Testing Grounds The latest industry being outsourced to India is clinical drug trials. And any number of tragic things can happen on the way to your medicine cabinet.
Friday Night Rewind It doesn't matter which team you cheer for. We've got video previews of every high school football program in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando County.
Kelly Byrne spent her weekend doing something totally out of character for her. She acted selfishly.
Not that a couple of days spent learning about wildlife, vegetable gardening and camping with other women was some kind of great guilty pleasure. But for the 32-year-old mother of two, it was a welcome mental release.
"It's a mommy break for me," said Byrne, who spends her working days preparing and serving lunch to 1,500 students at Explorer K-8 School.
"I just wanted to spend some time doing something for me."
The objective of the first Women's Outdoor Weekend was to do just that by providing participants with a fun, supportive experience — exposing them to outdoor activities and camaraderie with others like themselves.
"The idea was simply to give women an outlet to explore the outside world a little bit and to give them an opportunity to relax and just get away from the daily demands of their lives," said Penny Oliver, special events organizer for the Hernando County Parks and Recreation Department.
Held at Lakewood Retreat, a rustic recreation getaway in southern Hernando County, the weekend was something like a grown-up Girl Scout camp with activities such as workshops in compass and map reading, butterfly garden building and team-building exercises. At night, the women participated in activities such as making campfire kettle corn before retiring to their bunkhouse accommodations.
Although Oliver had hoped to sign up about 50 women for the first event, the small yet enthusiastic group included a number of transplants who viewed the event as an informal way of exploring their community.
Laura O'Brien, a retired secretary who moved to Spring Hill three years ago from Michigan, said WOW offered her a chance to catch up on some things her busy life seldom enabled her to do.
"I spent 32 years working in an office," she said. "I always loved being outdoors. But when you're raising a family, you don't have that much time to do those things. I thought this might make for a great opportunity to see what I've been missing."
Still, for others, the retreat offered a much-needed getaway from a hectic life. Lois Emmons, a mother of a special-needs child whose husband travels a lot, said such opportunities are rare for women like her.
"Life is 24/7 when you have a special-needs child," she said. "You get to the point where you don't even realize that you're not doing things that would make your life more fulfilling."
Oliver said that initial feedback about the event, which received sponsorship from local businesses such as Brewer and Sons Funeral Homes, Brooksville Natural Foods, Publix Super Markets, Microtel Inn and Suites, Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q, Wal-Mart and Amscot, was positive. She believes WOW will grow as more women learn about it.
"We've taken the first small steps, and it worked pretty well," she said.
"The most important thing we've learned is that women in our community truly need more activities like this."
[Last modified: Nov 09, 2008 07:26 PM]
Subscribe to the Times
Click here for daily delivery
of the St. Petersburg Times.
News
