Welcome all visitors and tourists to Lake Worth Beach for PrideFest!

A must-see event is the PrideFest Parade tomorrow, an annual parade you have to see at least one time. For example, to watch the PrideFest Parade in 2015 click on this link: Incredible horses, yes real horses, were brought in from Wellington, marching bands from all over South Florida and lots of motorcycles and classic cars too.

That parade in 2015 occurred in the City of Lake Worth.

The parade tomorrow will happen in Lake Worth Beach.

PLEASE NOTE: For regular readers of this blog please scroll down to the next blog post following this one because what you will read about in this post today are things you have read about many times before.


This blog post today is for visitors, tourists and for everyone else thinking to themselves, “Hmmm. This might be a great place to buy a home or start a new business!”

And this blog post today will explain in detail why this municipality in Palm Beach County changed its name recently. And this post will also help editors and reporters at The Palm Beach Post and others in the press and news media adjust to the name change — and also how and why the most improbable of developments happened at all — that this very unique and special place actually became Lake Worth Beach.

And this blog post today is a rather long one, what some might call rambling, but worth noting this blog is not required reading.

Lake Worth Beach is well-known for its

famly-friendly events and festivals!

Save the date. The famalie-friendly annual July 4th Raft Race is just over three months away. Has your famalie and friends begun working on costumes yet? A famly and neighborhood theme?

Without further ado, moving on to how and why
Lake Worth Beach came to be.


Let us begin with a true statement. 

Lake Worth Christian High School is located in the City of Boynton Beach.

You’re wondering,

“Huh? What’s this statement have to do with Lake Worth Beach?”

A whole lot more than you think.

By the way Lake Worth Beach also has a public high school, a public middle school and four public elementary schools. This City has a charter school, several private schools, one Catholic school, and several other schools that focus on faith.

The statement above is both true and accurate. And why that is that Lake Worth Christian High School is in the fine municipality of Boynton Beach is explained in detail below.

Note there is nothing at all improper or misleading about where this school is located. And from all reports this school is an excellent one. And anyone seeking an alternative to a public school education should learn more about this school. And of note in Lake Worth Beach is a Christian elementary school. Learn more about these two schools later in this blog post and what all this has to do with Lake Worth Beach.

The process called annexation is a very slow and very significant one. The government of Palm Beach County doesn’t particularly like many places in unincorporated Palm Beach County. They would rather municipalities gobble up as many unincorporated areas as possible whilst keeping their very special places and areas in the County for themselves like John Prince Park and nearby Palm Beach State College west of Lake Worth Beach. Pretty much everything else in unincorporated PBC is up for grabs if a neighboring municipality wants it. But municipalities don’t much like mobile home parks or crime-ridden areas. Too many cities have enough of those already.

Lake Worth Beach is approximately six square miles in land area with vast areas of unincorporated County to the west. One of those areas used to be called the Lake Worth Corridor but we’ll save that for another time. That Lake Worth Beach is ≈6 sq. mi. is true and accurate because one can be true but not accurate at the same time.

For example, the South Florida National Cemetery is located in Lake Worth. It has a Lake Worth zip code and a Lake Worth street address but this national cemetery is actually located south of Wellington just east of the Florida Everglades; many miles from Lake Worth Beach.

What’s happened is a shift of major proportions occurred recently. By changing its name to Lake Worth Beach what has also occurred is acknowledging for the first time the region called Lake Worth. For example, the South Florida National Cemetery honoring fallen veterans is located in the region called Lake Worth and another cemetery called Pinecrest Cemetery is located in Lake Worth Beach, also a place honoring the fallen.

It is incalculable how many times the press and news media have confused these two cemeteries just like so many other places in unincorporated PBC which can also be called suburban Lake Worth.

One could truly and accurately say Lake Worth Beach is the most notable place in the region called Lake Worth. One could, if one wishes, call Lake Worth Beach City Hall the capitol of Lake Worth or Lake Worth Beach the capital of the region called Lake Worth. The beginning of Lake Worth the region began with the Town of Lake Worth one hundred and six years ago following the arrival of Henry Flagler and a train station he built. Ever since then Lake Worth marched west draining the Florida Everglades as they went.

Oddly enough the editor(s) at The Palm Beach Post continue to struggle with “Lake Worth Beach”. Lake Worth Beach became official on March 19th when the election results on March 12th were ratified by the City Commission. And must admit it is quite amusing reading the paper every day and find out the latest way an editor has come up with to avoid using the word “Beach” in Lake Worth Beach. One reporter yesterday just eliminated the word “Beach” entirely. One could assume he just ran out of any other clever ideas.

