Phil Dalhausser

The bodies are back. Breathes there a soul so dead who has not noticed the massive posters of bronzed volleyball stars on the tennis stadium on Seven Farms Drive?

Those players will be here in the flesh next week for the second annual AVP Charleston Open, which is South Carolina’s only professional beach volleyball tournament. More than 150 top men and women players, including U.S. Olympic gold medalists and the biggest superstars of the game, will battle for more than $200,000 in prize money during the May 15-18 tournament on Daniel Island.

The term beach volleyball may conjure images of surfer dudes and beach bunnies, but this is not your Uncle Jimmy’s spike-and-giggle picnic volleyball game.

 

Elizabeth Bush Kristen Odell, a parent volunteer at the Daniel Island School, carefully cuts out ladybugs from red construction paper for a first grade project. Odell was recently elected president of the PTA for the 2008-2009 school year.

There are plenty of reasons why volunteering on Daniel Island is a great way to spend your time. Getting the chance to rub elbows with a famous tennis legend and her golf pro fiancé is surely one of them. Debbie Currin had the enviable task of transporting Chris Evert and Greg Norman to and from Family Circle Cup (FCC) events for this year’s 35th anniversary celebration.

"It was quite exciting!" exclaimed Currin, a Daniel Island resident and five-year member of the FCC transportation team. "…They asked a few things about Charleston. I don’t think they had ever been here, so I pointed out a couple of things to them. .. They were quite congenial and quite nice. They’re getting married this summer. They were just like little love birds."

elizabeth bush Daniel Island resident Rhett Cuthbert, cast as a “troubled teen” on the Lifetime television show Army Wives, waits patiently on the set for his scene.

There is an enormous portrait of a young, almost mystical angel hanging prominently in the dining room of the Cuthbert home on Daniel Island. The brightly colored canvas has a captivating presence, one that draws you in because it is curiously different, interesting and intriguing. Such is the case with the artist himself, 14-year-old Rhett Cuthbert, an eighth-grader at the Daniel Island School with a passion for acting and art.

His talents recently landed him on the set of Army Wives, a Lifetime television show filmed in and around the former Navy Base in North Charleston. Rhett, cast as a troubled teen, came dressed in purple jeans, a grey tank top, a bullet-studded belt, silver chains around his neck and a bandana wrapped beneath his tousled hair. They were his own clothes, the same styles he normally wears, and did not need to be replaced with items from the show’s wardrobe department.

 

PROVIDED BY MUSC College of Medicine students Alice Uflacker, right, and Maryshell Zaffino perform an exam on patient Claudia Duke at CARES Clinic Jan. 14. The CARES (Community Aid, Relief, Education, and Support) Clinic aims to provide quality, preventive and episodic primary health care to the uninsured, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, immigration or socioeconomic status.

More than 100 golfers will tee off in the inaugural Commonwealth CARES Classic Golf Invitational at Daniel Island’s acclaimed Ralston Creek Course on Tuesday, May 13. The event will benefit the C.A.R.E.S. Clinic, a non-profit organization initiated and managed by MUSC medical students that provides free medical care to the underserved, uninsured population in the local Charleston area.

Located on Six Mile Road in Mount Pleasant, the C.A.R.E.S. (Community – Aid – Relief – Education – Support) Clinic has helped over 2,000 patients since opening its doors in 2005. Wanda Gonsalves, M.D., who currently runs the facility, is able to witness firsthand the benefits it is having on all involved.

 

Tim Haas of CruiseOne can help make your vacation dreams come true.

Tim Haas sits in front of a laptop on a clutter-free desk in his home office when conducting business, but his mind is nearly always somewhere else.

One moment, the Daniel Island resident might be envisioning the sparkling clear waters of the Caribbean, and another, the majestic, natural splendor of the Alaskan coastline. Both are destinations he can send you to, as part of a new travel agency franchise he recently launched called CruiseOne.