💰Will renters with 'disposable income' replace old school?

🌸 Happy Throwback Thursday, folks! #tbt!

This week in the Daily Commercial, Frank Stanfield writes about the site of the historic Lee School and the ostensibly upscale apartments that will replace it. In the story, Leesburg Mayor Jimmy Burry refers to the "right mix" of people who would live near downtown, people who have "disposable income."

Let's remember that catering to the affluent has gone wrong, too. How many nearly empty residential high-rises have we seen not do a lick for a downtown's commerce?

Coming from Tampa, this is an all-too-familiar tune. I've also seen the kind of folks some upscale types wouldn't invite to their galas, the tatted-up "bohemian" creative types, who opened galleries, cafes and shops, painted murals and sparked thriving cultural scenes in Ybor City and St. Petersburg that led to renaissances. Now bustling communities with sky-high property values, the once moribund historic districts were resurrected in large part by innovators who, ironically, were priced out and forced to live elsewhere.

I'm not saying this Lee School site plan is wrong, but let's say we learn from history and not repeat past mistakes. Leave a seat at the table for creatives and good people who have more creativity and hard work to contribute than "disposable income."

⛅ The Weather Channel tells us it's going to be a nice Thursday, partly cloudy, high of 81 and a low of 61 degrees.

👏Farewell to 'one marvelous woman'

Since it's Women's History Month, we're paying tribute to one of Leesburg's most caring and pioneering women, Dixie Jean Allen, who died in her Altoona home in late February.

"Miss Allen was my typing and shorthand teacher at LHS in 1957-1959, wrote Judith Parker on the late Dixie Jean Allen's memorial page . "She was a great teacher and person. Thought about her so many times."

Parker's sentiments echo a lot of the loving words offered for Allen, a former Lake County teacher and guidance counselor at the local college.

🚵 New historic trail in old ghost town

The East Lake Historical Society presents the 10th annual Heritage Festival, including entertainment, exhibitors, vendors and more from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Rock Springs Run State Reserve , 30601 County Road 433, Sorrento.

Also celebrated the same day, the Historic Ethel Trail, which winds through the former township of Ethel, which flourished between 1870 and 1920. The 3,000-acre pre–Civil War Delk Plantation, the largest in central Florida, around present-day Kelly Park.

According to Don Philpott, the president of the Wekiva Wilderness Trust, almost nothing was known about Ethel until two headstones were found by accident in a remote pasture.

Guided tours will be conducted twice a month, but visitors can now do the walk themselves with a self-guided brochure available at the trailhead. There are plans to reconstruct two homestead cabins, based on a photograph of a one-room cabin built at Ethel in 1888. "One will be a small museum and the other will be furnished – sparsely – as it would have been around that time," Philpott said. Click here to learn more.

📜More history-making news

📚 Black history 'no,' Soviet Union, 'da'! Florida lawmakers say OK to teaching history of communism to school kids .

🕔 Daylight saving time : Do you want to stop changing clocks?

🏈 Touching touchdown for former Gator : Former Gators quarterback Tebow proposing bill to help abused kids .

🙏Please help us stay in touch with the good folks of Lake County.

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Bye for now!

JG

This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: 💰Will renters with 'disposable income' replace old school?