Our 2006 Community All-Star Team

In the spirit of Hollywood's Academy Awards and Major League Baseball's All-Star teams, we're naming our first-ever community All-Star team to honor the Gulfshore's own stellar performances. We're identifying the brightest lights in business, the arts, media and more-those who currently stand out for their talents and recent achievements. With so many worthy candidates to choose from, we worked with a blue-ribbon panel of local professionals to narrow the list, and then our board of editors made the tough cuts. Here are 30 people who make the Gulfshore better by their presence.

LAW

Named to Worth magazine's list of the country's top 100 attorneys, trust specialist Joe B. Cox is the brains behind many multimillion-dollar estates. He also serves on the boards of numerous charitable organizations, which find their profiles instantly raised by their association with him.

To understand what people mean when they talk about the way Naples was, look to George Vega. As one of the town's original four attorneys, he sometimes took his early payments in fresh-caught fish or produce, and he can still be counted on to quietly look out for his clients' and the community's best interests.

EDUCATION

How did Florida Gulf Coast University go from a young commuter school to the fastest-growing university in the state, with research initiatives, expanded degree programs and Division I athletics? The short answer is FGCU president Bill Merwin, whose ambition and passion have proven infectious to supporters from Charlotte to Collier counties and beyond.

GOVERNMENT

We might have picked Naples Mayor Bill Barnett out of central casting-a small-town mayor who is interested and interesting, accessible enough to return phone calls from citizens and connected enough to hob-nob with the big boys. An ace poker player, Barnett is also known for his prowess as an auctioneer at many Gulfshore galas.

Before 2004, then-deputy Mike Scott was best known as a morning-news-show traffic personality who kept his smile in the face of even the knottiest road tie-ups. But in that year's election, the 18-year law enforcement veteran trounced the incumbent (his onetime boss) to become Lee County sheriff. Scott maintains his nice-guy persona among the force and the public while also running an impressively tight ship.

ARTS

The black-and-white Everglades photographs of Clyde Butcher are internationally recognized works of art, but they are also important dispatches from a threatened habitat. Once a year, Butcher helps visitors get as up-close and personal to the swamp as he does, leading annual walks through the muck from his Big Cypress studio.

Robert Cacioppo is founding artistic director of Fort Myers' Florida Repertory Theatre, currently the area's only professional equity theater. Always in motion, always ready with a new idea or grand plan, the native New Yorker has brought boundless enthusiasm to Southwest Florida's cultural scene.

Don't ever doubt Myra Janco Daniels. In 1986, the former advertising executive put Naples on the cultural map by founding one of the Southeast's most impressive performing arts centers, the Philharmonic. Fifteen years later, the tiny woman with the iron will followed this accomplishment by creating the Naples Museum of Art.

Working from his studio in Naples, painter Jonathan Green has become one of the country's premier African-American artists. His works are shown around the world and even performed onstage, as the basis of an award-winning ballet. His evocative portraits blend elements of his native South Carolina and its Gullah culture as well as the marshy landscape of his adopted home here.

In 1970, Robert Rauschenberg was one of the art world's most-buzzed-about figures when he fled New York for Captiva Island. He has since become the center of our visual arts scene-donating works to area charities and nurturing local artists-while remaining one of modern art's most intriguing figures.

BUSINESS

So much for retirement. Entrepreneur Arthur L. Allen came to Naples for the tennis, but he couldn't resist founding a business here. ASG, with offices in Asia, Europe and the Pacific, is now one of the world's largest privately held software companies. Allen still has game, though, annually sponsoring the city's tennis championships at the municipal facility that now bears his name.

Offers, he gets offers: Lots of major metropolitan areas dream of the boost that billion-dollar Chico's would add to their tax rolls, but CEO Scott Edmonds remains committed to keeping the specialty retailer in Southwest Florida, enriching our economy as well as the causes-from domestic violence to cancer care-that the company holds dear.

Naples residents Marissa and Burt Hartington have turned their tony Old Naples boutique, Marissa Collections, into a nationally recognized stop for fashionistas while still maintaining intimate relationships with local glamour girls who won't trust their look to anyone else.

