• Mary W. Jarrett has been appointed as an Assistant General Counsel with the City’s Office of General Counsel. The Vanderbilt and University of Florida College of Law grad will work in the General Litigation Department.
• Urban Flatbread Co. is now open in The Shoppes at Ponte Vedra. To celebrate the new store’s grand opening, they will donate 100 percent of sales three days later this month to local non-profit organizations: March 12, Ponte Vedra Athletic Association youth baseball; March 19, PVAA girl’s softball; and March 26, the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation. Call 280-5515 for information.
• Bala Munipalli, M.D. and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine - Jacksonville, will serve as medical director of the Oak Leaf Plantation Family Medicine and Pediatric Center. The 5,500 square-foot full-service facility will serve the Oakleaf Plantation master-planned community and is slated to open in August.
• Calling all boaters: You’re invited to be included in the 23rd Annual Blessing of the Fleet sponsored by the City of Jacksonville in association with the Captain’s Club. It will be held April 1 at 2:30 p.m. on the Northbank Downtown. Rev. Father Kamal Al-Rahil from St. George Antiochan Orthodox Church will perform this year’s blessing, an annual tradition to ask for good weather and safe boating conditions during the upcoming navigational season. Last year more than 250 vessels participated. To register free of charge or learn more, visit www.coj.net.
• Alex Mastrangelo, a pianist with the University of North Florida Jazz Program, is playing Fridays and Saturdays at the St. Johns Town Center’s, The Healthy Way Cafe from 7-10 p.m.
• Eric Smith, director for Law and Public Policy at Florida Coastal School of Law, will be the guest speaker at the Sierra Club Northeast Florida Group meeting March 12. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at Lakewood Presbyterian Church at 2001 University Blvd. Call 247-1876 for information.
• Big sports day here Saturday. The Gate River Run is in the morning, the grand opening of the Bob Hayes Sports Complex is in the afternoon and the annual Guns ‘N’ Hoses boxing matches are that night.
• Speaking of Saturday, Jacksonville University is holding the 45th anniversary of its College of Fine Arts. The event is billed as “The Celebration of a Lifetime” and the school will honor former school president Dr. Fran Kinne.
“Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson