Betsy Price May 13, 2022 Headlines, Health
Officials cut the ribbon for Beebe’s new Specialty Surgical Center.
Damp, chilly weather couldn’t diminish the enthusiasm of the group that gathered Thursday in Beebe Healthcare’s new Specialty Surgical Hospital.
Health care leaders, board members and caregivers were on hand to cut the ribbon on the $124 million, four-story hospital, located on the Rehoboth campus just off routes 1 and 24. The hospital will care for its first patient on Monday, May 16.
Speakers repeatedly emphasized Beebe’s focus on the community.
“We have put our line in the sand. We have raised our hand, and we’ve said we’re going to continue to focus on the special needs of Sussex County,” said Dr. David Tam, president and CEO of Beebe Healthcare. “That’s an important thing to say over and over and over again.”
The affirmation comes after the merger of Seaford-based Nanticoke Memorial Hospital and Salisbury, Maryland-based Peninsula Regional Health System to form TidalHealth.
To the north, ChristianaCare plans to acquire Crozer Health in Pennsylvania, and Union Hospital in Cecil County, Maryland became part of ChristianaCare in 2020.
Meanwhile, Sussex County’s needs are indeed unique. The resort area is experiencing rapid growth that has outpaced medical services. Residents wait months before getting an appointment with a new health care provider.
Many newcomers are retirees, and with age comes an increased risk of developing chronic disease. According to Beebe, the population will more than double national averages by 2027, with surgical volumes expected to grow more than 60 percent by 2025.
Beebe broke ground on the specialty surgical hospital in 2019 as part of an expansion plan announced in 2017. Construction costs required an investment of more than $100 million.
“I am so grateful to all of our donors and supporters who helped make this dream a reality,” said Tom Protack, president of the Beebe Medical Foundation.
“We like to say it’s our community’s specialty surgical hospital because that’s what makes us a strong as a community health care system — those who believe in us, give,” he continued. “Today is a testament that Beebe Healthcare is strong, and that Sussex County supports Beebe Healthcare.”
The new hospital accommodates patients with scheduled minimally invasive and robotically assisted surgeries, including bariatric, breast and orthopedic procedures. In addition, patients won’t compete for a bed with acute sick people, and there is no emergency care in the new facility.
The clinical staff contributed to the design, which includes four operating rooms, 18 bays for pre- and post-operative care and 24 private, short-stay inpatient rooms.
The structure also houses imaging, laboratory and pharmacy services and the new site for the Rehoboth Walk-In Care Center.
The March 12 event also included the unveiling of the DAISY statue on the site, a large-scale version of sculptures given to exemplary nurses.
Based in California, the nonprofit DAISY Foundation was established in memory of J. Patrick Barnes, who died from complications of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, an autoimmune disease. The Barnes family started the foundation to honor nurses who make a difference in patients’ lives.
Tam, a Navy veteran, likened the festivities to commissioning a ship.
“There’s a point where you give the ship over to the crew,” he explained. “It’s an exciting opportunity to really relish the moment of transition because it completes one phase and starts a new phase.”
By putting the Beebe Specialty Surgical Hospital in caregiver and staff hands, Beebe Healthcare is demonstrating that “it is really the people who make this happen,” he said.
Betsy Price is a Wilmington freelance writer who has 40 years of experience, including 15 at The News Journal in Delaware.
