When Jhoanna Mukai moved from her home in the Philippines to San Diego, California, at 12 years old, she described it as a culture shock. Once she settled in and the shock subsided, Mukai discovered she loved going to new places and trying new things. That same curiosity and contentment with…

Three Winter Haven women have joined their visions and talents to open a unique concept off Central Avenue. Gourmet ingredients, local produce, and an open kitchen provide an intimate hospitable experience at Agape Agora Trattoria and Marketplace. Light spilling into the arcade onto tables a…

“My entire life, my mom has been the family cook,” Arthur White said. Thankfully, the community can regularly delight in his mother, Betty Coleman Bent’s scratch cooking at the family’s Lake Wales eatery, Orgen D’nal Cafe. 

Over six thousand miles, an ocean, and the Sahara Desert separate Lakeland, Florida, from Egypt. Thanks to twenty-year Swan City resident Marianne Garas, you don’t have to travel so far for a taste of the Middle East. “The inspiration came really from our home,” said Garas, owner of Lakeland…

A flour-covered five-year-old making it ‘snow’ in the kitchen turned Food Network champion is making your favorite farmers market macarons – in case you didn’t know. Chef Briea Lowe is a trained pastry chef with an impressive career, a thriving Central Florida confection business, and a pass…

“There’s no comparison here. There’s no doubt, no fear, no insecurity, and no competition. This is your workout – you just get to do it with all the other ladies around you,” said Stephanie Garrison, owner and instructor at The Balance Culture Winter Haven. The boutique fitness studio has be…

A waterskiing and wakeboarding legend turned towed water sport exponent, Zane Schwenk got his start in a unique after-school program. The Sarasota native said casually, “I was in a circus as a kid, which was weird and fun.” The young adrenaline junkie dove into acrobatics, the flying trapeze…

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You practice hard, you work hard, you give it all you’ve got.” That is what champion competitive water skier Barbara Cooper Clack Heddon learned during her thirty-year career. It was a lesson she first had to learn on Christmas Eve, 1956.

From charming guests as a Southern Belle to awing audiences as an Aquamaid at Cypress Gardens, Brenda Mitchell sat down with Haven to share stories of an iconic time in Central Florida history. Citrus was booming, “Mr. Florida” Dick Pope Sr. was operating a star-studded theme park, and Winte…

In his 2000 memoir, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Stephen King calls books a “uniquely portable magic.” It seems only fitting to purchase such ‘portable magic’ in a bookshop of the same vein – perhaps we’ll call it ‘uniquely mobile magic.’ Little Bus Books is a mobile bookshop offerin…

Whether underfoot as her mother played hymns and gospel piano, making a beeline towards the music anytime her rock-n-roll father picked up a guitar, or sitting in on the bluegrass picking and singing of her grandad and his band of eight brothers – Van Plating has always been ‘home’ within a …

Lakeland-based nonprofit SPCA Florida is abuzz with construction, renovations, and new programs to better care for the cats and dogs that come into their facility. According to SPCA Florida Executive Director Shelley Thayer, these improvements are made possible through community generosity a…

It’s 8 am on a weekday morning, and a puppy in Lakeland is waiting patiently by the front door. He makes a few trips padding back and forth to the front window overlooking the driveway. Joyful barks and tail wags can only mean one thing – the Aussie Bus is here! The good boy can hardly conta…

At a downtown Auburndale thrift boutique, purchases benefit adoptable pups. It really is Goin’ to the Dogs! This charming thrift store on Auburndale’s Main Street sells donated items to benefit Crossed Paws Pet Rescue. The rescue, started by Stephanie Badillo, takes in homeless and abandoned…

Start your engines and glue down those dentures, Polk County. It’s time for the 2022 NAMSER Races. The Polk Elderly Alliance and Polk County Tourism, in partnership with NASCAR, are bringing you the national phenomenon that is the National Association for Motor Scooter Elderly Racing (NAMSER…

