 p.m. on KIII. If was opened. was a separate Island often referred to on early maps as The Middle Ground. you have a story or person on The The channel separates Mustang Island you think would make a good Island on the north to Padre Island With the dredging of the Corpus subject for the series please let us on the south. The channel gets its Christi Ship Channel in the 1920s know at [email protected]. name from a meatpacking plant water flow through Packery Channel Don’t forget the big beach cleanup which was located along its shores was reduced and over the years this weekend and get out there and in the 1870s.