The sweet gifts of Father Candy

Photo by Jane Winstead

When a school parent remarked to Father Tim that Halloween marks the beginning of the Candy Season (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter), it may have spawned an idea. Father Tim was giving candy to parish youngsters after Sunday's Masses. What a treat! Maybe we should call him Father Candy.

Do you have a pint of blood to spare?

Photo by Jane Winstead

The Florida Blood Services Bloodmobile was at St. Raphael on Sunday for the blood drive. All donors received a wellness checkup, including cholesterol screening. Donors' pint of blood will be used to help save lives of three or four people.

Please return St. Raphael Festival signs

A message from Heidi Sutton, co-chair of the St. Raphael Festival: Thank you to everyone who helped with our marketing efforts by displaying a Festival sign in your yard. If you have not already done so, please return your signs to the school office. Thank you!

St. Raphael Festival: Those wild Bumper Cars

Spooktacular Costume Contest

Tara Newsom emcees the 2011 Spooktacular Costume Contest at St. Raphael Festival. The contest was conducted during the St. Raphael Festival.

Sunday: 2 Dog Night

2 Dog Night: Bill Alves and Alan Horner

2 Dog Night will perform on Sunday during the Family Night Spaghetti Dinner and afterward.

Alan Horner is a well known St. Raphael parishioner who plays with the St. Raphael Praise Band and often performs at parish functions. Alan also served as the chairman of the entertainment committee for St. Raphael Festival, lining up the array of bands performing this weekend.

Alan Horner along with Bill Alves perform as 2 Dog Night in Tampa Bay area venues. They have an amazing music range that stretches from 1950s rock through contemporary music. They cover a variety of genres, including rock, Top 40, rhythm and blues, country and dance music.

The duo plays regular gigs at local American Legion posts, Elks lodges, restaurants and bars, and private parties.

St. Raphael Festival -- Friday 1

Photos by T. Allan Smith

Here are photos from the St. Raphael Festival. Check back for more later.

Saturday: Ocean Roads

The Ocean Road Band is well known to many people at St. Raphael. Band members Dave and Janie Scheiber and their daughters Laura and Mollie are former St. Raphael parishioners. The band will perform Saturday night after the Oktoberfest performance of Jeanne Zube and Happy Music.

The band is popular in local music venues and events. Ocean Roads has headlined over the past decade at many major annual fundraisers for the American Cancer Societies of Tampa, Pinellas, Pasco, Orlando and Sarasota/Venice; the annual Children’s Dream Fund gala and auction inside Tropicana Field; the Commodore’s Ball -- the “Super Bowl” of dances each year at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club; the Davis Island Yacht Club’s Christmas Party and Commodore’s Ball.

The band has also performed at the Beaches Chamber of Commerce gathering at the Don CeSar; Country in the Park in Pinellas Park, where it has been the featured local band for a decade; Mainsail Arts Festival in St. Petersburg; the St. Anthony’s Triathlon post-race athletes party; and the 75th anniversary celebration of St. Paul’s Catholic Church at the St. Petersburg Coliseum.

The band also took its longest road trip to perform at the Richard Montgomery High School Class of 1966 Reunion in Rockville, Md.

The group also plays weddings from St. Pete to Tampa to Boca Grande.

Here's a brief rundown on the various members of the band:

Joe Terrana (vocals, keyboard, bass) is a veteran of the popular ‘80s-’90s After Midnight Band, and has frequently performed with Tampa Bay’s longtime rock group the Impacs and as part of a standout area Beatles tribute group;

Dave Scheiber (guitar/vocals) has played in country and rock bands such as Stalled On the Tracks, Green Grass Revival and the Fabulous Nosecaps. He won the 1998 Mid-Atlantic Song Contest’s Grand Prize for a song called Catch Me In The Net.

Hank Shaw (drums and percussion) kept the steady beat for years with Coyote and has long been a familiar voice on local airwaves - as overnight deejay on WQYK-FM 99.5;

Janie Scheiber (lead female vocals, harmony) was well-known for her evocative vocals in Stalled on the Tracks and was for 10 years a member of contemporary Christian singing group, GRACE Ministries;

Bob LeMay (lead vocals and lead/rhythm guitar) is a longtime stellar performer in the Tampa Bay area, from cruise ships to clubs all over town.

Joe Terrana Jr., formerly of Cuban Sandwich Crisis, lends his ample talents on sax.

Laura Scheiber (lead singer, harmony) grew up listening to her parents’ bands and now adds beautiful vocals from Motown hits to country to modern favorites.

The band also taps the talents of veteran virtuoso guitarists and singers Lee Ahlin and Butch Hanson and drummer/percussionist Mollie Scheiber.

St. Raphael Festival opens Friday

At last, it's time for the St. Raphael Festival, a three-day, fun-filled extravaganza, with carnival rides for children of all ages, delicious specialty food booths, two themed dinner nights (Oktoberfest and Family Spaghetti Night), live music and Bingo.

