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The Week in Review
By Times staff writer SHE'S A SURVIVOR: McKitrick Elementary School became its own tribe Thursday night, as roughly 70 or so teachers, administrators and friends assembled at the Tampa Ale House on N Dale Mabry Highway with one goal: cheering their pal Jan Gentry. They wore white T-shirts with the phrase "Survive Thailand ... That's Nothing" in blue lettering, passing around chicken wings and bottles of beer. The cheers came often: at Survivor: Thailand's introduction, at the first brief glimpse of Gentry, when she had to pick tribe members, when two of the show's young hunks bared their pecs. They pounded on tables and cheered endlessly as the two tribes raced in the immunity challenge, reaching ear-splitting levels when Gentry, 53, maneuvered a rope through a table maze. "She's tough, she's a go-getter," said kindergarten teacher Sheri Norkas. "She's going to step up and get what she wants." Gentry, who teachers first grade, wasn't there -- she was sheltered at an unknown location -- but she'll be back to school Monday. The teachers plan to greet her in a new tribal uniform: overalls and orange bandanas, with their hair in pigtails. As Louisiana pastor John Raymond's torch was symbolically snuffed and he took the long walk off the show, teacher Denise Cateledge summed up everyone's feeling at the Ale House: "It wasn't Jan, and that's a good thing." * * * COLLEGE-EDUCATED NEIGHBORHOODS TALLIED: The educational levels of Hillsborough County's overall population improved during the 1990s, according to statistics released Tuesday by the U.S. Census. In 1990, 20.2 percent of the county's adults held bachelor's or postgraduate degrees, trailing the national average by a hair. By 2000, the national average had risen to 24.4 percent. But Hillsborough County's number had climbed to 25.1 percent. The top four neighborhoods for professional degrees, such as medical or law degrees, all are in south Tampa. But the top three neighborhoods for Ph.D.s are in Temple Terrace and Tampa Palms, near USF. In the newest quadrant of Tampa Palms, 9 percent of adults have Ph.D.s, easily the highest percentage in the county. Neighborhoods that rose to the top rankings benefited from high percentages of degree-holding residents and lower percentages of less-educated people. That favored master-planned developments where all housing is priced for middle- or upper-income buyers, such as New Tampa, Westchase and River Hills. * * * ARREST IN BANK ROBBERY: For four days detectives hoped for a break in the case of a bandit who seemed to rob any business in his path. He first hit a Bank of America branch, then a convenience store. Next came a U-Save grocery, a coin laundry and finally, on Thursday morning, a beauty supply store. After each robbery, the man climbed into a black Jeep Cherokee. But a few hours after his last robbery, a Tampa police officer spotted his getaway car in the Publix shopping plaza on Hillsborough Avenue, just west of Armenia. As an officer circled the empty car, the man, later identified as Robert Striano, spotted the officer and nonchalantly walked away. Officers surrounded Striano in a strip mall on Armenia Avenue a few hundred yards away. Once they had their hands on him, Striano confessed, authorities said. "I did it," Officer Marilyn Lee recalled the robber saying. "I'm the one you all been looking for." Striano told another officer that he robbed the businesses because he needed money to feed his heroin habit. Detectives already were searching for Striano in connection with the robberies. Citizens had called police after seeing his bank surveillance photo on television and in newspapers. Striano, 55, told police he lives at 3131 W Fielder St. He was charged with five counts of armed robbery. He was being held without bail at the Hillsborough County Jail.
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From the Times |