Howard T. Ennis school will be home to the Bryan Allen Stevenson School for Excellence in fall 2023. After a few organizational hiccups, a new Sussex County charter school will be opening its doors in fall 2023. The Bryan Allen Stevenson School of Excellence, first proposed in 2017, received state approval on May 5, and it’s already garnered a lot of fans, judging by a recent state hearing. Named for the nationally social justice activist and lawyer born in Milton and famous for freeing wrongly convicted death row inmates, the school hopes to inspire Sussex students to see their potential as clearly as Stevenson saw his. What will set the school apart, organizers say, is that it will focus on service learning, which allows students to get out into the community to learn and address the prominent issues of today. For example, some students may be interested in researching environmental problems by solving water-related issues in the local community. Others may be interested in healthcare projects exploring the impact of toxic stress on children, families and communities while seeking solutions to mitigate the overall risks in Delaware. “We want a school where they’re in the community using their fresh ideas and their youth to help solve some of the problems about the community, while also providing them with a valid and rigorous academic education in the classroom,” said Chantalle Ashford, founder and co-chair of the school. Ashford believes a lot of Delaware’s youth do not know who Stevenson is or his impact on the social justice system. The school will be located in the old Howard T. Ennis School in Gerogetown. It’s located in the Indian River School District, but will not be chartered by that district or any other, organizers said. “We have no direct affiliation with other school districts. However, we are encouraged and inspired by our early collaboration with local school districts,” said Julius Mullen, executive director of the school. The founders have spent much of the last three years addressing the recommendations from the state’s Charter School Accountability Committee, which led them to withdraw their initial application. “A benefit of the application and the Charter School Accountability Committee process is it helps applicants evaluate their needs for a successful open, and sometimes that leads to schools delaying to give themselves more time to have the strongest application possible,” said Alison May, public information officer at the Department of Education. The issues the organizers focused on were securing additional seed funding, locking down a location and keeping community interest high during the pandemic. First, the school needed to receive additional seed funding, which is traditionally the stage where an organization gets their first round of financing from investors and stakeholders. Mullen said this was needed for the school to “feel secure in the funds we raised.” Once the location was found, Mullen said, the organizers faced the problem of trying to establish a new school in the middle of a global pandemic. “In a COVID world, we had to continue to recruit kids and stimulate the kind of interest from the community and parents while dealing with the challenges of COVID,” he said. To do this, the organizers utilized social media, door-to-door knocking, community events and other strategies to spark and maintain interest in the school. “I am so excited for what BASSE is going to do with our children and how it’s going to offer them to really work collaboratively with our community, and work with the education system to provide a legacy for them to learn and grow here,” said said Doris Dorsika of Georgetown in an April 4 hearing. Paula Roberts told that same hearing that Sussex County needed a new charter, specifically in Georgetown, where it is “crucial to reach a variety of different kids,” she said. Stevenson Charter will be the fourth charter school in Sussex County. The other three are Sussex Academy, Sussex Academy Elementary and Sussex Montessori Public Charter. The idea of forming a new charter school named for Stevenson came during a dinner-table conversation in 2017. Teresa Berry, a cousin of Stevenson, and Christy Taylor, Stevenson’s sister, were talking about his achievements and the fact that he’s from Sussex County. Bryan Allen Stevenson Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. He and his staff have freed or helped reduce the sentences of 125 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row. His memoir, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” was turned into a movie, “Just Mercy,” starring Michael B. Jordan. The novel and film tell the story of Stevenson’s most prominent case, where he and the Equal Justice Initiative fought to appeal the sentence of Walter McMillian, ultimately freeing him. McMillian had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death for a 1986 murder of an 18-year-old white woman in Monroeville, Alabama. The jury in his trial ignored multiple alibi witnesses who testified that he was at a church fish fry at the time of the crime. Berry started working with her daughter, Alonna, who had prior experience with the Department of Education and knew a lot about how charter schools operate. Alonna, her mother and Taylor reached out to Ashford, who knew Alonna through Teach for America. That core group started meeting with community members in 2017 to gauge interest. “This is where we really started to plan out what this could look like,” Ashford said. “We came up with the name, our core values, and from there we just continued to build momentum by having meetings with community members and community partners that would support us with our educators, families, and students, and we really brought together this vision over the past five years.” Those core values are excellence, equity, community, hope and voice. Ashford said much of the past five years has been spent talking to community members to determine what their needs are and how the school can fulfill those […]
