Sandlapper Parrot Head Telegraph
Volume III, Number 9
January 2001
A Charter PHiP Club

Happy New Year Sandlappers!

Captain's Log

Greetings Sandlappers and welcome to a new year of phun and phrivolity. I hope everyone had a blessed holiday season and are looking forward to the upcoming Buffett concerts in February. The news of upcoming concerts is always a stressful time in the life of a parrot head. There's hardly enough time to contemplate the dates or even get the cash to the ticket distributor. As soon as you can, please let me know how many tickets you'll need. Each member is allowed to buy 2 tickets, but each of those tickets must be used by club members. So be prepared when the call comes to get your cash/checks to me ASAP. If you're writing a check, make it payable to the club as we will have to cut one check to the distributor. With that said, the Sandlapper PHC just finished up a wonderful year of partying with a purpose. From Knight's Castle, to Lowe's Motor Speedway, we did a great job of fundraising for the Children's Attention Home and the Tropics Exotic Bird Refuge. Our first meeting of 2001 will be at Curley's Restaurant in Rock Hill on Tuesday, January 9th. If you have any ideas about the direction the Sandlappers should take in 2001, be at the business meeting that day at 6PM and let your voice be heard. We'll have live entertainment afterwards and food and drink specials for everyone, so come on out and help us blast off to a wonderful space odyssey…2001 style.

BobRob
President/Founder

"Well the birds disappeared and the sky began to turn purple, from the skeleton coast to the land of violins. Sailors prayed to the patron saint of lightning, "Please St. Barbara, save our miserable skins."

Sandlapper Elections

Now's the time to be thinking of our upcoming elections. The first order of business is to appoint an elections officer. If you'd like to volunteer for this position, please contact me ASAP at bobrob@cetlink.net or 803-448-8000. The position involves collecting ballots, counting votes and announcing the winners at our meeting in Rock Hill on March 13, 2001. The Election Director can not be a current member of the SPHC Board. The next order of business with our elections is to ask everyone who is interested in running for office to tell me of your intentions before our meeting in Chester on February 13, 2001. According to our club by-laws, the offices available for election are President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Events Coordinator, and Membership Directors for the following counties in SC: York, Chester and Lancaster. Anyone who has been a member of the Sandlapper PHC (SPHC) for a minimum of six (6) months may run for office. Once the deadline has been reached for declaring candidacy, ballots will be mailed out to each member, with our March meeting (3-13-01) being election day. Only members in good standing who have been a member for at least 3 months are allowed to vote. The SPHC Board Members shall not endorse any candidate. Officers of the SPHC will hold their position for a term of one (1) year and should an officer not be able to fulfill their position, the SPHC Board will appoint a replacement.


Top Grossing Tours of 2000

The top 20 grossing tours of 2000 were recently announced by Pollstar. Jimmy came in 18th while Mademoiselle Legs herself Tina Turner hit the top spot. Here's a complete rundown of the top 20:

1. Tina Turner, $80.2 million
2. 'N Sync, $76.4 million
3. Dave Matthews Band, $68.2 million
4. KISS, $62.7 million
5. Tim McGraw/Faith Hill, $48.8 million
6. Dixie Chicks, $47.3 million
7. Bruce Springsteen, $45.9 million
8. C S N & Y, $42.1 million
9. Metallica, $42 million
10. Britney Spears, $40.5 million
11. Ricky Martin, $37.2 million
12. Red Hot Chili Peppers, $31.3 million
13. Sting, $28.9 million
14. Barbra Streisand, $27 million
15. Creed, $26.2 million
16. Santana, $26.1 million
17. Backstreet Boys, $25.8 million
18. Jimmy Buffett, $24.1 million
19. Up in Smoke tour $22.2 million
20. Phish, $21.4 million


Buffett's Winter Tour

Jimmy Buffett is preparing to crank up another winter tour and this year he'll heading back to the Carolinas. He hits Greensboro on February 17th and Charlotte on February 20th. Other dates include Orlando (2/8); Fort Lauderdale (2/10); Dallas (2/13); Houston (2/15); Tampa (2/22); West Palm Beach (2/24); and Boston (2/28). Club ticket policy is explained in a later article in this issue of the SPH Telegraph.

