MiamiHerald.com: Coral Gables

Dwyane Wade surprises Miami teen at prom

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:01 EDT

Dwyane Wade would have been in Chicago for a Heat playoff game Friday night if he hadn’t helped eliminate the Bulls with a big fourth quarter two nights early.

So how did Wade fill the opening on his schedule?

By attending the senior prom of an Archbishop Coleman Carroll student who had asked Wade multiple times to attend school events with her.

Wade surprised Nicole Muxo and her classmates at the West Kendall school by showing up just before 9:30 p.m. at the LaJolla Ballroom in Coral Gables. Last month, Muxo asked Wade in a YouTube video to be her date for the prom.

“My senior prom is coming up and I have everything set for a perfect night except for one thing: a perfect date,” Muxo said in the video.

It took her about a week to make the clip, and she wasn’t sure Wade would respond.

Met by tipped-off TV reporters outside the ballroom Friday night, Wade credited her persistence.

“She continued to keep going for it — no matter how many times I said I am going to be busy,” Wade said.

Wade said Muxo sent her a direct message on Twitter on Thursday saying: “This is the address, this is where I’m going to be just in the case.”

Wade said “when I got that, I said, “I won’t be doing nothing tomorrow night and I can go and make this a memorable moment for her.”

Wade called Muxo moments before walking into the prom “to tell her to have a good night” but did not tell her that he was outside.

“And then I got off the phone and walked in. It was kind of cool,” he said.

Muxo told reporters that she invited Wade because “he’s my favorite player and I think he’s a positive role model.”

Said Muxo: “I was so surprised. I didn’t expect it at all.”

She said she’d been a Wade fan for as long as she could remember.

Muxo’s date, Laurent Chaumin, was a good sport. “At least we both know how to dress,” he said.

Wade cracked, “I’m the third wheel. I’m like both their dates.”

He danced with Muxo and stayed at the prom for about 45 minutes.

Afterward, Wade posted on Twitter: “I had a blast at Prom. Never be 2 scared to ask.”

This wasn’t the first time Muxo asked Wade to accompany her to a school function. She attended one of his book signings last fall and asked him to a homecoming dance, writing the request on a bookmark. She said Wade asked for her Twitter name so he could contact her with a response.

“But the season was about to start,” she said. “He had practice so he couldn’t make it.”

Muxo went to another booking signing the next day, wearing a T-shirt that said “A Father First” and “A Homecoming Date Second.” Wade instantly recognized her.

“I’m going to remember it forever,” Muxo said of Friday’s prom. “This was the highlight of my senior year.”

Herald writer Jonathan Simmons contributed to this report.
Coral Gables

Gables Foundation wins Dade Schools' Exemplary Partner Award

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:03 EDT

Whether providing scholarships for promising graduates, volunteering at back-to-school cleanups or collecting dress clothes for athletes, the Coral Gables Community Foundation has been a longtime supporter of Coral Gables Senior High School.

The foundation’s commitment to its local high school was recognized on May 9 when it received the Miami-Dade Public Schools’ Exemplary Dade Partner Award in the civic/nonprofit division during the 35th annual Community Partners Recognition Awards luncheon at Jungle Island.

The wide-ranging support is part of the Coral Gables Community Foundation’s “Keep the Grade” pledge to Gables High for achieving an “A” grade through the state of Florida in 2009, explained foundation Executive Director Andria Hanley.

“We truly value our relationship with our local high school,” Mrs. Hanley said. “This is such a rewarding experience for me personally, as I think so highly of the students, administration and leadership at Gables High. It is truly a wonderful partnership.”

The foundation, through its managed funds, awards scholarships annually to outstanding seniors; its staff and board members volunteered in the school’s “paint-a-thon” to spruce up the school soon before the 2012-13 school year opened; and last fall, members of the foundation’s Ponce Society of Young Professionals collected dozens of like-new dress shirts and ties so football players could continue the tradition of dressing up for class on game days.

Most recently the foundation presented the school’s award-winning Culinary Arts Academy with a $10,000 check to create a scholarship fund for students interested in the culinary arts. The funds were generated in the foundation’s annual Tour of Kitchens event.

