The Tampa Bay Rays are offering an exclusive “buy one, get one free” ticket special for a Berm/Boardwalk ticket (regular priced at $9 per ticket) to the game on Wednesday, March 14. This game is designated as Boca Grande Chamber of Commerce Day.

Boca Grande’s own Capt. Sandy Melvin of Gasparilla Outfitters will throw out the first pitch when the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Miami Marlins.

Dwight Arundale of Boca Grande passed away on Friday, Feb. 24.

There will be no local service. A complete obituary will be available soon.

BY LIZA STROUT - She tried. She really did. But Capt. Marian Schneider just could not retire. She bought a house in north Georgia, found someone to manage her business, packed up and left.

“I was up there for two years. It was beautiful, though it was away from the water,” Marian explained. “Then I came back to train a new manager, and realized how much I missed it here. This is home. This is where I belong. So I packed it all again and came back.”

According to Marta Howell, executive director of the Friends of the Boca Grande Community Center, there will most definitely still be an after-school program for island children in the 2012-2013 school year.

A meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 6 at 8:30 a.m. in the Boca Grande Community Center Auditorium to explain changes to the program and to answer parent questions.

If you have children who plan to attend the after-school program currently run by the Friends organization, please plan on coming to the meeting.

BY ALICE GORMAN - Does the name Elizabeth Stuckey-French ring a bell? How about the title of her book, “Revenge of the Radioactive Lady”? Would it arouse your curiosity to know that this book was chosen one of The Chicago Tribune’s Best Books of 2011, and it was awarded the Florida Book of the Year Award for 2011?

The New Yorker review stated: “Elizabeth Stuckey-French’s new novel, Revenge of the Radioactive Lady, is the sort of book that one devours quickly and then thinks, ‘I’ll have another one just like that, please.’ The trouble is, of course, that it’s difficult to find another book quite like this one.”

BY LIZA STROUT - History buffs at the Johann Fust Community Library on Wednesday, Feb. 29 got to hear the stories of the Futch and Lowe families at the Leap Day edition of History Bytes.

Capt. Freddy Futch, an island native and descendant of both the Futch and Lowe families, recounted that his great-grandfather Futch was on the ship that delivered the timbers for the lighthouse at the south end of the island in 1890. His family had been in the Charlotte Harbor area for decades before, though.