Top 100 Stories

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Area poets are invited to read at an Open Mic Poetry Festival at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at the New Smyrna Beach Regional Library.

The event is sponsored in part by the Friends of the Library and hosted by the Poet’s Corner Poetry Workshop of New Smyrna Beach. There is no charge and light refreshments will be served.

The New Smyrna Beach Regional Library is open seven days a week at 1001 S. Dixie Freeway. For more information, please call (386) 424-2910.

What was that I just heard? Surely that can’t be true. Let me rewind the tape and hear that again, I said to myself. Sure enough what I heard was that if you have a Florida Food Stamp Debit card and you have a question about it when you call the phone number you reach a representative in India.

DAYTONA BEACH -- The Cultural Council of Volusia County will meet at 9 a.m. Friday, May 8, in the Ocean Center’s Clyde Mann Room, 101 N. Atlantic Ave.

Updates on current public art projects will be provided, and the council will discuss the upcoming Community Cultural Grant review. After the meeting, staff will conduct a tour of the artwork installed recently as part of the Ocean Center’s Art in Public Places Program. The public is invited to attend, and time will be available for public input.

Courtesy photo. Steven Rife, 28, who lives within walking distance of the SunTrust Bank branch in Daytona Beach Shores, was charged with robbing it Monday.

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES -- Police didn't have to go far to fina a man they suspect robbed the SunTrust Bank branch at 3640 S. Atlantic Ave. on Monday.

ORMOND BEACH -- A 73-year-old Missouri tourist was killed Saturday night when he was struck by a motorist while trying to cross South Atlantic Avenue near the Plantation Island Resort, Ormond Beach police said.

Ronald Gerhardt walked into the path of a 1999 Toyota, driven by 19-year-old James Livingston of Daytona Beach, police said.

The victim died a short time after being transported to Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach.

No charges were filed against the driver, police said.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Mystery-novel readers can get a dose of the real thing during “Murder, Mayhem and Mystery – Behind the Scenes,” a lecture
series at the New Smyrna Beach Regional Library.

Guest speakers will take mystery lovers behind the crime scene tape to explain what really happens and why. Adults are invited to these lectures, which will be from 6 - 7 p.m. May 4, 6 and 7 in the library’s auditorium. Light refreshments will be served.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH – A 20-year-old Okeechobee man became the second shark-bite victim of 2009 in the New Smyrna Beach surf when a shark punctured his right ankle late Monday afternoon, the Volusia County Beach Patrol said.

The unidentified man was surfing in front of the Minorca Condominium, 2600 block of North Peninsula Drive, when the shark bit into his right ankle, an injury described by Volusia County Beach Patrol Capt. Scott Petersohn as "very minor -- two or three puncture wounds."

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES -- The SunTrust Bank branch at 3640 S. Atlantic Ave., was robbed just before 1 p.m. this afternoon by a lone man who implied he had a gun, but never showed one, Daytona Beach Shores police said.

Police did not release information on how much mone might have been taken by the robber, described as being in his 20s and wearing a grey shirt and shorts, last spotted in the area of Cardinal Boulevard, according to witnesses.

DELAND -- The Volusia County Public Library system will participate in a nationwide Internet survey to discover how people use free computers and Internet connections in public libraries.

“Some people believe library computers are used mostly for entertainment, but librarians report that people use them to find jobs, stay connected with family and friends, and to obtain health information,” said Lucinda Colee, Volusia County’s director of library services.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- April has arrived, and with it, Earth Month. A "Recycled Art Walk" will be held on Flagler Avenue in New Smyrna Beach, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.,
Saturday, April 25.

The Citizens Resource Group on Recycling will be on hand to present information about recycling in our community and what you can specifically do to help our environment: "Think Globally, Act Locally."

The Atlantic Center for the Arts Volunteer League will man a table and children will be shown how to make art with recycled materials. ACA will also offer information about their community programming.