Spotlight on John
Conquest
Spotlight on John
Conquest
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Bellport Honors Conquest Longtime basketball coach thanked for years of service and support Reprinted with the permission LI Advance of Editor Mark Nolan |
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| Bellport High School’s varsity boys’ basketball players and coaches, past and present, gathered in the gym this past Wednesday night to honor longtime supporter John Conquest. Conquest was honored with the Coach’s Award for decades of hard work and dedication to the Bellport boys’ basketball team. Conquest had served 30 years as a assistant coach and mentor to the basketball team. He had coached a legion of great players, including Wesley Correa, David Russell, George Garrison, David Acree, Harold Jasper, Victor Correa, Steven Branch, David Garrison and Todd Banks, who all have led the team to great victories. Conquest, who was diagnosed with cancer five years ago, was awarded at halftime and delivered a speech to the spectators and players gathered in the gym. He encouraged students and players to stay out of trouble and to lead a straight life by staying in school. “There is no reason young men and young ladies can’t get an education,” Conquest said. “You have to do the right thing.” Conquest also spoke about his years of service to the team and what he envisioned his legacy would be. “My legacy is, if I help one person, one young lady, one young man make it out in this world,” he remarked, “my career was not in vain.” He also urged parents to get involved and stay involved in their child’s life in order to help them succeed in life. Conquest closed his speech with a wise word of advice met by a standing ovation from the spectators, “The word on the street is: Stay away from drugs.” |
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Spotlight
on
Chuck
Anderson
Author/Educator
| Brookhaven
Author Pens Sequel Judy Anderson's husband writes another thrilling mystery book |
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| By BRIAN CURRY I get the feeling that Chuck Anderson of Brookhaven hamlet just can’t sit still. The man has accomplished much in the literary field, and at an age where men should be resting on their laurels and doing some victory laps, he continues to teach, edit, and write. This Hofstra professor, editor of the Bellport based Fire News and contributor to The Long Island Advance, had penned four other books, including the critically acclaimed American Conversations before turning to fiction with his 2007 murder mystery Playing for Blood. That locally-based whodunit introduced us to retired Long Island teachers Mack Thomas and Sal Cascio, who open a private investigations firm to keep them busy after retiring and end up always stumbling into bigger and badder things. Sprinkled throughout Playing for Blood were enough golf insider jokes, tips and terminology to qualify for a handicap. That flavor continues through Anderson’s sequel to Blood called A Highland Fling. Whereas Blood had you guessing which local golf courses Thomas and Cascio were playing or investigating, Fling takes you to the golfer’s idea of heaven on earth—Scotland. Part of the fun of Blood was also guessing the real local Long Island people and locales that were thinly disguised throughout. Sadly, that’s missing in the sequel, but I guess you can’t place Hauppauge inside the Highlands. But our two honest and decent detectives more |
than make up for it with their penchant for finding and solving everything from drug smuggling, prostitution and murder, all the while teaching themselves (and us) more about the duffer’s game. Many of the supporting characters are back for another go-around, including one of the local baddies from Blood. While Scotland may form the majority of the background this time around, there are side trips with mixed and dangerous results to France, Spain, and Morocco. So while these inquisitive private investigators are not on their local turf, they do give us bit of a travelogue as they uncover nasty and unsavory doings. In Scotland, a new nemesis is introduced: a gypsy with dark intentions who adds some European flavor to the story of our former teachers, whom you would think after dealing with all these unsavory criminal types and getting into all sort of physical scrapes would be just happy collecting their pensions and shooting a few rounds out in Manorville. Like Playing for Blood, A Highland Fling is a quick and easy read you will enjoy if your chosen genre is murder mysteries with more than a sprinkling of golf-related anecdotes. You can purchase A Highland Fling (Playingfor Blood, Part II) at www.amazon.com, www.PublishAmerica. com, or at Barnes & Noble. There will be a book signing and release party with the author on Sunday, Jan. 25, from 3 to 5 p.m. at Painters’ on South Country Road in Brookhaven hamlet. |
