Club Meeting, April 27

At the April 27 meeting, The Republican Club of Greater Seminole hosted Everett Rice, Pinellas County Sheriff as Guest Speaker. Club President Jewel Rheinsmith introduced Brian Aungst, Mayor of Clearwater and candidate for County Clerk, then JJ Beyrouti, Mayor of Redington Shores and candidate for Pinellas County Commissioner, and finally, Fred Petty, Former Pinellas Tax Collector representing Bill McCollum candidate for US Senate. Out of the archives of past attending members, in a supporting role for candidate Mayor Aungst, came Tom McKeon from nowhere.

Nominations for new officers and directors to be elected in May and inaugurated in June by Senator Dennis Jones, always done by the good Senator with super dignity and special ceremony. His inaugurations are an event to behold and not to be missed.  Do plan to attend. Those nominated were Marshall Reynolds as President, June Liggins as Vice President, John Wolbert as Secretary and Tony DeAngelo as Treasurer.  Director appointments were announced as well.

After the announcement that the current Treasurer, Jack Burgin’s had resigned effective immediately the club President introduced her appointment of Tony DeAngelo as the new Treasurer. Welcome Mr. DeAngelo and know you have all our support for your coming tenure.

As a tribute for Jack's  past efforts and contributions to the club, Vice President, Marshall Reynolds presented the Club's Recognition of Achievement award in absentia. A very nice action on behalf of the club, thank you, Mr. Vice President Reynolds.

Sheriff Rice touched on a few issue but hammered hard on the Charter Review Commission activities. Some who are pushing for revision of the Pinellas County quasi Home Rule Charter in effect want to disable the provision that requires County Elected Officials to be partisan.  That is to say they are not necessarily Republicans with the values of the Republican Party.  Additionally, that they not be responsible for deeds or actions to Pinellas County voters.  Oh, oh, where does that action take the future of Pinellas County and its citizens self-determination?

Question raised from the floor was “to whose best interest does that change serve?”. Not hard to realize the answer to that question, the opposing liberal party currently without a prayer to impose philosophy that embraces “give it all away to every one, even though others worked very hard to get it”.  Some how that just flies in the face of the Grand Old Party mantra not to mention our Founding Fathers attitude of opportunity for all but with the caveat that opportunity in our nation assumes self-effort not freebees.

An analogy made by Peter Nehr during a past presentation at the Republican Club of Upper Pinellas in Tarpon Sprigs summed it up appropriately. Click here to visit

Peter related the following: It appears a daughter on returning home from college for spring break was expounding on the trials and efforts at college to her father. She mused that achieving a 4.0 grade point average required tremendous work and little time to party, She continued that the part time job acquired at Dad’s behest was adding to the difficulty of her college efforts. Next, she noted that her room mate wasn’t doing nearly as well, the room mates grades were 2.0 and she often missed class caused by late night carousing, had no job or money and often needed to borrow from every one.  Given his daughter's tremendous exposure to many fuzzy headed professors, she was lamenting about her room mates plight and was requesting from Dad a solution to assist her room mate.

Dad thought for a minute and then said, “I have a solution for you to assist your room mate.  Go to the Dean of Students and offer to give one of your grade points to your room mate, then take your pay check every week and give her half.  She and you both then will have a Grade point of 3.0 and you both will have half your pay”. Daughter replied, “What you must be crazy, I work very hard for my grades and my pay, why should I give half to someone who plays, parties and borrows all the time, that’s just not fair”.   Dad’s response, “ Welcome to the Republican Party philosophy” Cased closed.

Sheriff Rice noted the enhanced high technology now utilized in tracking detainees under various forms of local and state supervision. In fact, at times of crime supervised detainees in the immediate vicinity can be identified and questioned about actions coincidental to the crime. Nice capability and sure makes these individual think twice about repeat offenses. Heretofore, that task was almost impossible given the size of the task of Law Enforcement Judicial Supervision. Thank you Sheriff Rice on behalf of the club and Pinellas County for your years of county service and tonight’s informative comments.

Standing in center, Sheriff Rice warmly greets  Club Members; (L to R) Marge Milford, Sully Lowe, Barbara Lombardo and Dr Michael Lombardo. He admitted to all that he has no idea of what he will do after his upcoming retirement.

Members, guests and candidates sharing in the evenings activities to view names pass cursor over image and to enlarge view click on desired thumbnail photo.