Jennifer's Journey
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Championship: Kentucky, UConn battle for NCAA title /B1 TUESDAY TODAY CITRUS COUNTY & next morning HIGH 74 Morning showers LOW and storms. Windy, cooler. 54 PAGE A4 www.chronicleonline.com APRIL 8, 2014 Florida’s Best Community Newspaper Serving Florida’s Best Community 50¢ VOL. 119 ISSUE 244 Energy complex reuses coal ash PAT FAHERTY A coal ash spill into a North Car- plants across the U.S.” The ash is regarding its coal plants and ash Staff writer olina river in February put the util- stored in landfills or ponds. basins, including Crystal River. ity in the spotlight, prompting calls Earlier, Duke had announced it According to the report Duke has While the problem of coal ash for tougher federal standards on would do an internal review of two active coal ash basins totaling 41 storage has become a national issue storing and handling the byproduct. every company ash basin and en- acres at its complex in northwest for Duke Energy, 100 percent of the Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good ad- gage independent engineers to as- Citrus County, plus one inactive byproduct produced by the Crystal dressed the issue in a speech last sess all of them. The work is basin and one semi-active basin, River Energy Complex is reused. week posted on YouTube. expected to be completed by May 31 which no longer receives coal ash. Byproducts from the coal plant “We have been storing ash for and will include Florida. Monday, Duke spokesman Lynn Good that supply two area electric coop- nine decades,” she said. “There are Last week, Duke filed with the Se- Duke eratives are reused. 650 ash basins at utility power curities and Exchange Commission See DUKE/ Page A5 Energy CEO. Jennifer’s journey Loss of leg doesn’t Betty deter Homosassa woman Berger: Editor’s note: April is Na- tional Limb Loss Awareness Local icon Month, according to amputee- coalition.org. The Chronicle sat NANCY KENNEDY down with Homosassa resident Jennifer Lamanda, who re- Staff writer cently lost her left leg to a form INGLIS — Once Betty Berger, of muscular dystrophy. who was in her 80s at the time, took a trip to South Africa with her ERYN WORTHINGTON friend, Pat Kittleman. Staff writer Berger decided she wanted to go to the top of Table HOMOSASSA — Imagine Mountain, 10,000 waking up one morning and not feet in elevation — feeling a thing. Your heart be- and she did. gins to race as you try to shift She told her your legs to get up, but numb- much younger ness overtakes your body from friend, “I didn’t the waist down. come all this way That’s when you realize that not to go to the something is horribly wrong. top.” Betty Berger Pregnant and in her 20s at That was Betty the time, this scenario was re- Berger: fierce, died Saturday. ality for 33-year-old Jennifer fearless and strong-willed, curi- Lamanda. ous, adventurous and unstoppable. “They put me in the hospital Longtime Inglis resident Sarah and ran all of these tests,” she “Betty” Berger died Saturday, recalled. “They thought it was a April 5. She was 96. virus, but I ended up getting it Larry Feldhusen, acting mayor again three more times.” of Yankeetown, called her an icon Doctor’s knew her condition in the community. was more serious; however, “She was a tough little lady and they were mystified until the independent as heck,” he said. same scenario struck her son He noted her passion for the Cole. environment. “He woke up and was para- “Whenever she saw a change lyzed on one side,” Jennifer coming that wasn’t in keeping with said. “I brought him to the hos- the preservation of natural re- pital. That’s when my grand- sources, she gave generously of mother told my mother that her time and effort to try and do there was a disease that runs in the right thing.” the family called CPT (Charcot- Environmental activist Helen Marie-Tooth), which is a form of Spivey knew her as a good friend muscular dystrophy.” and “companion in the battle,” such Jennifer described it as a as the battle Berger waged for hereditary, debilitating, pro- MATTHEW BECK/Chronicle nearly a decade with the Federal gressive nerve disease that Jennifer Lamanda works on knee strikes with instructor Robin Cumbie last week at Energy Regulatory Commission Action Fitness and Martial Arts in Inverness. Due to complications from muscular over the proposed construction of a See JOURNEY/ Page A2 dystrophy, Lamanda was forced to have much of her left leg amputated. hydroelectric plant on the Withla- coochee River in Inglis. An October 2002 Chronicle edi- torial about Berger’s victory said: “Berger focused on her mission and never gave up. Let it be known Couple arrested