Destroyer Media and Marketing, the parent company for Haven and LKLD Magazines, is a considerably progressive workplace. We have a four-day workweek, swear like sailors, occasionally drink on the job, play loud music, and don’t have a strictly enforced dress code policy. It’s not unusual to …

A collective of decidedly childless millennials has banded together to pass a new rule that might leave some parents crying in their beer. The group garnered thousands of signatures and put pressure on local government officials. This tactic appears to have worked. Last month the city commis…

Two types of blueberries grow well in Florida, rabbiteye (Vaccinium virgatum) and southern highbush (interspecific hybrids of V. darrowii, V. virgatum, and V. corymbosum). However, only the low-chill cultivars of each are adapted to Florida. Generally, rabbiteye blueberries grow well in area…

A twenty-seven-year-old Polk County native is soon to launch an app poised to revolutionize the event and promotion scene. The Promo App, an event-based social network, will be a valuable tool for organizations from the local Rotary Club and the Ritz to coffee shops and concert halls. Accord…

My editor sat in a bar across from a new friend a year ago. When she asked about his hobbies, he rattled off a few and added, “...and I write poetry.” That comment sparked a ‘secret poet’ monthly feature in the magazine. Each month since, this private poet has submitted work to be published …

For ten years, Lakeland nonprofit Gospel Inc. has provided resources, fostered community, and helped find purposeful employment for homeless folks across the city. Founder Brian Seeley knew more could be done to serve this vulnerable population. Seeley, along with his Gospel Inc. team, volun…

Even with your head in the books, it would be hard not to appreciate the art on the walls of Downtown Lakeland’s independent bookstore, Pressed Books & Coffee. Each piece is the work of a local artist, presented by Vakti Gallery, an online art gallery started by Lakelander Olivia Overhol…

“Some of the best modern Southern rock around today.” - RIFF Magazine

The 10th Annual Polk Emerging Leaders Awards were held on August 19th. While the event itself was a little different this year following COVID protocols, it was nonetheless a night to celebrate and honor the work that young professionals are doing to improve Polk County.

History and haunts are at the center of Winter Haven Food Tours’ newest tour option, Winter Haven Beer, Spirits, and Ghosts Walking Tour. We spoke with Auburndale resident and owner/ guide of Winter Haven Food Tours, Amada Anderson, about food, phantoms, and what led her to start her Downtow…

Today, in the culmination of three friends’ backyard barbecue epiphany five years earlier, I sat inside Adler’s new Winter Haven burger spot, watching owner Jacki Walston frame pieces of flamingo and palm print wallpaper. It was extra from their Davenport shop now slated to hang in their new digs. 

It’s a little humid but not too bad for a summer morning in Florida. The hum of player chatter is interrupted by the clack of one disk colliding with another on this Tuesday at the Winter Haven shuffleboard courts. We were invited to meet with the Winter Haven Shuffleboard Club by one of its…

“It’s magical,” said 25-year-old seaplane pilot Abbie Kellett. “You’ll see – it’s just amazing.” Some 500 feet below the yellow airframe of the Piper J3 Cub, semis and Suburbans move along like toy cars. Breaking up the cityscape and pastoral patchwork are deep blue-green lakes dotted betwee…

Born in Bellingham, Massachusetts, an hour outside of Boston, into a family from the French-speaking part of Quebec, Daniel Pepin has an unmistakable New England accent wed with good-natured Candian comportment. His brawny figure and tattoos may be imposing, but it is only a facade for a pas…

Apart from the work they put into performing, drag queens have historically been champions of change for the LGBTQ+ community. Queens like Marsha P. Johnson, the transgender drag queen who was one of the first to resist police during the 1969 Stonewall riots, which are widely regarded as an …

Royalty since birth, ‘Queen’ Michaelah Williams graces others with her positive presence and tasty lemonade. According to her mother, Shawntrese Starks, as soon as she was verbal, she would tell people, “I am not a princess. I’m a queen.”

