Vice President – Shannon Newell

Shannon Newell
  
I was born in Houston, Texas, but I lived in Tampa and Tierra Verde before moving to Maximo in 1999, so Florida has been my home for 15 of the last 20 years.  I moved to Maximo because of its excellent location:  very close to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and you can get to TIA in 20 minutes.  But I fell in love with the neighborhood, and now my husband, Bob, and I consider many of our neighbors our good friends. 

There’s a wonderful sense of community in Maximo, and I wanted to be more involved about protecting the quality of our neighborhood.  So, after seeing a notice of a vacancy on the Board in the Beacon, I joined the Civic Association Board last March, and I’ve met some very dedicated folks there.  Your board is working hard to keep Maximo a beautiful, safe, and enjoyable place to live. 
 
I would like to think that all of us share pride in Maximo’s benefits, but those benefits don’t come free.  It takes money to maintain the common area landscaping, the signature traffic circle and flag, and the rest.  Your board is presently pursuing grant money to allow us to eventually replace our street lights, and that will happen over time.  But did you know that only about half of Maximo’s residents pay their association dues?  Wow, imagine what we could do if everyone paid?  Anyway, I think it’s a very small amount to pay to enhance our neighborhood, and, therefore, the value of our homes.
 

Did you know that Maximo is home to a unique species of fish?  It’s true.  Bob and I were walking our dog, Boots, around the block one morning, and looked up to see a Red-Tailed Hawk–he was huge–fly over us carrying a good-sized mackerel.  The fish was almost as big as the bird, and apparently too heavy to carry, because the hawk dropped the fish onto the front lawn of a house near us.  The bird swooped down to protect his prey, but must have decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and flew away.  As the fish flip-flopped on the pristine lawn, Bob smirked, “I’d love to see the homeowner step out about now; we could tell him the fish just walked over from the canal.  ‘Yep, it’s another sighting of the rare Walking Mackerel.’”  Where else can you find that!