"Island I see you in the moonlight, silhouettes of ships in the night,
just make me want that much more. Island I see you in all of my dreams,
maybe someday I'll have the means to reach your distant shores"

Stargazers
by Robert.Hamlin@Dartmouth.edu

Our winter evenings begin with Orion rising in the southeast and Venus blazing away in the southwest. Try to imagine Orion stretching upward toward a bright light just beyond his reach. The light is Jupiter, the largest planet in the Sun's family. Above Jupiter is the Pleiades, a cluster of blue-white stars, and below is the red-orange star called Aldebaran. Off to the right of Jupiter is the fainter light of Saturn. Below Orion, rising around 8 PM, is the Dog Star Sirius, the brightest genuine star in our night sky. Venus will set around 7:30 leaving Jupiter to rule the night sky….with the help of the moon. Mars is much less conspicuous, partly because it's so much dimmer than the evening planets (Jupiter is almost 40 times brighter and Venus is 60 times brighter than Mars) and partly because it hangs out in the morning when fewer of us feel motivated to run outside and experience nature. Look for Mars to rise in the east-southeast around 2:30 each morning. It is reddish in color; Spica to the right is blue-white and slightly brighter.


SPHC Monthly Meeting

The Sandlapper PHC's next monthly meeting will take place on Tuesday, January 9th at Curley's Restaurant on Celanese Road (Hwy. 161) in Rock Hill. The business meeting begins at 6PM and I encourage all Board members to attend as we'll be making decisions on fundraisers, parties, etc. for 2001. The regular phlocking begins at 7PM and there'll be live entertainment and food & drink specials for everyone. Curley's is located in the Winn-Dixie Plaza next to the Rock Hill Airport and we'll be meeting in the back part of the restaurant. If you don't see us, ask for us.


Weinke More Popular Than…
by Kelly Whiteside, USA Today

He rents a four-bedroom home with three housemates his age (28) in a family neighborhood a few miles from campus in Tallahassee. He lives comfortably because he invested the $375,000 bonus that he made when he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays out of high school. He invested in a rental apartment complex in his native Minnesota. His interests aren't those of your average college senior. He just happens to be Chris Weinke, starting quarterback for the BCS bound (Bowl Championship Series) Florida State Seminoles and before the November elections, Weinke helped a friend, Tony Grippa, run for a county commission seat in Tallahassee. Weinke dug holes, planted election signs and knocked on doors. He even starred in a commercial for Grippa, a Republican. Meanwhile, Grippa's opponent, Pat Rose, had his own celebrity campaigner - singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. In a race between the quarterback and the Margaritaville crooner, Weinke, and thus Grippa, won. The tight election appealed to Weinke's love for competition. "Whether it's playing cards, spades or a board game, he wants to win. He really wants to win," says Jeff Purinton, one of Weinke's roommates and FSU's assistant sports information director. "He's very good at golf too. When football season started, I beat him on the front side. Then he got pissed and shot a 34 on the back to beat me overall. During the election, he was really into it. He didn't want his guy to lose, which goes back to him being really competitive." Florida State played the University of Oklahoma January 3rd for the rights to claim the mythical NCAA national championship. Oklahoma won the game 13 - 2.

"I don't even know where we are. They tell me we're circlin' a star
Well I'll take their word I don't know, but I'm dizzy so it may be so"

Christmas Parties

December 9th was a busy day for the Sandlapper PHC. By 11AM we were gathering at the Mt. Holly Fish Camp in Rock Hill to prepare to watch Santa Claus (Larry Vaughn) dole out presents to the kids from the Children's Attention Home. In all, Mark & Kelly Sebastian, Alan & Stacey Knutson and DeeAnna Brooks bought close to $1,000.00 in toys, clothes and other stuff for the kids. Thanks to Joe & Vickie Gibson, owners of the Fish Camp, for hosting us and providing dawgs and burgers for everyone.

Our own Christmas Party was held that same evening at the Summit Restaurant in Chester. The Caribbean Cowboys came down the mountain to entertain us and they graciously agreed to let ex-Coral Reefer Jay Spell sit in with them on key-boards. The combination turned out to be a great one as Jay sounded like he was a regular member of the Cowboys. One side note about the party…we recorded the Cowboys on my CD burner that night and they have agreed to let us produce the CD, market it and raise money for our club. To do this professionally is going to set us back around $1000.00 to $1500.00 in production costs just to get 1000 CD's ready for sale. The Cowboys have asked for 200 of those CD's as royalty to sell in their own neck of the woods, leaving us with 800 to sell on our own. At $15.00 per CD, that could bring us a lot of gravy over the next year or so ($12,000.00). We'll need to decide what we're going to do with this project soon as time's awaistin'. Thanks to Ryan Robertson, owner of the Summit, for hosting our party and providing excellent service to the Sandlappers.



