Sports
Fun
Biz
River Soccer celebrates 30 years
Millsboro Chamber grills and grooves
Bay Venture excited for full summer
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MAY 8, 2026
THE LOCAL VOICE OF YOUR COMMUNITY.
Wendy’s, car wash, hotel tax coming to Millsboro next By Laura Walter Staff Reporter Millsboro will be adding another fast-food restaurant to the lineup. Wendy’s is known for Frosty desserts and square-shaped hamburger patties, and it’s coming to town. The Millsboro Town Council approved revised final site plans for two new businesses in the Mid-Sussex Center, which sits on northbound U.S. Route 113. The Wendy’s will be a 2,250-squarefoot building, including drive-thru, located next to the shopping center main entrance (Tax Map ID 133-21.004.05). Wash-X will be a 4,420-square-foot building, including drive-thru automatic car wash, located between Wendy’s and La Tonalteca (Tax Map ID 133-21.004.06). Site prep will all happen at once, but the Wendy’s is the priority for construction, due to agreements with that comSee MILLSBORO page A6
Frankford park party rankles residents By Kerin Magill Staff Reporter A large party in Frankford Town Park last weekend got the attention of the Frankford Town Council and had one official vowing to ensure that police show a greater presence when there are signs of a possible problem at the park. During the Tuesday, May 5, meeting of the town council, Council President Greg Welch mentioned that a party in the park on Saturday, May 2, had apparently involved alcohol and marijuana consumption, both of which are illegal in the park. Police Chief Kevin Smith was not present at Tuesday’s meeting, and there See PARTY page A9
Volume 23, Issue 19
FREE
‘I am grateful’ Pair of mothers have spread love, music By Susan Canfora Staff Reporter As her three children were growing up, Ruth Davis played the piano and organ, bidding the faithful to step away from the worries of the week, quiet their hearts and listen to hymns at what is now Mariner’s Bethel Global Methodist Church in Ocean View. She played “Amazing Grace” (one of her favorites), “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and “It Is Well With My Soul.” Now, when the 96-year-old retired Realtor attends Mariner’s Bethel, she admires the musical talent of Leanne Mereider, whom she calls “just wonderful.” “Music is a vital part of church because it’s a form of the worship. It’s not just the message from the minister, which we rely on and we need so very much, but the music kind of underlines the message,” said Davis, who retired as pianist and organist in 2009, after more than four decades. “When you sing, you pray twice,” Mereider, 39, of Millsboro, reasoned. “It’s like that part you get to access, that part of you that doesn’t have words. When you are singing or when you are playing music, you can really give your all to God and involve yourself. When I pick out music for congregations to worship with, I think about what they are familiar with and what they can, in turn, give to God,” she said. The two women — both deeply affected by music at the same church, both knowing the exhilaration and uncertainties of raising children — will celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday, although in the Mereider home, it’s more about 4-year-old Benjamin than about Leanne Mereider, because he was born close to Mother’s Day, Mereider said, but the family will be sure to attend church together. “I started piano when I was 8 years
Special to the Coastal Point • Submitted
Ruth Davis is seated at the organ at Mariner’s Bethel Global Methodist Church in Ocean View, a familiar sight over the years. old. The organ? I fake the organ,” she said with a laugh. “I kind of took a couple organ lessons my senior year of high school and basically didn’t start playing until I got to be music director at Wesleyan United Methodist Church in 2012,” said Mereider, who became Mariner’s pianist last October. She and her husband, Christopher, are Catholic and attend Mass on Saturday evenings, then worship at Mariner’s on Sundays, with Benjamin and 2-year-old Lydia. They are expecting another baby, a son, whose name they haven’t yet chosen.
Both women fondly remember their own childhoods, with Mereider — whose favorite hymn is “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” — appreciating that her mother, Carol WaggonerAngleton of Georgia, read to her and her siblings, as she does for her children. “A mother’s job is to teach children the value of life that each person has so they can live out the commandments of love and of God and then love your neighbors as yourself, so they always have a good sense of their own worth See MOTHERS page A3