January 7, 2021 | Issue

Inside the Moon Featured Artist A2 Business Briefs A5 Getting Out A7 Barre on the Beach A9 Little Libraries A13 Issue 873 The 27° 37' 0.5952'' N | 97° 13' 21.4068'' W Photo by John Morris Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 January 7, 2021 Weekly www.islandmoon.com FREE Around The State Record Island The Shelves Are Stocked! Ribbonfish By Dale Rankin Opening of Island grocery store imminent Caught in 2021 came in with a bang hereabouts as a view looking OTB on New Laguna Year’s Eve looked like the Battle of Baghdad as celebrants blew off 5.2 Pounds steam by sending fireworks aloft in volumes that would have brought a tear to Prometheus’ eye. We like our fireworks here in the Coastal Bend but the good news this year was that we didn’t have the usual grassfire that follows. So in that sense 2021 came in with a whimper and not with a bang. The Big Bang News this week for those of us here at the Word Factory came in the form of an epiphany while standing in the produce aisle of the soon to open IGA Island Market. The skies opened and the reality set in that we are about to have a grocery store on our little sandbar. We say again…we are about to have a grocery store! Most of the shelves The shelves are stocked, employee training is underway, and the opening of the IGA Market grocery store have been stocked and the butcher on Padre Island is imminent. Angler Jeffrey Mills caught this shop will be stocked in the next few “We just have a couple of things left to do before we can stock the butcher shop and open the doors,” store whopper of a Ribbonfish in the Upper days. The main reason for going owner Lori Rasheed said Tuesday. Laguna Madre this week which in the OTB is about to go away and in that The store was busy with stockers and cashiers in training mid-week as the store ramps up for opening process of being certified as a state regard 2021 will usher in the Age of in the next few days. An exact date can’t be set, Rasheed said, because the store is waiting on a final record by Texas Parks and Wildlife. Island Self Sufficiency. In addition The fish is 44 inches long and Mills the Hard Knocks Sports Bar next approval from city electrical inspectors. By the time the next issue of the Island Moon hits the streets you weighed it in at 5.2 pounds. Mills, door to the IGA opened this week. should be able to pick up a copy at the Island grocery store! More photos on Page A4. who like a true angler declined to say 2021 is looking up. exactly where he caught the fish, was fishing with cut finger mullet for bait. The fish beats the current TPW record New Biplane Makes Appearance for a Ribbonfish (technically listed as a Cutlassfish, Atlantic), which is 50 inches, 4.7 pounds caught in Corpus in Island Skies! Christi Bay on a Bass Assassin lure The Grande Dame II is a slice of aviation history on March 31, 2009. Islanders with their eyes skyward have been asking about the identity of a blue and yellow biplane that has been buzzing around Port Aransas and Padre Island of late. Free debris on Kleberg Beach The plane is a Stearman Model 75 is a biplane formerly used as a military If anyone is looking for marine- trainer aircraft and which is now grade pilings look no further than available for rides at Skydive South Kleberg Beach. Nueces County Texas at Mustang Island Airport in Coastal Parks Director told the Port Aransas. county commissioners Tuesday that he has been concerned about Stearmans were once a staple of the driving hazard due to the large Island skies when at least 10,626 of amount of heavy lumber that washed them were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s and used Hardknocks Sports Bar and Grill up there during high tides in the late next to Island IGA is now open months of 2020. But the good news as a primary trainer for the United is that Islanders have been picking States Army Air Forces, the United for business. up the flotsam and jetsam and using States Navy (as the NS and N2S), and it for home improvement projects. with the Royal Canadian Air Force as Given the price of lumber these days the Kaydet throughout World War II. Flour Bluff ISD hauling it off the beach in Kleberg County is a small price to pay for Plane cont. on A4 Jason Townes poses with the Grande Dame II. Names New marine-grade pilings. Haul it off everybody! Superintendent Winter Texans A little Island history $191,000 salary package The Fate of the Silver Fleet Flour Bluff Independent School District Board of Trustees this week and the March of the 300 officially named The year was 1553 and the Velma