Audio By Carbonatix
Here’s the rest of our interview with Greg Rice, local legend and Grand Wine Meister of tonight’s Lake Worth Food & Wine Experience. Part One ran yesterday.
How long have you been hosting the event, and how did it all come about?
I did it last year, the year before… it’s been going on for three years. I’ve always done it. It started when the Lung Association approached the Chamber of Commerce. And then the City of Lake Worth had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to agree to it.
Lake Worth can be so strange sometimes.
Yeah, the joke is that
it’s a drinking town with a beach problem. But you know, it’s a
great opportunity for Lake Worth to show off. They way it’s set up, it’s
a very different look and feel from what you expect from downtown Lake
Worth.
I see the sheriff and his wife, Dorothy, are honorary chairs — how did they become involved?
Well,
Mrs. Bradshaw is very active with the Lung Association as well as
several charities and nonprofits. She’s part of the board of directors.
And her husband, like every husband, has to do what his wife says.
You
and your brother John have been fixtures in Palm Beach County for so
long. I was very sorry when he passed — how have you been since then?
It’s
been an adjustment. It’s hard to believe but it’s been five years since
he passed, in November. It doesn’t seem that long. It’s been an
adjustment. We were so close in so many ways. But never once did we have
a talk about what would happen if one of us goes before the other. I
mean, I travel so much for work that I thought I’d die from eating so
much airline food. Of course, nowadays you don’t have to worry about
that.
Yeah — you’re lucky if you get a bag of peanuts!
But
it’s made me realize how much we did for each other. And now I do it
all myself. So it has been an adjustment. We grew up — what little
growing ‘up’ we did, anyway — together, and even today, I have people
come up and tell me a story about him or express their sympathy for John. I’m
really amazed at the outpouring of sincere comments. I’m sure I’ll hear
them for the rest of my life.
You must be pretty busy with your job at Hulett.
Oh, yes, very much so. We have about 340 employees, and they depend on the commercials I do to get the phones ringing!
