Hilton Head People

PHOTOS BY W PHOTOGRAPHY

It’s a little-known fact that every square inch of Disney World is “imagineered” to reveal itself as you enter. Everything, from the endless acres around the park to the boat ride over the pond is designed in such a way that you first see subtle hints, the monorail sweeping by, the highest spire of Cinderella’s castle soaring up from the landscape, the tallest boughs of Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life, appearing as glimpses before the noise and spectacle of Main Street USA opens up in front of you.

It’s a marvel of wonder management and it all starts with a simple sign, stretched across four lanes of asphalt, declaring the “Happiest Celebration On Earth.”

For young Kaylani Kaufman, stricken with LGL leukemia, seeing that sign was quite literally a wish come true.

SIMPLE GIFT REMINDS BLUFFTON RESIDENT TO LIVE LIFE TO ITS FULLEST

The Christmas holidays never come soon enough. You get time off school, lots of delicious food and (if you’ve been good) lots of presents.

What is your favorite Christmas present? We asked our readers and got some interesting responses.

Our favorite came from Bluffton resident John Thiel, who found joy in a simple pastelcolored box. Here is his story:

A nicely wrapped package was placed in my lap as my family gathered around to help me celebrate Christmas.

Tearing off the wrapper, I was presented with a box.

Helen Thomas, a pioneer among women in journalism who became known for saying “Thank YOU, Mr. President,” at the end of white house news conferences, would have loved to have been among the family and friends who attended the memorial service for her in Washington, D.S.

Before the ceremony began, a beautiful breakfast buffet was served and a lot of schmoozing was going on. Thomas would have thought that a wonderful setting for digging up some news nuggets. Outside, not far away, national monuments were cordoned off and national museums were closed as part of the partial shutdown of the federal government resulting from an impasse between Republicans in Congress and President Obama. A juicy story to sink her teeth in.

ARNOLD ROSEN, BLAINE LOTZ FEEL VETERANS SHOULD BE HONORED ALL YEAR, NOT JUST ON VETERANS DAY

World War I — known at the time as “The Great War” — officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

PHOTO BY W Photography

The site of Hilton Head Island’s planned rowing and sailing center on Squire Pope Road holds many happy memories for Thomas C. Barnwell Jr.

Barnwell was one of 10 African American shrimpers who belonged to a fishing co-op that operated at that location for more than a dozen years in the 1960s and ‘70s.

One of its founders and secretary-treasurer of the co-op, Barnwell was called the “brains” behind it in an article at the time because of his expertise in the cooperative movement. He helped secure a $66,290 low interest loan from the federal Farmers Home Administration to build their docks and marine railway.

PHOTOS BY ROB KAUFMAN

HURLEY HAYWOOD LEFT HIS MARK ON ENDURANCE RACING

A s one would expect, there’s no shortage of glowing memories from Hurley Haywood’s remarkable racing career — one that included victories in six decades beginning with the 1960s and culminating with his last win in 2010 before he retired in 2012 as the most successful driver in the history of endurance racing.

But like many things in life, nothing ever topped the first — Haywood’s first racecar.

Huntley Tarleton has always been a “car guy.” “My dad got me into cars when I was a teenager,” he said.

Tarleton started running the Motoring Midway as part of the Hilton Head Island Motoring Festival and Concours d’Elegance in 2007.

Father-in-law Charles Mistele, Tarleton and his son Caldwell, have since made the festival a family event.

The Motoring Midway
In 2007, Tarleton took over the Quest for Style and Speed, which was a hodgepodge of different vehicles at the time.

“I started focusing really on the vehicles and exhibits,” he said. Under Tarleton’s leadership, the Quest for Style and Speed was renamed the Motoring Midway, and it started offering exhibits meant to appeal to more people.

PHOTO BY ROB KAUFMAN

CREATING A WORLD-CLASS CAR SHOW TAKES EQUAL AMOUNTS OF AMBITION, PERSEVERANCE AND CREATIVITY. PACKING THE WHOLE THING UP AND MOVING IT ONTO A GOLF COURSE WHILE MAINTAINING SAID WORLD-CLASS STATUS, WELL THAT TAKES AN ENGINEER.

Enter transition chairman Merry Harlacher, longtime Hilton Head Island Motoring Festival volunteer and retired electrical engineer. Every detail, and there are many, of the festival’s move from the wide-open spaces of Honey Horn to the lushly manicured fairways of Port Royal Golf Club has been mapped with painstaking precision by his sharp, analytical mind.

“It helps to have that kind of thinker, yeah,” said Harlacher with a modest chuckle.

Almost everyone knows that Hilton Head Island is home to some of the most beautiful shoreline and golf courses on the eastern seaboard. Few know that the island also boasts a remarkable anti-poverty program for low-income families, one that needs to be considered for replication in poor neighborhoods from New York to Detroit to Oakland.

Under the leadership of Narendra Sharma, who spent 32 years in the operations division of the World Bank, Hilton Head’s Neighborhood Outreach Connection (NOC) provides low-income families with health services, after-school and summer tutoring, and adult English classes.

Dr. Sharma showed three townhouses, each with four classrooms, in the low-income Oaks neighborhood.