Hugo Preview

Back in early December, I received a call from Hugo Duarte asking me if I'd be interested in hosting a party to preview his upcoming release "Another Day In Paradise." I was thrilled at the prospects of actually hearing the CD before it was even finished, so I agreed to round up as many Sandlappers as I could to converge on my apartment for an evening of very cool music. Hugo and his daughter Sarah arrived and, with 15 other Sandlappers standing by, he proceeded to play all of the cuts on the new CD while telling the stories that explained the origins of each song. From "Danged Ol' Pickup Truck," "Hillbilly Beach" "Ring The Bells," "Cutie," "Another Day In Paradise," Somewhere Headed South," "Paradise Tonight," and "Key West Heart," this is one fine CD. Afterwards, Hugo surprised us all by pulling out his Takamine acoustic guitar and serenading us with songs from his previous two releases like "Havana Flamingo," "Willie's Country Store," "I'll Be Gone," "The End Of The Road," and "Roll The Dice." A big thanks to Hugo for sharing his music with us. To pre-order his new CD and listen to cuts from "Places Along The Road" visit his web site at www.HugoDuarte.com. I have a few autographed copies of "Places" and his 1st release "Somewhere Headed South." If you are interested in either of these collections, please contact me at bobrob@cetlink.net. "Places Along The Road" is $15.00 (CD only) while "Somewhere Headed South" is $10.00 (cassette only). Hugo is back in the studio laying down some final tracks and hopes the new CD will be released sometime in early spring. I'll keep you posted as news emerges.

"I've been in vans and in bands, on and through stages, one thing I can conclude. One has to learn havin' fun is just smilin' through
Those Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"

ParrotStock 2001

Back in early November during the Meeting of the Minds ParrotHead Convention in Key West, an informal meeting was held to discuss the possibilities of creating a regional convention in the Southeast. It was ultimately decided that Charleston would be the destination for the inaugural event and that May 4th - 6th would be the dates. Since then, Fred Murray, President of the Low Country PHC, has located a perfect location for ParrotStock…the Hilton at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant which sits on Charleston Harbour. The courtyard at the Hilton will remind you of the area at the Casa Marina in Key West where the Beach Bash was held. Half of this area is grassy while the other half is beach. In all, the area will accommodate around 800 people. The Patriots Point Golf Links next door to the Hilton will host our golf tournament on Saturday morning, and a stage will be set up in the courtyard for our entertainment. Fred has secured Seagram, Corona and the Margaritaville Store in Charleston as sponsors for this event, and we're working with local artist Steven Jordon on creating a series of prints from pictures he will take during the convention where a portion of the sales will benefit a mutual charity.


?Who Are We?

The Sandlapper Parrot Head Club is a non-profit social club that ROCKS! Our mission, should we decide to accept it, and we usually do, is to provide a forum for like-minded individuals to help local and national charities, keep a responsible eye towards the environment, and enjoy the tropical spirit of the music of Jimmy Buffett. Over the past 3 years, the SPHC has done charitable works for the Children's Attention Home of Rock Hill, the Pilgrim's Inn of Rock Hill, the Tropics Exotic Bird Refuge of Kannapolis, NC, the March of Dimes, the SC Governor's Guardian Ad Litum Program, and the Save The Manatee Club. As a group we've traveled to many Buffett concerts including Raleigh and Atlanta, and have attended several Meeting of the Minds ParrotHead Conventions in Key West and New Orleans.

SPHC Officers

President - Bob Robinson 803-985-4454
VP - Randy Little 803-385-6254
Secretary - Rose Allen 803-385-6692
Treasurer - DeeAnna Brooks 803-222-5665
Charities - Mark Sebastian 803-324-0559

Membership Directors

York Co. - Kristen Chambers 803-802-0446
Asst. York Co. - Ron Howell 803-548-2342
Chester Co. - Billy James 803-581-0857
Lancaster Co. - Bill Sims 803-285-5320

Other Positions

Web Mistress - Sue Eaker 704-847-8357
Newsletter - Bob Robinson 803-448-8000
Historian - Ruth Whitman 803-581-8382



Save The Manatee Club Celebrates 20th Anniversary
1981 - 2001

Save the Manatee Club (SMC), the world's leading organization for the protection of manatees and their habitats, recognizes its 20th Anniversary this year. SMC was started in 1981 by Senator Bob Graham (then governor of Florida) and singer/songwriter and author Jimmy Buffett for the sole purpose of manatee and habitat protection.