Elaine Adler, president of the Aventura Marketing Council, presented the award to Mrs. Hanley at the recognition luncheon, which was emceed by Ari Odzer, NBC 6 South Florida. Alberto M. Carvalho, superintendent of the nation’s fourth-largest public school system, was among featured speakers.

The annual Community Partners Recognition Awards recognize exemplary civic partners and outstanding school volunteers for their contribution and service to Miami-Dade’s public schools and its students.

Established in 1991, the Coral Gables Community Foundation is the steward of 25 funds serving a variety of needs in the community. Its mission is to foster programs and initiatives that enhance the quality of life for people living and working in the Coral Gables, the “City Beautiful.”

For information visit www.gablesfoundation.org.

Coral Gables

UM's Lake Osceola gets a collective hug

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:03 EDT

Despite having an average depth of less than 1 meter, University of Miami’s Lake Osceola and its inhabitants remain an object of mystery.

“Well, obviously there’s fish,” says UM freshman Brennan Williams. “You see them jumping all the time. Nobody knows why.”

Rachel Oberhausen, a UM engineering student, jumps into the conversation: “I’ve also definitely heard something about alligators; they’re the reason you get expelled if you jump in the lake.”

In fact, neither is completely right.

There are fish, as Williams pointed out, but to Dr. Donald Olson of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences the reason for the fish jumping is clear.

“When you see a bunch of fish scatter at the surface it is almost always predator evasion. However, one lone fish jumping straight up out of the water isn’t likely to be very successful getting away from a larger fish. Instead, studies have been conducted on the possibility of jumps for the purpose of removing gill parasites,” says Olson.

According to Olson, Oberhausen was not too far off about the alligators. Several years ago the campus had been home to several American crocodiles, a rare cousin of the American alligator. One in particular, named Donna, became an unofficial mascot.

The administration, however, was not too happy about the campus’ behemoth inhabitants and had them relocated. The stones that now cover Osceola’s banks are there not for looks, but as crocodile deterrent, making it difficult for the reptiles to bask in the sun, Olson continued.

According to UM’s Office of Student Affairs, swimming in the lake is prohibited. Punishments can include expulsion. This tough stance is most likely due, not to alligators, but to Chad Meredith’s death in 2001. The 18-year-old Miami student drowned while attempting a swim across the lake with two of his fraternity brothers.

Lake myths aside, students gave the lake a collective hug April 22 during the university’s seventh annual Hug the Lake ceremony.

The event, which is presented by the Random Acts of Kindness Club, consists of nearly 700 students holding hands around the lake in a large “hug” symbolizing their appreciation of the environment and Lake Osceola itself.

Though this year’s ceremony was interrupted by a light drizzle and participation around some portions of the lake was spotty, students who partook in the ceremony were still seen wearing their green “Hug the Lake” T-shirts with pride for the rest of the day.

Regardless, the moment University of Miami freshmen move on campus, Lake Osceola becomes the center of their world. Literally. Every trip to class requires students to circumvent its shores, dodging the spray of its 70 foot fountain as they make the daily trek to classes. It is a part of the University of Miami experience.

As Jen Levine, member UM’s Presidents 100, put it “The lake is the heart of campus life: from canoe races during February’s sports fest to the homecoming boat burning ceremony and fireworks show, it is a constant display of Cane pride.”

Visit GablesHomePage.com for more Coral Gables news & events.

Coral Gables

Gables artist gives back to community

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:31 EDT

“The modern artist is working and expressing an inner world,” abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock once said.

Pollack is one of those who has inspired Coral Gables artist John Angée, also an abstract expressionist whose medium is sculpture.

Angée first gained recognition when his piece Flight to Freedom was chosen for the Coral Gables Art in Public Places Program, which began in February 2010. The program has guidelines by which artwork, locations and artists are selected to enhance the City Beautiful. Called “1 Percent for the Arts,” the program, a mix of public and private effort, said that any new construction worth more than $1 million was to dedicate 1 percent of the construction cost to public art.

