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By BILL COATS, Times Staff WriterMock leader doles out more than $17,000 to 14 nonprofit groups in need at annual lovefest.
LUTZ - A wayward car smashes the garden arbor at Nye Park. Insurance premiums mushroom at the Old Lutz School. The air conditioner goes kaput at the recreation center of the Lutz Volunteer Fire Department.
All were unplanned expenses, but nobody's too worried. Once again, the guv'na has come to the rescue.
Last week, the Lutz Civic Association hosted what has become an annual lovefest. Delegates from 14 nonprofit programs paraded to the microphone to accept more than $17,000 raised in the days leading up to Lutz's Independence Day celebration. The competition to become guv'na, the community's mock chief of state, brought in $12,507. The Independence Day Run staged by the Lutz Lizards running club contributed another $4,750.
"We enjoyed doing this and just getting together as a community," said Edwina Kraemer, who became Lutz's 15th guv'na on July Fourth by raising $6,146.
The guv'na competition was a whimsical idea launched in 1991 simply to help the Lutz-Land O'Lakes Woman's Club pay for portable toilets for the July Fourth parade. Club members concocted an oath of office based on Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham. Guv'na caught on, and has contributed more than $160,000 over the years to Lutz's most cherished causes.
"I won't lie to you. It's a lot of work," William Westcott, who was the runner-up to Kraemer, told the civic groups Thursday night. "Everything goes for a good cause. I know. That's why I got involved."
Westcott does know. Last year, $1,000 in guv'na money paid for 11 chrome helmets worn in drill ceremonies by the local chapter of the Civil Air Patrol, which Westcott leads. Thursday night, the group received another $900.
The Lutz Nature Park accepted $4,250, and will use that to extend a boardwalk from its centerpiece pond to a parking lot, said Auralee Buckingham, secretary-treasurer of the group.
Four Lutz scouting groups received a total of $1,700, which will partly help send scouts to summer campouts.
Learning Gate Community School, which received $500, plans to devote it to the ongoing restoration of a 70-year-old historic log cabin that was moved to the school's campus.
Jay Muffly, president of the Lutz Volunteer Fire Association, said his group took a $3,500 hit months ago when the air conditioner failed in its recreation building. Thursday night, the fire association got $2,250 of that back. Muffly said the recreation center is where firefighters "kind of hang back a little during the week when they're on duty."
"They believe in the community, and obviously, the community believes in them," Muffly said.
Bill Coats can be reached at coats@sptimes.com or 813 269-5309.