Katrina Baecht and Dustin Parks of Texas ended their quest to visit all 50 states before turning 50 by hitting Delaware over the weekend. When Katrina Baecht and Dustin Parks decided they wanted to visit all 50 states before they turned 50, they decided Delaware would be last. “I was like, well, Delaware was the first state in the Union, so let’s make it the last on our trip,” said Baecht. The Austin, Texas, couple completed that bucket list over the weekend, seeing Delaware Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Mix Tape” at Rockwood Mansion as part of their visit. Their quest started about about 13 years ago, when they were sitting around with her sister and the sister’s husband. The sister suggested they should all try to see all 50 states before they turned 50. “This was alarming to be because I was the oldest,” Baecht said, “and had the fewest number of states visited on my list.” But the idea grew on them. “It’s one of the things where you kind of started talking about it casually, and then you’re like, ‘Are we really gonna do this? Yeah. Let’s go for it,” she said. She and her husband got busy. Parks combined their lists and realized that they would have to revisit almost all the states because their lists didn’t match. Now, the only state they have not visited together is Florida, but they’ve both been to it. As teachers, they needed to travel in summer. Some of their visits were via car trips to states they grouped together. Others, like trips to Hawaii and Alaska, requited more $$$$ and more planning. The most horrifying visit came on a trip where they headed first to a campground in Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas. The campground had a steam meandering nearby. They set up their site just as it started raining, so they decided to take a nap. An hour and a half later, Baecht woke up wanting to go to the bathroom and realized it was still pouring. They both went to use the facilities in the rain and then decided to go check out the stream. “It had turned into a raging river with giant logs floating down it,” Baecht said. “As we’re standing there, we watched it breach the campground.” Everybody in the campground starting frantically tearing down their sites and throwing things in the cars trying to save stuff. “Finally the water was about halfway up the wheel well and we just abandoned everything,” she said. The campers all drove to the highest spot in the campground. It was surrounded by water and they were trapped there. After about an hour and a half, the water stopped about halfway up the hill and finally began receding. They found their tent, but it had been destroyed. The couple drove to the nearest town and booked into a motel to dry everything out. When they got up the next morning, there was an inpromptu parade in the street to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality, which had been announced the day before. “So we got to see a parade,” Baecht said. She said the couple spent a few days processing the experience. “We were like, wow, that’s how people die,” she said. Mostly, through, they found they fell in love with wherever they visited. “We’re driving through Vermont and we’re like, ‘Look at all these charming little towns and beautiful mountain rivers and maybe we should move to Vermont,’” she said. “And then we’d go to Maine and we’re like, ‘This is cool.’ And now we’re in Wilmington and we’re like, ‘Look at this amazing park and all these beautiful homes.’ We sort of love wherever we’re at. We’re happy just to be on the journey and be together, and it would be really hard to say what’s the best.” The best, Parks said, is that on the trips “my wife and I are at our very best for each other,” he said. “The whole overarching 50-by-50 is just an excuse to get us out of the state, and be together on the road.” They both grew up in Texas, she from the north and he from the central part. They are aided in bridging their regional differences, he said, because she went to Texas A&M and his father did, too. “I can speak her language,” he joked. The couple really likes visiting national and state parks and enjoy nature, particularly animals. Parks said his favorite spot came in Custer State Park in South Dakota, on the edge of the Badlands and Mount Rushmore. “We don’t like to do more touristy things, so we drove into the park and all of a sudden we’re surrounded by bison,” he said. “They’re just hanging out around the car. And because our electric car doesn’t make any noise when it’s sitting still, they’re coming right up to us and sticking their noses in the car and licking the windows. There’s nobody else but us in our car with these bison. It was so cool. We just felt like we were having a magical experience.” Parks said the couple learns a lot about the state and about nature in particularly, but it’s been hard to retain it all. They’ve made theater productions a part of their trips because his degree is in theater and he teaches it. The Delaware Shakespeare production wasn’t the only one they took in Saturday. They also went to the Delaware Theater Co. and saw Tony Braithwaite’s afternoon performance of “Me, My Mic, and I.” They loved both shows, and sitting outside, both at Rockwood and also at DTC, under trees in the parking lot. “We couldn’t have asked for a better Delaware experience than what we’ve had today,” Parks said Saturday night after the DelShakes show. “We haven’t even been to bed yet. We woke up this morning in Boston, and we flew to Philly and came to Wilmington, and we had a […]
The legislators want to know more about state pay raises; a $770,000 program to help DelTech retain instructors; and the $3.6 million for police body cameras.