Angée says he enjoyed working with the city on its public art project: “I love Coral Gables, and I would be honored to have more of my pieces in the city,” he said. “I participated in a private search, and was selected by the owners of a building that was the first one to be part of the new program.

That building was the Zubi Advertising Building, known as the PonceCat Building, at Ponce de Leon Boulevard and Catalonia Avenue. Flight to Freedom was installed on an aluminum screen covering a four-story parking garage. It consists of a series of four stainless-steel pieces, each about 40 feet long, 20 feet high and 1 foot thick – and weighing about 2,000 pounds.

Flight to Freedom symbolizes the flight many have made from captivity, danger or political repression – especially meaningful to the Cuban exile community in Miami.

Angée was born in 1958 in Medellin, Colombia, where he began his art education at the School of Fine Arts. In 1983, he moved to the United States and continued his education first at Miami Dade College, where he received an associate degree in art, then at New World School of the Arts, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts in painting.

“I loved my years at the New World School of the Arts in Miami, I think that was my most important art education,” Angée said. “But the best experiences come from seeing art everywhere, all the time. Traveling, on the internet, in movies, in books – everywhere!”

In 1993, the artist visited Paris to study painting techniques at the Ecole Nationale Superieure Des Beaux, and in 2000 went to school again, to study architecture at Florida International University, where he received a master of architecture.

His latest sculpture chosen for exhibition is Passage to a Better World, installed at the Miami-Dade InterAmerican Campus as part of a multimedia project called Route to Human Rightsunder the auspices of the International Solidarity for Human Rights, a nonprofit organization.

He said the sculptures, made of steel finished with vibrant, colorful patinas, are meant as an entry to a different place, which suggests change.

“The sculptures are meant to inspire an open mind and an open heart, always conducive to changes in one’s own life,” Angée noted. “They are larger than life and meant to be touched by the spectator.

“It is this interaction between spectator and sculpture that completes the exhibit."

Visit GablesHomePage.com for more Coral Gables news & events.

Coral Gables

Former UM student to serve three years prison for DUI death

Fri, 17 May 2013 21:49 EDT

Former university student Ivanna Villanueva sobbed Friday as she accepted a three-year prison sentence for a drunken driving crash that killed a grandmother on her way home from work.

The tears kept flowing when relatives of the victim, Eyder Ayala, took to the podium in a Miami-Dade courtroom.

One by one, they described their relationship with the matriarch of the family.

An “extraordinary woman,” her husband, Jose Ayala, remembered.

She was the glue that kept the large family together. Even at 68, she continued working nights as a McDonald’s manager, up until that October 2011 night when Villanueva rear-ended her car, killing her.

“I never got a chance to thank her for loving me the way she did,” said son Axel Ayala, 34, who had gotten married just a week before his mother’s death. “It pains me that I could not say thank you for all the sacrifices she made so that we could have a home.”

Granddaughter Bernadette “Nina” Sadeek, 23, a University of Miami law student, remembered her abuela’s longing to one day visit Israel.

“She was extremely religious and wanted to see where Jesus was born,” Sadeek told Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Thomas Rebull.

Just feet away, tears trickled down Villanueva’s cheeks as she sat at the defendant’s table. A graduate of Palmer Trinity High, a private school, Villanueva played lacrosse and soccer and lived in Coral Gables’ posh Cocoplum neighborhood.

At the time of the crash, Villanueva — the daughter of an entertainment executive — was a freshman at UM.

“This is a true tragedy for two wonderful families,” said her lawyer, David O. Markus.

On Oct. 2, 2011, Villanueva, then 19, was headed home after a night of partying at the swank LIV nightclub at Miami Beach’s famed Fontainebleau hotel.

She drove her 2011 Audi Q5 down South LeJeune Road at more than 80 mph, plowing into Ayala’s Ford Focus with such force that the trunk was pushed into the passenger compartment.

According to an arrest affidavit, Villanueva told Coral Gables police that Ayala’s car had stopped in front of her and that she was unable to stop quickly enough.