Judith Vallee, executive director of SMC, notes that the focus of our work remains consistent with our founding mission: to educate and raise public awareness; to sponsor research and rescue, rehabilitation, and release efforts; to advocate; and to take appropriate legal action for the protection of manatees and their habitats.

Since our founding 20 years ago, Vallee notes SMC has achieved significant progress in each area of our mission. Among the major accomplishments she cites from SMC's 20 years of protecting manatees are:

· SMC's public awareness and education programs have made manatees one of the most recognized endangered species in the world. Today, SMC has over 40,000 members from across the nation and from as far away as Japan and New Zealand and people across the globe are aware of manatees and the threats to their existence.
· SMC's research funding of long-term photo identification studies added significantly to the life history information of individual manatees. This greater understanding of manatee behavior has led to increased protection efforts.
· SMC successfully introduced and lobbied for a Florida manatee license plate in 1990. Monies from this license plate provide the state's major source of funding for its manatee conservation efforts. Each year, during Florida's legislative sessions, SMC works hard to safeguard this crucial funding source.
· SMC established an international manatee protection effort in the Caribbean and South America that has included funding to care for orphaned or injured manatees in Puerto Rico, a protective sanctuary and a manatee tracking program in Belize, rehabilitation and release efforts in Jamaica, and a public awareness and education program in the region.
· SMC is the leading plaintiff in two federal lawsuits against the very agencies charged with protecting manatees. This is a significant milestone in environmental action and the effects of this legal action could reach far beyond manatee protection and set precedents for the future protection of many endangered species.

SMC's job is a tremendous one. Florida is the fourth largest state in the nation with no slowdown in sight to our continuing growth. The subsequent development pressures are taking a toll on manatee habitat areas, while the number of boats plying Florida's finite waterways continues at an unprecedented rate, causing manatee mortality form boat collisions to skyrocket. Largely because of membership support, we are able to expand our critical programs to address threats to the continued existence of manatees. Without this support, and without the power base of a strong collective voice that SMC provides, manatees would most assuredly be like the vast majority of America's endangered species: without funding for conservation programs, without a strong constituency, and without the essential regulations that guide a species' recovery. As we pause for a moment to reflect on our 20 years of protecting manatees, from all of us at SMC our sincere thanks to our members for their loyalty and financial assistance. Together, we look ahead to the challenges of the next 20 years and to ultimately realizing our shared goal of saving manatees from extinction.

"Then daddy'd beat the drum, the old folks start to hum, sing the only songs that we all knew. Ambiance so fine, dancin' drinkin' wine, sing about the lifestyle on the bayou"

And Now…A Word From Our Sponsors

"We sailed from the port of indecision, young and wild with oh so much to learn. Days turned into years, As we tried to fool our fears, but to the port of indecision I returned"

Calendar of Phlockings

January 9 SPHC's Monthly Meeting, Curley's Restaurant, Rock Hill, 7PM, Jimmy Gladden Performing
January 13 Tickets Go On Sale For Charlotte & Greensboro Buffett Concerts
January 27 Charleston Party, TBA???
February 8 Buffett Plays Orlando
February 10 Buffett Plays Fort Lauderdale
February 13 Buffett Plays Dallas
February 13 SPHC's Monthly Meeting, The Summit Restaurant, Chester, 7PM
February 15 Buffett Plays Houston
February 17 Buffett Plays Greensboro Coliseum
February 20 Buffett Plays Charlotte Coliseum
February 22 Buffett Plays Tampa
February 24 Buffett Pays West Palm Beach
February 27 Buffett Plays Boston (?)
March 13 SPHC's Monthly Meeting, TBA
April 10 SPHC's Monthly Meeting, TBA
May 4 - 6 ParrotStock 2001 Southeastern ParrotHead Convention, Charleston
May 8 SPHC's Monthly Meeting, TBA
June 12 SPHC's Monthly Meeting, TBA