Middletown Cavaliers Class 3A Football State Champions photo by Ben Fulton BF Imagery It was a perfect day for Championship Football at Delaware Stadium. The rain held off until the nightcap and that allowed for a great matchup between #1 Smyrna and #2 Middletown in the DIAA Class AAA Final. A rematch of the Harvest Bowl from way back in the regular season, a rematch in which Middletown won 28-14. A little more on the line this time around, and the Cavaliers answered the call. If you have seen these two teams at all during the season, you knew what you were in store for. It was a back and forth contest from start to finish, with both teams experiencing some big plays on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Smyrna would open up the scoring on the first drive of the game. The Eagles would start the drive with a flea-flicker and go 79 yards, capped off by a Wayne Knight 1 yard touchdown run. Eagles lead 6-0. Later in the first, Braden Davis would find a crease on 4th down and take himself 14 yards for the Cavalier’s first points of the game. Walker would add the point after, Middletown takes 7-6 lead. But before the quarter could end, the Eagles would strike again. Yamir Knight, brother of senior Wayne Knight, would take the snap out of the “earthquake formation” and scamper 50 yards around the left edge for a Smyrna touchdown. Ratcliffe would get the carry on the 2 point attempt and convert, Eagles take a 14-7 lead after one. At the start of the second quarter, the Middletown offense would get a downfield pass interference penalty that would lead to a Mikey Pearson 4 yard touchdown run to tie the game at 14-14. On the ensuing possession, the Middletown defense would force a turnover on downs and the offense would capitalize. Braden Davis would pick up a huge 4th down conversion with his legs as he carried defenders forward for the first down. Shortly after, running back Josh Roberson would find the endzone from 2 yards out. Middletown takes the lead back 21-14 and that would be the score as the two teams went to the locker room. In the third, the Eagles would get a stop from their defense and they would find paydirt first. After a Cameron Edge to Devin Demoe deep pass down the sideline for 34 yards, Wayne Knight would add his first double-digit carry on an 11-yard touchdown run. He would also add the 2 point conversion, Smyrna back on top 22-21 heading into the fourth. In the fourth quarter, the Middletown defense would get a sack on Cameron Edge and get the ball back trailing 22-21 with 8 minutes to play. The cavaliers would put together a 4-minute scoring drive, capped off by the play the game. On fourth and goal trailing by just one, Head Coach Zach Blum decided to roll the dice, pass on the Field Goal attempt and go for the endzone. Braden Davis would drop back, roll right to avoid the pressure, throw across his body and find a wide-open Zach Caldwell in the middle of the endzone for six. Extra Point added by Walker, Cavaliers take 28-22 lead with 4 minutes to play. The Middletown defense, which most thought was the best in the state, would show it for the final four minutes of play. They would stop the Smyrna offense with 2 minutes to play. The Smyrna Eagles defense would return the favor, using their sole timeout to stop the clock and forcing Middletown to punt with 43 seconds to go. Cameron Edge would hit a few passes on the drive and get the Eagles to the Cavaliers 30-yard line but that is where the season would end. The Cavaliers take home their first State Championship since 2012 and in exciting fashion. Cavalier quarterback Braden Davis finished 13-25 for 175 yds TD and also ran for 43 yards and a score on 7 carries. Smryna’s Wayne Knight was bottled up for the most part, rushing for 88 yards on 19 carries and scoring two touchdowns. Cameron Edge was 12-18 for 216 yards.
