Student Of The Week Winner

When recent Barnegat High School graduate Amanda Glowacki heads off to college next month she won’t have to look far for a familiar face.  Glowacki was this year’s winner of the WOBM/Gateway Toyota Student of the Week scholarship.

We met up at the dealership earlier this week to present her with $1000 courtesy of WOBM and Gateway Toyota.  Amanda is going to East Carolina University as his her one-minute older identical twin sister Ashley and they will room together.  They have an older sister Autumn who graduated from Rutgers and is working on her Masters and the goal of the Glowacki Girls is to work together teaching at the same high school.  That will probably make Mom and Dad very happy.

OceanFirst Bank is holding their annual Calendar Contest and reaching out to photographers to submit original local photos to be included in the bank’s 2013 community calendar.  Suggested themes include seasonal scenes of well know local landmarks, beaches, oceans and lakes and the pictures do not have to be from this year.  A panel of judges will select the photos to be used and the deadline for submission is August 13^th.  For official rules and more information visit oceanfirst.com

He was and always will be Mr. Mac and he was a true man’s man. ..sort of a John Wayne type character.  John MacIntosh was one tough hombre but after a few months of fighting he passed away this week in his Seaside Park home at the age of 83.  I first knew him as a family friend and later as a football coach at Central Regional High School where he worked hand in hand with the late Joe Boyd.  He was Coach Mac then and Vince Lombardi had nothing on him when it came to intimidation.

There was nothing worse as an offensive lineman then getting chewed out in that gruff voice by Coach Mac who didn’t care if you were All-State or All-Nothing.  While he loved football his real passion was teaching Industrial Arts and he passed that on to his students, many of whom won awards in local and statewide competitions.  After retiring he stayed busy as a carpenter and woodworker and he loved to fish and hunt.  Maybe his greatest joy came in watching his grandchildren compete in sports and his son John coach basketball…first at Lacey and now Toms River South.

Every time I would see Mr Mac at a game I would be sure to go over and chat for a while.  He was no longer intimidating, just a nice no-nonsense man who lived his life the way he wanted.

In true Mac fashion funeral services will be private but next Tuesday there will be a celebration of his life for family and friends.  And oh what a life it was.