Naples Daily News Weekend Digest Miss something this week? Catch up on a few of our big stories in this quick digest

Black Lives Matter protesters march through downtown Naples

As the sound of thunder rumbled in the distance, so did the sound of dozens of united voices chanting the names of Michael Brown, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

Sunday afternoon, around 50 people of all races and ages marched from Cambier Park through the streets of Downtown Naples to City Hall, holding signs stating, "Our lives matter" and "We cannot be silent any longer."

This was Alexus Cheney's first time organizing a rally of this magnitude in Naples but not the first time she's fought for the Black Lives Matter cause.

Cheney, 17, started organizing the march four months ago in her hometown after rallying in Baton Rouge as a result of the death of Alton Sterling, 37, who was shot by two white Baton Rouge police officers.

"I was actually at the time traveling 50 states, and we heard about that and coincidentally happened to be near Louisiana, and so we went to the Baton Rouge protest to defend his life. We were part of the 200 people that were arrested," she said. "I decided to bring it here because if you want to change the world you have to start at home."

Child golfers saving sinking sport

Showing fine form, Brendan Sitar, 8, took a long shot off the first tee that flew toward the green at Stoneybrook Golf Club.

Pulling a pint-size pink golf bag to the tee, his sister Ava Becker, 5, took a few mighty swings before her club connected, too, launching her ball a few dozen feet down the fairway.

The siblings are taking part in the Estero-based club’s year-round junior golf program that includes a weekly summer camp.

The experience has been such fun, Brendan said, that he wants to become a professional player. Chiming in, Ava said she wants to be a pro player, too, adding, “My favorite golfer is Daddy.”

Daddy is PGA professional Jason Becker, 36, who runs Golf Life Navigators, a Naples company that advises consumers on selecting golf memberships and real estate in Florida.

Combative clerk Dwight Brock remains a prosecutor

From a conference room window in his Collier County Courthouse office, Dwight Brock can see the room where he began his career as a prosecutor in the state attorney’s office. It’s an unusual career path, a criminal prosecutor turned court clerk and comptroller, where today he oversees legal records and the county government's checkbook.

Despite 24 years as clerk and comptroller, Brock is still a criminal prosecutor at heart. And he runs his office that way.

It’s a source of praise from supporters and a point of criticism from opponents as Brock faces his stiffest re-election challenge since winning the seat in 1992. He faces Commissioner Georgia Hiller in the Aug. 30 primary.

Brock said his role is to ensure the county government follows the law as it spends taxpayer money.

“This office is the check and balance, and it is the only check and balance that exists on local government, on the board of county commissioners,” Brock said.

Collier Commissioner Georgia Hiller takes on former ally for county clerk

Not long ago, they were allies joined in the same fight.

But that changed in September 2014, as Georgia Hiller sat across from Collier Clerk of Court and Comptroller Dwight Brock waiting for the opportunity to criticize him.

In what was her first of many public clashes to come with Brock, Hiller accused him of rigging a bid process to favor a bank he wanted to hold county money. Brock had exceeded his power and usurped the commission’s authority, Hiller argued,

“The process was illegal, the process was defective, the process was … corrupt,” Hiller said from the dais.

Their fight, like the others that followed, oscillated between arguments over minute details of state purchasing law and personal insults.

Brock accused Hiller of gunning for his seat.

“You are a very small man,” Hiller said.

That fight, while not the launch of her campaign, laid out many of the issues she is using in her platform today as she runs to unseat him in the Aug. 30 primary. It also serves as the latest example of Hiller's unusual history of turning friends and political allies into enemies.

Castles for Kids gives back to museum regulars

Pito Guerrero, a shy 3-year-old with a distinctive black mohawk, ran to the shallow water, filled his bucket and ran back to his Castles for Kids team, which was working diligently Monday on a sand volcano and decorative boots encompassing it.

This is the type of play Pito loves, as he joined other kids at La Playa Beach and Golf Resort on Monday. Proceeds from the 22-team competition went to the Golisano Children's Museum of Naples, which focuses on early childhood development, specifically executive functions, according to its executive director, Karysia Demarest.

Pito ambitiously poured the water to fill a moat surrounding the volcano, which, much to his chagrin, insisted on being absorbed by the sand. He tirelessly kept working. His 5-year-old sister, Brianna, sprayed red dye on every other cowboy boot while a family friend, 8-year-old Maddox Chandler of Naples, sprayed the rest blue.

The kids named their volcano "Boots on the Beach" after Brianna and Pito's real life cowboy boots, for which they are known "around town," according to Christi Guerrero, the 34-year-old Golden Gate Estates mother to Pito and Brianna.

For Pito, building on the sand was similar to playing in his favorite area of the museum, where he can build with blocks or make "castles, shapes and cars."

Koreshan State Historic Site plans for future

It was Dec. 22, 1908, and Dr. Cyrus Teed had just died.

His followers placed his body in a bathtub. Then they waited for his resurrection.

Teed had promised to return from death with divine truths that six prophets before him — a line of "seedmen" that included Jesus Christ — had failed to reveal.

Teed said he was "Koresh," the Hebrew form of his first name and a word that means "shepherd." His faithful Koreshans, believers of Teed and his teachings, had left their homes in Chicago and New York to establish a utopia with him in Estero.

The Koreshan Unity village, in the wild Florida scrublands along the Estero River, was Teed's "New Jerusalem." And it was there he took his last breath.

Teed's Koreshans waited seven days for his corpse to reawaken into immortal life. A Lee County health official stepped in and ordered his body buried, according to archived records cited by the state.

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