Soliz-Garcia as the District’s next Photo by Brent Rourk place was Cuba. The Plata Flota (Silver Fleet) set sail from Superintendent of the New World for Spain with Schools. We’ve been hearing from our Winter its load of precious metals. Soliz-Garcia’s contract is a three- Texans friends many of whom are Noblemen and merchants alike year contract beginning January finding our little sandbar for the first were aboard headed for home; 6, 2021. The contract includes a time. So for our next few issues we their fortunes made in the form $191,000 salary package. of chests bulging with casks of are asking Winter Texans to write us “I am humbled, honored, and silver coins and bars of bullion. with their questions about what to blessed to have this opportunity to The Royal Fifth belonging to the do and where to go during the fight return to FBISD and serve as the King of Spain was also aboard. against Covid. Brent Roark kicks proud Superintendent of Schools,” things off this week with a story The twenty ships of the flotilla said Velma Soliz-Garcia. “I get to about a number of stops Around The that had gathered from across the serve alongside a dedicated Board Island and Around The City. So if our New World in Cuba set out on of Trustees and phenomenal team of visitors will send us their questions their triumphant journey home. an unexpected hurricane swept them The maps of the time called The educators that are laser focused on the we will try to get them answered They headed northeasterly teaching and learning opportunities each week. before its winds and seas, searing Island by different names; Isla de toward the Florida Keys making rigging and pushing them westward. Bayan, Isla Blanco, Isla de Corpus of EVERY child! I am dedicated The weather is holding, the fish are haste due to the hurricane season. Three ships in the vanguard made Christi, Isla de Santiago, Isla de las and committed to serve TOGETHER biting, and it’s a New Year everybody. They had lingered in Cuba only their way back to Cuba but the Malangutas and alternately showed and UNITED on a mission with our Get out there and enjoy all of it and in long enough to take on food remainder were tossed in the storm it as one long unbroken Island and educational community to forge the meantime say hello if you see us and fresh water and now were until only three survived long enough sometimes as two or three Islands ahead through 2021 and beyond Around The Island. barely out of port in Cuba when to wash ashore on Padre Island. to deliver a top-notch educational History cont. on A4 Flour Bluff cont. on A4 January 7, 2021 Island Moon A 2 Featured Island Artist Island the Beautiful Riekie Roncinske: Photographer Island photographer Reikie Roncinske has a gift for capturing unique photos of birds in their natural habitats. She contributes regularly to the Island Moon Living proof that beauty comes in all sizes and shapes ... When you just gotta burp .American White The Little Blue Heron is a stand-and-wait Pelicans must provide roughly 150 pounds predator, rather than a frenetic, dashing- of food to nourish a chick from its birth to about predator. They watch the water for the time it’s ready to forage on its own fish and other small morsels, changing Leonabelle Bird Ctr, Port Aransas, TX locations by walking slowly or by flying to a completely different site. They nest in trees, usually among other nesting herons and wading birds. N Padre Island, TX Little fish, little bird .... Belted Kingfishers spend much of their time perched alone along the edges of streams, lakes, and estuaries, searching for small fish. They also fly quickly up and down rivers and shorelines giving loud rattling calls. They hunt either by plunging directly from a perch, or by hovering over the water, bill downward, before diving after a fish they’ve spotted N Padre Island Hide and Seek Great Egrets are wading birds, closely related to herons with generally long legs, necks, and bills, as well as short tails. Necks that can bend vertically but not Fireworks lit up the sky to celebrate the New Year. Photos by Steve Coons. laterally characterize them. The sixth neck vertebra is especially long, causing the familiar “S” shape to their necks. Port A New Year (Snowy egret hiding) Suter Wildlife Refuge, Corpus Christi,TX By John Michael Flynn Yet we go forth with what we have gained, Stepping strongly through pouring rain, And in this sunset of crimson sky, Open the weary eyes of mine, And give thanks for all truly Divine, Photo by Evelyn Pless-Schuberth.

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