Thomas Edison was a customer of Fort Myers' original Robb & Stucky furniture store (we hear he had his best ideas while lying on the sofa), but CEO Clive Lubner hasn't been content to let the business rest on its historic laurels. Under Lubner's watch, Robb & Stucky has blossomed into a major national player in retail and design.

Ultra-private investment powerhouse Bruce Sherman, who moved to Naples to help the Collier family manage its fortune, vaulted onto the national spotlight last year as the man who made the media giant blink, forcing the sale of Knight Ridder newspapers after he raised concerns about the chain's profitability. Neapolitans also know the financial warrior's softer side as a supporter of area children's charities.

HEALTHCARE

As long as CEO Jim Nathan is in charge, there's little that's impersonal about the care patients receive at the not-for-profit Lee Memorial Health System. Nathan manages the healthcare system's multiple hospitals while also bringing in impressive funding for its foundation.

Today's regulatory climate has made healthcare a hard business, but Health Management Associates CEO William Schoen makes it look easy. Schoen garnered a big win for the Naples-based corporation, which has for-profit hospitals around the country, by overseeing the purchase of the Naples branch of Cleveland Clinic Florida.

DESIGN

Landscape architect Ellin Goetz is the designing mind behind some of the Gulfshore's most notable public and private grounds, including the revamped Edison Moonlight Garden in Fort Myers and the award-winning parks of north Naples' Mediterra community. Also known as a conservation activist, the free-spirited Goetz is married to fellow All-Star Mike Watkins.

The original cool guy, Bruce Gora is a partner in Gora/McGahey architects, a firm responsible for some of Southwest Florida's most recognizable landmarks, while still finding time to play in a rock band, create his own art and head up arts-related fund raisers.

REAL ESTATE AND DEVELOPMENT

Susan Hebel Watts, the planning mastermind behind The Bonita Bay Group, took a less visible role with Collier Enterprises before returning to Bonita Bay last year as senior vice-president of development operations. We say welcome back.

The real estate business that bears John R. Wood's name has kept its hometown feel while growing into one of the area's top purveyors for luxury residences. Big-hearted Wood is also the most visible supporter of St. Matthew's House, Naples' homeless shelter.

HOSPITALITY

Genial, jovial and also whip-smart, Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce president Mike Reagen serves as good-will ambassador for the Naples community while also protecting the business interests of his organization's 1,000-plus members.

Mike Watkins heads the family-owned Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, a 50-year-old Gulf-front property that has kept up with the big players by reinventing itself for the luxury market. A pillar of the business and charitable communities, Watkins is wed to another Community All-Star, landscape architect Ellin Goetz. (Thank her for the brilliant yellow tabebuia that blooms on resort property.)

MEDIA

As the president and publisher of Fort Myers' News-Press, Carol Hudler has also climbed quickly up the ranks of the paper's owner, the Gannett Corporation, serving as president of the company's Florida-based Sun Coast Group.

The president and owner of Waterman Broadcasting Corporation, Sanibel Island resident Bernie Waterman is a hands-on manager of his media empire, which includes top-rated TV station NBC2 as well as ABC7.

PHILANTHROPY

Whether stepping out together at the Magnolia Ball, the gala they founded that's raised millions for cancer care, or making bids for children's charities at the Naples Winter Wine Festival, Suzanne and Bob Chute find obvious joy in giving-and in each other's company.

Lee County physician John Fenning and his wife, Fran, have been instrumental in raising funds for local healthcare causes, but it's as patrons of the arts that the couple really shines, opening their well-appointed Fort Myers home to a host of cultural galas and fund raisers.

STARS AT LARGE

(OUR THREE GRACES)

An original trustee of the Naples Winter Wine Festival and the founder of her own documentary company, native West Tennessean Mary Susan Clinton handles her many roles-mom, philanthropist, businesswoman, wife and friend-with deceptive ease and sweet Southern style.

One of the first queens of Edisonia, Bernese "Bern" Davis epitomizes the charm and graciousness of old Fort Myers. And through her ongoing contributions to the arts and other causes, she's making sure that the area's future looks just as bright.

What would the Gulfshore be like without the energetic and always-fashionable Kim Long? We hope we never find out. The Neapolitan who knows everybody is a master at getting people together and getting them behind her pet causes, from Fun Time Early Childhood Academy, where she serves as CEO, to a myriad of other educational and children's concerns.