Saturday: Oktoberfest, German music!

Jeanne Zube and her band, Happy Music, will appear at the St. Raphael Festival on Saturday from 4 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. during Oktoberfest. Come out for brats, sauerkraut, German potato salad and apple dumplings and enjoy the traditional German music.

Jeanne Zube started playing the accordion when she was 11 years old. By the next year, she had added piano and clarinet — at her mother's insistence. She was in the high school band in Cincinnati and loved it.

But when she was 19, her instructor told her mother she ought to put her clarinet in the closet and concentrate on the accordion. She was thrilled. Her instructor happened to be the president of the musician's union and he knew accordion players were in demand. It wasn't long before Jeanne was playing in various groups around town.

She enrolled in the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, majoring in clarinet and minoring in piano. but the accordion continued to be her instrument of choice. While she was a college student, she played local clubs, had 80 students she was teaching accordion and performed on a weekly television show.

"I was getting about three hours sleep," she says. but she was young and energetic and the performing was more important than sleep.

When the College Conservatory of Music merged with the University of Cincinnati, Jeanne transferred to Mount St. Joseph University and continued to study music. She loved it.

It wasn't long before she was asked to play accordion with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, under the direction of Erich Kunzel. Working with the famed conductor was a thrilling experience. "He could get two hundred percent out of you," she says. She was asked to play solo parts in recordings by the orchestra.

It could be a grueling schedule, though. Sometimes there would be a rehearsal in the morning, a recording session in the afternoon and a performance the same night "After rehearsal, I'd go home and go to bed," she said.

Jeanne remembers when she was first introduced to German music. Her father had just died in December of 1989. The following January she landed a spot with the premier German group in Cincinnati, The Polka Dots.

She loved the music, though she found it a bit daunting at first. Traditional German music may change meters every measure and as a newbie she found a challenge to keep up. But she persevered and played with the group for many seasons, and continues to do so when she revisits her hometown.

Cincinnati has the distinction of the World's Largest Chicken Dance, performed each year at the Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati celebration. When the record was originally set in 1994 some 48,000 people participated. Jeanne has played with The Polka Dots at many Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati celebrations.

Today Jeanne Zube's group, Happy Music, performs at the Polish Club in Hudson, the Pinellas Park German Club, seniors dances and private parties.

The most requested song: The Chicken Dance.

Friday night: Nonsense makes sense

Carrie Underwood sings birthday wishes for Garrett Goodwin.

Expect a special treat for the musical entertainment on Friday night at the St. Raphael Festival. Nonsense might be a hastily assembled band but some of its members are no slouches when it comes to professional entertainment.

Take, for instance, Garrett Goodwin, who has come on the musical scene in both style and class. Garrett is the drummer for country singer-songwriter Carrie Underwood, multi-platinum selling recording artist, winner of several Grammy Awards, Billboard Music Awards and American Music Awards, Golden Globe Award nominee and two-time ACM Entertainer of the Year. At age 23, Garrett’s career includes live performances on Saturday Night Live, Jay Leno, The Grammy Awards, The American Music Awards, and many more.

And then there's Charlie Goddard, attorney and former guitarist for Grammy-nominated artist, Sonic Flood/Jeff Deyo from 2003 to 2005 and two-time Dove winning band, By the Tree from 2001 to 2003, with four No. 1 radio hits and more than a million records sold worldwide. His musical career included performance tours in 14 countries and all states in the domestic United States. You can catch Charlie playing with Jeff Devo in this video.

Rounding out the band are attorneys David and Kim Salmon, St. Raphael parishioners, Gilbert Rodriguez and Erin Buchanan. They may be setting some sort of record in jurisprudence.

Nonsense will perform Friday night 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the Big Tent.

CCW-K of C luncheon card party

Photos by Jane Winstead

The Council of Catholic Women and the Knights of Columbus sponsored a lunchtime card party on Saturday, October 15, in the Parish Center. Participants played bridge, rummy, poker and other games. Numerous people won great door prizes. Chris Winstead was surprised with a special birthday cake.

Lots of food choices at St. Raphael Festival

40 Days for Life — prayer day

Photos by Jane Winstead

St. Raphael parishioners participated in the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil in front of All Women's Health Center, the abortion clinic in downtown St. Petersburg, on Tuesday, Oct. 11. The campaign runs through Nov. 6.

Gruban: A new taste for St. Raphael Festival

By Lisette Crespo Shields

When you are Latin most every big event is surrounded by food. My Cuban family is no different.

My dad, Dr. Artagnan Crespo, was the cook in our family. Exiled from Cuba in 1960, he went to live with my mom’s ailing dad who had a house on Key Biscayne in Miami.