Lakeland’s newest recreational respite, Bonnet Springs Park, is slated to open in 2022. Only a 10-minute walk from Munn Park, Bonnet Springs promises to be a mix of urban and natural, focusing on recreation, education, and reclamation. The park sits on 168 acres of the former Lakeland Railya…

On February 22, the Winter Haven City Commission voted unanimously to pass ordinance 0-21-06. The ordinance allowed chickens as an accessory use in all non-agricultural zoning districts within city limits, whereas they were previously only allowed in Agricultural (AG) zoning districts. The o…

Relations between Winter Haven and Auburndale have sprung a leak over a new design on the downtown Magnolia Watertower. The tower was covered last month while undergoing phase I of a project that will include “major maintenance including a fresh coat of paint,” according to a February 11, 20…

It appears a hush-hush python problem is reaching a fever pitch around the outskirts of Polk County and rapidly slithering inward. The snake problem could reach critical mass within months, says resident python hunter and former A/C repairman Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts (no relation to the WWE …

If you’ve ever savored the sashimi at downtown Winter Haven’s Tsunami Sushi or gotten a trim at Haircut Naturally, you probably know Mario Scifo. He’s the one with the big personality – and the skills and ambitions behind it to make waves in the downtown restaurant scene.

“My goal with Haven is to bring specialty coffee to central Florida,” said Jonathan Lane. He and his wife, Lynsey, are opening the first and only coffee roastery in Winter Haven, called Haven Coffee Roasters. “We knew that the downtown was really cute, and it was up-and-coming, and it was so…

Themes of history, science, and nature are threaded throughout the pieces of Polk County-based jewelry company, Rogue’s Relics. From rat skulls to snake skeletons, sixth-grade science teacher Kortlyn Dougherty uses a process called electroforming to repurpose the beauty of nature. You could …

It’s been one year since Nando and I got pregnant.  And no, we didn’t get pregnant during COVID, like people do before a hurricane. We got pregnant before this virus hit the world, but most of my pregnancy was during COVID, and I gave birth in the middle of COVID, and we are now raising our …

The sporadic stiletto-sharp clack, clack, clack of an old Sears Citation typewriter summons poem to page. The ink, a shade somewhere between fern and jade, dress up words that feel hand-selected – curated and composed in perfect cadence to a thought, a memory. You’ve just told a stranger som…

Winter Haven’s Shawn Gravitt, aka Skinny McGee, spent his time during quarantine exchanging lyrics between pen and paper, completing songs for a new album. Skinny sat down over a coffee with us, talking tunes and telling band stories.

Each February, the Polk County History Center (PCHC) releases their annual evergreen guide called “Discovering Black History in Polk County.” The guide takes visitors through the exhibits, touching on the Black men and women who made history in Polk County and throughout Central Florida as p…

If Brenda Joyce Patterson’s working title is Fine Arts and Adult Programming Librarian, then her working, working title must also include poet, essayist, columnist, author, and host of the PGTV show, Writer’s Den. Patterson has had an essay published among the words of Maya Angelou and Gwend…

A world-traveled performer, accomplished educator, and leader promoting community growth and diversity, Dr. Vincent Miller brings his talent from the stage to the board of Theatre Winter Haven.

Laura Prazdnicane, 18-years-old, is a senior at All Saints Academy. She transcends academically and socially, earning high marks in her honors classes. She speaks three languages, has a part-time job, is involved in extracurricular clubs, and was crowned homecoming queen this year. “Laura ha…

“Our mission is to reach all kids, particularly those who need us the most to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens,” said Stephen Giordano, President and CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Polk County. Giordano has been a for-profit CEO for the last 20-somet…

FlORIDA MAN MAKES MUMMY

What is it that draws us to the macabre? What makes us peer in from the outside, at a distance, safely removed from events so terrible and tragic, bloody and grim? For the creator, producer, and co-host of the Scarlet True Crime Podcast Sonia Sutton Meza-Leon, it’s all about curiosity, with …

“SCOOBY-DOO AND THE GHOUL SCHOOL” (1988) NR“SCOOBY-DOO ON ZOMBIE ISLAND” (1998) Rated G