Wilma’s opened Friday on Market Street in Wilmington. Wilma’s, a new duckpin bowling alley and creole eatery on Market Street in Wilmington, ticks a couple of boxes for the owners and for future clients. The new restaurant — half vibrant colors for the bowling and half soothing streamlined earth tones in the bar and dining room — starts by giving new life to 902 N. Market Street. It’s a location that’s been a death sentence for at least three other restaurants in the spot during the last decade. “I’ve heard everything from it’s on Indian burial ground to it’s a cursed space,” says Rich Snyder, director of food and beverage for developers Buccini/Pollin Group. “I think it’s just the right concept going in there at the right time. And I feel this is both.” For customers, it offers a place to socialize that goes a step beyond a bar. Snyder says that’s important to a lot of young professionals who want to do more than sit around with a drink in their hand at a bar. “We figured we’d do something that would create an activity that could attract people to the bowling activity but also have great food to complement the bowling,” he said. Already popular in places like Nashville, Cleveland, Baltimore and Atlanta, duckpin bowling also appeals to families because both the pins and the balls are smaller than traditional 10-pin bowling. Wilma’s lanes are half the length of a typical alley. BPG describes duckpin bowling as a cross between skeeball and 10-pin bowling, with slightly different rules. Players have three turns, instead of two, to score using a grapefruit-sized ball without holes. BPG hopes the lanes also will inspire families who want to hold children’s birthday parties during the day. The first full-service restaurant owned and operated by The Buccini/Pollin Group, the name Wilma’s also is a play on the term “Wilmo,” which many people use to refer to Wilmington. This self-portrait by artist Lauren Peters offers a look at the character created for the restaurant. The red-haired vixen seen above the four-lane bowling alley is a character created by BPG who is envisioned to be equally at home on a motorcycle or in an opera audience. She’s been given life in the distinctive style of Wilmington artist Lauren E. Peters, whose self-portrait in the bar also is a more dynamic version of Wilma. Announced in early 2020, Wilma’s opening was delayed until this month by the pandemic and also by supply chain problems. The pin setters, for example, weigh 1,500 pounds each and were ordered from Belgium. They were supposed to arrive Oct. 22 in New York. They didn’t get there until Dec. 7. And then somewhere between New York and Philadelphia, they were lost. Snyder said he’s been told by a Wilmington company who helps them find furniture and fixtures that it’s “complete piracy” out there. Wilma’s ended up getting two new resetters from the installers’ inventory and two off a showroom floor. They should have arrived from Pittsburgh and be up and running Wednesday, Snyder said. Ultimately, BPG spend about $2 million to transform a 100-year-old bank space with 30-foot walls. The marriage of the bowling and the dining, under Chef Jimi Sparks of Makers Alley and Ulysses American Gastropub, seemed like a natural for the 60-seat dining room once it was suggested, Snyder said. Drawing on the cuisine of New Orleans, of which excellent examples can be found shacks by the side of the road as well as spendy restaurants downtown, Wilma’s will serve lunch, dinner and brunch. Wilma’s gumbo Wilma’s fried oyster po’ boy Wilma’s poached pear and goat cheese salad Choices will include alligator sliders ($12), shrimp and grits ($16), and three kinds of po’ boys –shrimp ($14), oyster ($14) and catfish ($13), along with crab cakes (market price), Southern fried chicken ($8), a cajun butter steak (market price) and a $48 seafood platter. On Friday, Wilmington artist Eunice La Fate was raving about the smoked sweet and spicy ribs ($14, $27) and telling everyone who walked by that they had to try it, but she wasn’t sharing. She took her leftovers home. Wilma’s hopes to draw a brunch crowd on Saturdays and Sundays with two seafood benedict options ($18), steak and eggs ($20), and andouille sausage gravy on biscuits ($15), among other choices, including a standard eggs and andouille sausage breakfast ($15). The 10-seat bar, which features towers of wrought iron topped by leafy plants, will offer Louisiana favorite Abita Purple Haze and other local beer favorites; French wines; hurricanes; and craft cocktails such as Sazerac (Sazerac Rye, Peychaud’s Bitters, Angostura Bitters, Absente Absinthe, lemon twist, $13) and Corpse Reviver No. 2 (Revivalist Equinox Gin, Absente Absinthe, Dolin Blanc, Grand Marnier, lemon juice, $12). Wilma’s also offers a small retro arcade off the main dining area as well as a private dining room for hire. Guests can lounge on the mezzanine and look down on the dining room and bowling. The restaurant will be open Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m to 11 p.m.; and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Reservations can be made online at goodtimewilmas.com or on the Resy app. Validated parking is available at the Mid-Town Park garage at 805 N Orange. Patrons should bring parking tickets inside and show them to their servers. The duckpin bowling isn’t the last of BPG’s ideas of good times downtown. At the Friday ribbon-cutting, BPG announced it will open a shuffleboard club nearby at The Residences at Mid-town Park. Shuffle Libre, expected to open in 2022, will feature full-size courts and a Cuban-themed menu. Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington Wilma’s in downtown Wilmington
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