Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not? - May 10, 2024
Analysis
Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not? - May 10, 2024
We have expanded the list, and we are going to a GoLocal team approach while encouraging readers to suggest nominees for who is "HOT" and who is "NOT."
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Over the past 14-plus years, more than 7,000 have been tagged as HOT or NOT.
Email GoLocal by midday on Thursday about anyone you think should be tapped as "HOT" or "NOT." Email us HERE.
Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not? - May 10, 2024
HOT
From San Miguel School Flag Football Team to SEC Football at Vanderbilt
GoLocal Sports Columnist Robert McMahon is on a roll - read his take on a tremendous Rhode Island success story:
Football has been part of Providence’s Jamezell Lassiter’s life since he was six years old when he started playing youth football for the Edgewood Eagles and then later for the Mount Hope Cowboys. While his football skills became evident at an early age, his desire to also excel in the public schools he attended, however, barely existed. His parents worried about what to do. They realized maybe a change was needed. They decided to enroll him when he was a 5th grader in Providence’s San Miguel School, a small Lasallian middle school for boys from diverse and challenging backgrounds.
His athletic skills impressed his San Miguel classmates. Flag football, soccer, basketball—Jamezell could do it all. He was a natural athlete. But the transformation of Zell, as he likes to be called, happened in the San Miguel classroom.
It was the San Miguel School’s culture and expectations for its students that helped propel Zell beyond his football skills into a potentially life-changing opportunity. This past February, Zell (San Miguel ’19, La Salle Academy ’23, Deerfield Academy ’24) announced his acceptance to Vanderbilt University to play football for the Commodores and study at one of the country’s most prestigious universities.
Vanderbilt, as college football fans know, is a member of the most elite college football league in the country, the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Yes, that SEC includes such big-time football schools as Alabama and Georgia, and in the coming football season, Texas, as well.
HOT
John Howell
In the world of community news, John Howell is a legendary newspaperman.
For 54 years, Howell has run the Warwick Beacon with grit and kindness.
He was not in the newspaper business to become a PR guy. He ran the paper to bring community news to underserved cities and towns.
Kudos to an amazing run.
PHOTO: Beacon Communications
HOT
Nonstop Flights to Puerto Rico
Rhode Island International Airport continues its unprecedented growth.
On Wednesday, JetBlue announced a major expansion of service to Puerto Rico. This will include daily nonstop flights from Rhode Island International Airport to San Juan beginning on October 27, 2024.
JetBlue announced significant network enhancements that reaffirm its position as the largest carrier in Puerto Rico. This expansion includes the addition of six new destinations from San Juan – one of JetBlue’s most successful focus cities – enhancing connectivity and offering more choices to customers, in a groundbreaking move for the island.
PHOTO: Alex George, Unsplash
HOT
The Story Behind the Mystery Photo
GoLocal sports columnist Robert McMahon had a tremendous take on the story behind a nearly 50-year-old photo.
When I first saw these photos of Jimmy Walker, Providence College, ’67 and Coach Red Auerbach, legendary coach of the Boston Celtics, a wave of nostalgia and intrigue hit me. The photos were given to GoLocal this past week by Ray Tessaglia, Director of Parks and Recreation in Cranston. Tessaglia has had these photos in the form of slides for decades. Then, he discovered them again during COVID while organizing his late mother’s family slides and photos.
Tessaglia grew up in St. Augustine’s parish in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Providence. In the 1960’s he and his St. Augustine buddies—Tom Connor, Eddie Riley, and Tom Tessitore—would sneak into Alumni Hall after PC basketball practice when there were still PC players doing shootarounds. Tessaglia and his buddies would rebound and feed the ball to Providence College stars Jimmy Walker and Billy Blair. It was a kid’s dream come true.
All Tessaglia could tell me about the photo was that his family went to a Celtics game “a long time ago” at the old Rhode Island Auditorium. Tessaglia borrowed his mother’s Instamatic, which happened to have slide film in it, noticed Jimmy Walker sitting in the stands, and took two photos of him with Red Auerbach. Tessaglia discovered these photos a couple of years ago and wondered what brought arguably the greatest Providence College basketball player, Jimmy Walker, and the greatest NBA coach, Red Auerbach, together in the RI Auditorium.
HOT
Fair Broker
Scott P. Rabideau has been appointed to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.
Rabideau was a widely respected member of the House of Representatives for nearly two decades.
He is a Republican in the old-style - fiscally conservative, moderate socially, and respectful to others and to democracy.
NOT
5 Months Later, We Don't Know a Lot
In an interview with Governor Dan McKee, he could not answer the cause of the Washington Bridge failure, why RIDOT's inspection program did not work, or how much the teardown and replacement will cost.
NOT
The Emerging Dark Side of the Transfer Portal
GoLocal Sports Analyst Kevin Stacom takes a look at the growing problems in college basketball -- tampering, cheating and corruption.
NOT
RI Commerce's Endless Confusion
In Rhode Island, the new economic development initiative of the day by state government is biotech and life sciences.
Rhode Island is presently investing $45 million in the field. Governor Dan McKee and Speaker of the House Joe Shekarchi have championed the investment. The monies were approved in last year's budget.
Commerce's website features Rhode Island's success in the industry and zeroes in on one company that the agency gave major incentives to move to the state in 2018.
While Rhode Island is spending millions, Rhode Island Commerce seems to be out of the loop.
Companies potentially looking to locate in Rhode Island may be surprised who Rhode Island officials are featuring.
Commerce hypes Rubius Therapeutics on its website -- on its main "biotech" link.
“When Cambridge, Mass.-based Rubius Therapeutics decided to open a manufacturing facility in Smithfield, Rhode Island, access to high caliber talent was critical to its decision. ‘There were already two or three biotech firms nearby, so the existing labor base in that area was incredible,’ says Pablo Cagnoni, the company’s CEO. In addition, when the company acquired a 135,000-square-foot manufacturing facility from another biotech firm, it was able to retain some of the senior leadership, giving it a leg up on its new venture,” states the Commerce Corp website.