My grandfather was quite the cook, but when he lived in Miami he was so ill he was not able to cook, so he taught my dad all the family recipes. My dad learned to love to cook and went on to add to that great pile of family recipes.

One of my dad’s most famous dishes was his black beans. Christmas Eve we would always have the traditional Noche Buena meal consisting of pork, black beans, rice and yucca. My dad did all the cooking for this meal and it was always amazing. He never followed a recipe, adding a little here or there until he liked the way it tasted.

He would often have his nurses and staff over and cook for them. I am so glad they encouraged him to put a few of his recipes in a cook book the clinic had put together.

After my father passed away in 1986 from lung cancer, family dinners were not the same. My mom, Beatriz, had to step up and start cooking all the major holiday foods. She did not enjoy it as my dad did, but she would follow the recipes my dad left and it was like he was back cooking. The meals were a great.

My mom was more than willing to pass the torch of the holiday dinners to her children. I got Christmas Eve and Noche Buena. Following my dad’s recipes to the letter, my first Christmas Eve dinner was a hit. I enjoy making the beans, and I would often make them for family parties or for friends. As my dad always said, “the flavor is all in the paste you grind together in the mortar."

When I met my husband, he bragged “wait to you taste my mom’s cooking.” Boy, was he right. His mom, Yiota, could cook!

They had a lot of the same traditions as my family. Holiday and family parties were celebrated around the dinner table with one of Yiota’s amazing meals. Lamb, tzatziki sauce, Greek dolmades and avgolemono soup became part of my kids' normal dinners.

I found out that my mother-in-law's start with food was similar to my dad’s in that she was not a cook or had not always wanted to be a cook.

She married a U.S. Air Force lieutenant general and lived in a new place every few years. She tried to make American food, fried chicken to be exact, and it was disastrous.

Yiota learned how to make fried chicken from her North Carolina husband Woody. Yiota’s fried chicken is made so well now that my husband often requests it as one of his birthday dishes.

The tradition continues. I am passing my dad’s recipes on to my daughter, Kalista, who loves to cook. She often cooks with Yiota, learning all the Greek recipes as well.

The last 15 years of my life have been such a combination of Greek and Cuban food that when I heard we were going to have specialty booths at the St. Raphael Festival I suggested the Gruban booth.

Of course, I had to explain what a Gruban was. Recently we added on an addition to the back of the house. It was a room for the kids and we wanted to name it to make it their own.

My husband, Frank, said that since the kids were part Greek and Cuban how about naming it the Gruban room. The name Gruban took birth and it now a part of our regular vernacular.

I hope everyone gets a chance to come out and enjoy this wonderful festival and don’t forget to stop by the Gruban booth for some amazing food.

Photo: From left, Beatriz Crespo, Lisette Crespo Shields, Woody Shields, Yiota Shields, Frank Shields.

Pinellas Hope dinner 10.08.11

Photos by Julie Lynch and Ed Lynch

St. Raphael parishioners and supporters of Pinellas Hope around the diocese attended a fundraising dinner in the Parish Center sponsored by the Knights of Columbus on Saturday, October 8. Sheila Lopez, chief operating officer of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, was among the speakers. She told of the great work being done at Pinellas Hope to help homeless people find shelter and get back on their feet.

A history of the project was also presented. Pinellas Hope began in 2007 when Bishop Robert Lynch opened 10 acres in downtown St. Petersburg as a temporary shelter for the homeless. The program has grown now much larger. A new 20-acre site was opened last year and, with the help of local and state governments and donations from Catholics in the diocese, Pinellas Hope is providing a safe living environment for homeless people and support to become self sufficient.

St. Raphael Festival schedule

St. Raphael Festival Schedule of Events posted on the Festival Page. Click the logo at the top of the column on the right to go to the page. Don't forget, school is out for Catholic schools in the Diocese of St. Petersburg on Friday. So come and enjoy the fabulous food on our newly expanded food court.

A day for St. Francis—and our pets

Deacon Jim blessed the pets of the parish and neighborhood on Tuesday as pet owners brought their animals for the annual Blessing of the Pets. The ceremony is conducted in remembrance of St. Francis of Assisi, who was known for his love of all creatures, and it is on his feast day that the blessing takes place.

Remember Frog Hopper? It's back!

Photo by Jane Winstead

Remember Frog Hopper from last year's festival? Well, it'll be back again along with other midway rides. Check out our other photos on Facebook.

Help us get to 3,000 invitees on the St. Raphael Festival event on Facebook.

Promoting the St. Raphael Festival

Parishioner Tim Skarupa takes a yard sign to help promote the St. Raphael Festival. The annual event features carnival rides and games, delicious food, great musical entertainment and Bingo will be Oct. 21-23 at St. Raphael Catholic Church.

• Visit the St. Raphael Festival on Facebook.
• See our St. Raphael Festival page