on meth charges that one person can still make a difference in this increasingly complex world. A.B. SIDIBE and Tanya Mae Lucas, 44, presence of drugs. “An accomplished artist, Berger Staff writer were reportedly speeding on A subsequent search of the focused her fight on the river’s nat- State Road 44 near Inverness vehicle yielded a black and ural beauty, the potential damage A Pensacola husband and while going eastbound when silver box. to the environment and concern wife, reportedly heading they were stopped. According to a Citrus for the safety of residents in north- home with a six-month per- William Lucas reportedly County Sheriff ’s Office re- western Citrus County. sonal supply of methamphet- told deputies he had guns in port, the box contained a crys- “She kept track of the hearings amine, were arrested Friday the car, and after an exterior tal-like substance (meth) and and attended. She traveled to William Tanya and now face drug charges. sniff of his car by a K-9, the several dozen syringes, Lucas Lucas William Richard Lucas, 45, dog alerted deputies to the See METH/ Page A5 See BERGER/ Page A2 Classifieds . .C11 Community . .C7, C8 INDEX Lottery Numbers . .B3 Obituaries . .A6 Comics . .C10 Editorial . .A8 Lottery Payouts . .B3 TV Listings . .C9 Crossword . .C9 Entertainment . .A4 Horoscope . .A4 Movies . .C10 000HVP5 A2 TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014 LOCAL CITRUS COUNTY (FL) CHRONICLE thing that happened a long time ago and re- BERGER search it by seeking peo- Continued from Page A1 ple out for their first-hand accounts. Or discuss the issue with she would retell old- Gov. Jeb Bush. She kept timers’ stories. Eventu- the media aware of her ally, she turned her progress and problems in columns into her book, the fight. “Back Roads.” “Way to go, Betty.” “She wrote her book so “She was a very kind we would not forget his- woman, but she could be tory,” said Pat Kittleman, fierce,” Spivey said. “She her friend of 30-plus had so much knowledge years. “She was also and always came deeply spiritual. She be- prepared.” lieved in the afterlife; she On behalf of the city of believed in the here and Inglis, Mayor Glenda Kirk- now and she believed in land said the community is Mother Mary ... We trav- saddened to lose one of its eled all over the world to- longtime citizens. gether, mostly for “She’s been a corner- religious, metaphysical stone to this area,” she reasons — South Africa, said. “She fought hard on England, Italy and Brazil every issue she believed to see John of God.” in. She was always in- Berger felt an affinity volved in issues and with Native Americans stayed up to date. We and would have drum MATTHEW BECK/Chronicle didn’t always see eye to ceremonies on her land, ABOVE: Jennifer Lamanda uses a medicine ball to work on her core strength at Action Fitness and Martial Arts in eye, but that didn’t inter- as well as solstice cere- Inverness. BELOW: Lamanda said her martial arts and boxing routine helps her remain physically fit. fere with our friendship.” monies. She wrote about Chronicle Publisher her varied religious and moved to Florida where it Gerry Mulligan called spiritual beliefs in her was warm, that I would Betty Berger a Renais- book “Heaven to Earth.” JOURNEY hurt less,” she said. sance woman. “She was an innovative Continued from Page A1 However, on Jan. 21 she “She was a great artist, woman, way ahead of her had to make one more life a very good writer, a his- generation,” Mulligan affects the muscles and alteration — the decision torian. As a former city said. “When women their capabilities. As the to have her left leg councilwoman, she loved stayed home, she was out muscles dissipate, they are amputated. her town,” Mulligan said. running for political of- unable to be rebuilt. Symp- “They had done a lot of “As an artist, she went to fice, taking up causes, fish- toms include weakness, reconstructive surgeries to every art show there was. ing, writing down history. toe drop, tripping, numb- keep me walking,” Jen- I have one of her best She was our connection to ness and tingling. nifer said. “But I have paintings in my house, a the past, to the historical Their fears were con- been fighting infections for hurricane coming into development of our firmed weeks later after the last several years. I felt the mouth of the Withla- county. She understood it receiving test results there was no saving my leg coochee River.” unlike anyone else.” from a laboratory in and it was time to have it Berger’s column, “Back Contact Chronicle re- Massachusetts. removed.” Roads,” ran in the Chron- porter Nancy Kennedy at “It was devastating,” Jen- The loss of her leg has icle for decades.