Investigators found that her blood alcohol level was .231. The legal limit in Florida is .08.

Detectives also found a fake driver’s license and suspected marijuana in a plastic bag on Villanueva.

She had faced up to 20 years in prison.

Under the deal, Villanueva pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. She’ll serve three years in prison as a “youthful offender,” which means she’ll be in a facility with other young people convicted of crimes.

Villanueva also will serve 15 years of probation, complete more than 1,000 hours of community service and speak to young people about the dangers of drunken driving.

She’ll also have to make donations to Mothers Against Drunk Driving every year on the anniversary of Ayala’s death.

Villanueva will surrender in court on June 18 to begin her sentence.

Meanwhile, the Ayala family is also pursuing legal action against the LIV nightclub for serving alcohol to the underage girl.

“She came from a wealthy family, a privileged background,” Sadeek, Ayala’s granddaughter, told the court. “She could have called a cab or spent the night at the hotel.”
Coral Gables

Fantastic bites, super sips at Gables’ Bulla

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00 EDT

It still looks like a majestic Mediterranean mansion at the corner of Ponce and Andalusia, but it’s a whole new juego de pelota inside the former Por Fin. The white tablecloths have been stripped, the chandeliers traded for filament bulbs and the main bar moved downstairs to the center of the action.

And that makes for a whole lot of bulla at Bulla — pronounced “boo-ya” and translated as the racket of a crowd. The former temple of Spanish-style fine dining has been transformed into a fine drinking establishment with some fantastic bites that transported me to Barcelona.

Often packed three deep, the bar has the congenial atmosphere of a house party. The bartenders mix, muddle, shake and pour cocktails including a gin and tonic made with Martin Miller’s gin and bright, minerally Fever Tree tonic.

With more than 70 wines by the bottle, a solid selection by the glass plus complex sangrias, there is plenty here for grape lovers as well. Add beers from around the world, and no one goes away thirsty.

A stool at the bar, a glass of amontillado, a plate of tangy mahon cheese and slices of only the best Cinco Jotas Jamón Ibérico could make a girl happy. The cheeses go well beyond your usual manchego with such lovely additions as the biting Catalonian Carrotxa and the soft goat’s milk Leonora.

But it would be a shame to skip the signature buñuelos de bacalao, plum-sized, golden orbs that manage to be light and rich at the same time with their sweet, fishy cream filling and a robust romesco sauce. Croquets de jamon are also wonder in their light breadcrumb coating, draped with a fig jelly as sweet and unctuous as honey.

The sepia a la plancha is equally impressive, especially balanced with grapefruit segments and see-through threads of fennel. The classic gambas al ajilllo, snappy thumb-size shrimp laden with good oil and garlic, also won our hearts.

There was balance, simplicity and elegance to every dish we sampled, thanks to chef Luis Quant, who trained with stellar talent Jordi Valles.

From the list of shareable main plates, we adored the slightly salty, nicely crusty paella loaded with tender shrimp, clams, baby black mussels and meaty slabs of local grouper.

One of the few holdovers from the old menu, the patatas bravas — die-sized cubes of crisply fried potatoes drizzled with a gently scorching brava sauce — are a must try. The sloppy Huevoas Bulla — a swirl of potato foam holding together ribbons of Serrano ham and a sunny-side-up egg marred by soggy potato chips — is, on the other hand, a pass.

Unflappable servers and waiters who don’t always get things right work well with the Spanish rock and classical guitar to keep the crowd smiling.

Desserts include a transcendent torrija, a Spanish bread pudding that is crunchy on the edges, custardy in the center and served with a tangy yogurt ice cream drizzled with heavenly honey. The creamy but rather bland chocolate cremoso satisfied but did not thrill.

A lunch menu of snappy sandwiches and nice salads is a hit with local suits. The young and, may I add, handsome owner, Carlos Centurion, has another hit on his hands.

Contact Victoria at vpevpe@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @VictoriaPesceE.

Miami Herald critics dine anonymously at the newspaper’s expense.
Coral Gables