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Week in review

By Times Staff Writer
Published May 29, 2005

MOFFITT GETS GIFT - Hooters Management Corp. donated $500,000 to H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Moffitt officials announced Wednesday. The gift is part of Moffitt's capital campaign, which aims to raise $87-million. Moffitt is naming a doctors' conference room in its clinic "the Owl's Den" in honor of the company.

Hooters Management Corp., based in Clearwater, is run by founders of the original Hooters restaurants. The company owns 23 restaurants in Tampa Bay, Chicago and Manhattan.

The gift is the largest single donation Hooters Management has ever made, said Ed Droste, a founder. "It's a cause we have to win," said Droste, a member of the Moffitt Foundation board.

TAMPA BAY GETS SUPER BOWL - Tampa Bay was awarded Super Bowl XLIII by a vote of NFL owners Wednesday at the league's spring meeting, narrowly beating out Atlanta with temptations of roller-coaster rides, golf courses and sunshine.

The game in early February 2009 will mark the fourth Super Bowl in Tampa, which also hosted in 1984, 1991 and 2001.

"We put together an unprecedented bid," said Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman of Carrollwood. "I've pitched four of them and I've seen them all. This was the best."

Many considered Atlanta the front-runner among four competing sites, including Houston and South Florida. The Atlanta bid included a $150-million renovation of the Georgia Dome. But Tampa Bay offered a first-rate facility in Raymond James Stadium and enticements such as a party for league owners and personnel at Busch Gardens the night before the game. Each owner will receive 150 tickets. Ultimately, owners were swayed by the promise of warm weather. The last time Atlanta hosted the Super Bowl in 2000, an ice storm spoiled festivities.

MIKVAH IN CARROLLWOOD - A ritual place as old as biblical matriarchs came Sunday to Carrollwood, with the dedication of Tampa Bay's only mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath.

Brides and married women will use the mikvah by appointment only, based on biblical commandments in the Old Testament.

Commandments in Leviticus forbid sex during a woman's menstrual period and for seven days after. After sundown on the seventh day, a woman is supposed to immerse herself in the mikvah. A couple's period of abstinence does not end until she does.

"It is for the use of Jewish family purity," said Sulha Dubrowski, who will give classes on the laws and meaning of the ritual. "It raises our spiritual level and heightens our spiritual awareness."

The $200,000 structure has three private rooms, each of which will be used by only one woman at a time. To ensure privacy, the mikvah is in its own building on the property of Chabad Lubavitch of Tampa Bay. The Chabad center, whose spiritual leader, Rabbi Yossie Dubrowski, is Sulha Dubrowski's husband, is part of a worldwide Hasidic outreach organization for Jews.

[Last modified May 28, 2005, 09:58:04]