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Barbecue Dinner and Celebration

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    Barbecue Dinner and Celebration

    My wife, Kate, went to work for the Berry Citrus Companies in January of 1997, three months after I went to work for Cutrale Citrus Juices USA. Both companies were headquartered in Polk County, Florida, So in 1997 we relocated from Bradenton, where I had worked for Tropicana, to Winter Haven. Berry decided to get into real estate development, and between 1998 and 2001, transitioned from being a citrus grower and processor to being a real estate developer, selling its processing plant and many of its citrus groves not in path-of-progress areas. In 2002, they promoted Kate to Vice-President of Land Development and Construction. She built a Publix supermarket, a shopping center, and other commercial and residential real estate developments.

    During that time, she worked and became friends with Phyllis Wynter, who was the administrative assistant for Kate's boss, Dan Devers, the CEO of Berry. Phyllis, with Jamaican heritage, had worked for Dan before when he was an attorney and partner in a New York City law firm., and he brought her with him. In 2007, when the real estate market crashed, Berry got out of real estate development, and Kate, Dan, and Phyllis left Berry, along with a number of other employees. Kate became an agribusiness consultant, and Phyllis went to nursing school and became a registered nurse, working at Winter Haven hospital. They both remained friends and periodically got together for lunch.

    Last summer I went through a medical ordeal consisting of numerous seizures and two heart attacks in the same day. That put me in intensive care for 5 days at Winter Haven hospital, followed by a stay in the hospital. Phyllis was instrumental in seeing that I got the best doctors. And in life or death decisions that Kate had to approve, like when to take me off the ventilator, Phyllis was there to advise Kate.

    So Kate and I decided to have Phyllis and her daughter, Tracy, a Yale-educated attorney, over to our house for a barbecue dinner, which was yesterday, to celebrate me surviving my medical ordeal. Tracy's birthday was one day this past week, so the dinner would also be a birthday celebration. Others in attendance were Mike Hogan, my best friend when I was in college and graduate school, recently retired as the CEO of First America Bank, headquartered in Bradenton, Florida before it was acquired, and still a close friend; our son, Stephen; daughter-in-law, Beth; and our grandson, Jayden. Pictures are below.


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ID:	622780 Jamaican jerk chicken wings, prepared and brought by Phyllis


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ID:	622781 Baked beans from scratch, not canned beans, and cooked beneath the ribs on the smoker


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    #2
    That sounds like a fun, (and delicious), time.

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      #3
      Great reasons to celebrate!

      Comment


        #4
        Awesome and congrats to all.
        When I first saw who made this post I was wondering how you were doing.
        So glad to see all is good. πŸ‘ŠπŸ‘ŠπŸ‘πŸ‘

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          #5
          That last pic is what it’s all about!

          Comment


            #6
            Primo spread RA, especially love the salmon

            Comment


              #7
              Nice spread. Great company.

              Comment


                #8
                Nice story, and a great reason to celebrate with some nice looking cooks!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Family, good friends, good food. Can't get much better.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    You know the dinner is great when served with Wet Ones! πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘

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