Hilton Head Living

It’s not hard to see why Christen Cuevas was chosen as the new face of Coastal Chevrolet in Savannah. Not only is she a knockout, she’s also vivacious, enthusiastic and intelligent. But it’s how she got this gig – and a brand spanking new Chevy Tahoe — that makes her story unusual.

Cuevas, a Hilton Head resident for more than 20 years, started modeling and acting as a child in Washington, D.C. When she turned 16, she decided to give up her career and take up martial arts.

Andy Carpenter remembers visiting the island as a kid with his family and being faced with two options with which to busy himself: play some golf, or go to the beach. “A vacation that does not actually make,” says Carpenter, now a copy editor and page designer at The Island Packet.

Hilton Head has always been big on passive summertime activities, happily bypassing the tacky approach to tourist amusement embraced by, say, Myrtle Beach’s cheesy theme parks and ugly water slides.

Before the pirate tours came along, the legacy of pirates in the Lowcountry had been reduced to caricatures on mini-golf courses and restaurant menus. But were there ever real pirates in the Lowcountry?

The area is full of vibrant lore, the most well-known of which is the legend of Gorez Goz. A bloodthirsty Spanish plunderer, Goz chased a local Indian maiden into a tree but got stuck, with his beard hopelessly ensnared in the tree branches. After he died, his grey beard continued to grow and spread, creating what we now call Spanish Moss.

History points to some real-world tales of piracy too. But, with traditional Lowcountry hospitality, the pirates were embraced at first, according to Beaufort County Public Library documents. For a quarter century after Charleston was founded in 1690, the city mingled eagerly with its pirate visitors, allowing them to booze and spend freely while at port as locals purchased stolen goods from the boats at low prices. Charlestonians saw the trade as good for the economy, but the royal government eventually began a crackdown.

Orchid Paulmeier has a familiar face to anyone who has been around the Hilton Head Island restaurant scene: Her One Hot Mama’s has been a staple since it opened in Bluffton in 2003, and became even more prominent when it moved to the island’s Triangle in 2007.

Paulmeier wasn’t allowed to disclose details of the show, of course, but she could tell us what it’s like to go from girl with a dream and an ice cream scoop to Food Network celebrity.

For Ava Davis, fulfilling a dream led to helping someone else out of a nightmare. In her new book “Nothing Short of Miraculous,” the retired English teacher, who moved to Hilton Head Island from Ohio four years ago, wrote about her experience trying to save the life of an abused heiress she met while on a golfing trip to Pebble Beach. Co-author and friend Lori Queen, also a Hilton Head Islander, recalled the fear of finding out what her friend was up to on all those mysterious trips to the West Coast.

“I knew for months that Ava was going back out to Pebble Beach to visit ‘friends,’ but she never added much detail. When I finally understood the entire situation and began to comprehend how involved she had become, I was terrified for her safety and my husband was absolutely furious with her. There was nothing else we could do but help her,” says Queen, who wrote about her part of the story in the book, published by Barringer Publishing in April.

When Amanda Walton was pregnant with her daughter, Walton’s father offered a bit of advice that has proved true time and again. “He said, ‘They don’t come with a manual, but there are two things that are a close second: (The book) ‘What To Expect: The Toddler Years,’ and your mom.”

This proves two points in rapid succession: that fathers offer wise and loving counsel to their children, and that mothers are even better at it.

Walton, 28, says she has turned to her father for advice on things like buying cars and leasing apartments, life decisions that call for a cool head and a bit of business savvy. “But when it comes to matters of the heart, I think moms know best,” says the mother of a 3-year-old. “And there’s nothing closer to your heart than your child.”

This year, a platoon of Wexford residents is extending some Southern hospitality to returning men and women of the US Army by hand-delivering 93 individually packaged “welcome-home bags” for returning and redeploying soldiers at Fort Stewart, Ga. The project is part of a volunteer effort called “Operation Welcome Home,” which primarily argets single soldiers and is connected with Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers (BOSS).

The group is planning its third trip to Fort Stewart in July.

Reality winner Patrick House on starting his new life in the Lowcountry

Even before the confetti fell on Patrick House’s victory celebration on “The Biggest Loser,” he already knew his new life would start in the Lowcountry. The Mississippi native won the 10th season of the NBC reality show in December by losing 181 pounds — 45 percent of the body weight from his original 400-pound frame.

But the show was about more than that: Its theme was “pay it forward,” and House is doing so at the MindStream Academy in Bluffton, where he serves as fitness coach. “We are making uge differences in kids’ lives,” says House, who has already settled with his family in Bluffton. House says he was quick to fall in love with the Lowcountry lifestyle. “My wife, family and I have been really blessed with the hospitality we have been shown,” he says. And thanks to his newly trim frame, he’s looking forward to trying out such iconic Lowcountry activities as wave runners and offshore fishing. “Now that I am at a healthy weight, I can actually do those things with my wife,” he says.

Green by proxy

There can be great value in a brand — a name or product we invest in and count on. But as our community continues on its green journey, how can we know which of these green brands, labels, advertisements and certifications are authentic and which are simply engaged in “greenwashing,” the practice of misleading consumers about the environmental practices of a company or the benefits it claims for marketing purposes?

It may make us feel good to support something with a green label on it, but a disappointing experience can do more harm than good. Whether dealing with laundry detergent, office supplies or a full community certification we must take care to become educated, verify the value proposition and avoid believing everything we read.