One day envision The Palm Beach Post becoming a chapter in a future book by Dave Barry, the many clever and not-so-clever ways the editors have tried to avoid mentioning Lake Worth Beach when their very own beat reporter in this City began using the dateline “LAKE WORTH BEACH” on March 13th, the day after Election Day. Hard to believe but it’s true.

Apparently the editorial department and the news department are not exactly on the same page.

Now back to Lake Worth Christian High School.

Interestingly, it was the ‘venerable’ Palm Beach Post that educated the public about Lake Worth Christian High School in the first place and just weeks later they were confusing the public once again about Lake Worth the region. Learn more about a tragedy later in this blog post that puts this in perspective.

When you read or see news reports know that there is no such thing as ‘the Lake Worth-area’ or anything ‘near Lake Worth’. One could accurately call The Bahamas in the ‘area of Lake Worth’ and one could say the same of the Village of Wellington. Without reporting a nearby landmark, like a city or a school or a large public facility saying something happened in the ‘Lake Worth area’ is completely meaningless.

For example, yesterday was a terrible tragedy in a mobile home park. The Post reported the accurate location. And so did WPTV (NBC5). But once again CBS12 (WPEC) is back to their old ways once again reporting this terrible incident occurred “near Lake Worth”. This particular mobile home park is often in the news and not in a positive way. The Mar Mak Mobile Home Park is bordered on three sides by the Village of Palm Springs, to the north, west and east. To the south is unincorporated Palm Beach County. But CBS12 reported to the public this tragedy happened near Lake Worth which explains why WPTV is the one you should turn to for accurate news and tune out CBS12.

Now back to Lake Worth Christian High School.

Once again to be perfectly clear there is nothing at all improper for Lake Worth Christian High School to be located in Boynton Beach. This school is a private school and they can be located wherever they want if it is permitted by local zoning regulations. They can call themselves whatever they want too.

Have yet to hear one single negative thing about this school. They have a fine reputation and they are filling a public need, offering adults an alternative to public school for their children. And on that topic the truth is there is no debate about prayer in schools. Prayer in school has always been an option in Florida. But it takes a lot more time, effort and money.

So you are wondering where is this leading?

On Saturday, February 23rd there was a very short story in The Palm Beach Post on p. B3 in the ‘LOCAL’ section but by the following Monday it had become a very big topic on this blog. The news in the Post was completely accurate in every way, all five sentences of it published in the “In Brief ” section.

But soon thereafter one of the senior editors at the Post got involved and so did the community editor. They were not happy that very short story in the paper became a huge issue on this blog. And five weeks later that blog post is still the most-viewed on this blog.

Just by coincidence that weekend came the news Sarah Peters had left the Post. Peters was truly one of their finest reporters in recent memory. The front page news that weekend was all about Robert Kraft and still is front page news and probably will take up the front page for the rest of 2019 unless the public gets fed up with it all in the meantime. And that weekend was the 25th annual Street Painting Festival but it was that Christian school in Boynton Beach that caught the eye of a lot of people.

If you wish, after reading this blog post today scroll back up and read that blog post from Monday, February 25th.

That this happened just about two weeks prior to Election Day on March 12th was most fortunate because it demonstrated that when the Post puts the effort into being accurate they can be like when reporting the actual location of Lake Worth Christian High School.

But just five days after Election Day the editors at the Post were back at work once again confusing the public misreporting about a terrible crime in the ‘Lake Worth-area’. This crime happened right outside the municipal border of the City of Greenacres. Misreporting such as this is all too typical. Later that news was updated and corrected and we learned a woman had died. Another tragedy.

Since that homicide there have been three more tragedies according to the Post’s Homicides Tracker database. That makes for twenty-three tragedies so far in 2019; one of those 23 tragedies in Palm Beach County occurred in the City of Lake Worth and as reported by Olivia Hitchcock at the Post the suspect was quickly captured by PBSO.


Moving on.


Whether or not the news about Lake Worth Christian High School had anything to do with the election results on March 12th is anyone’s guess. But on Election Day the most improbable of things happened; the electorate approved renaming the City of Lake Worth to become Lake Worth Beach.

As explained many times before on this blog the name ‘Lake Worth’ had become a meaningless place in Central Palm Beach County. It could not be defined any more. History has turned ‘Lake Worth’ into a disjointed collection of places that stretches all the way to the Florida Everglades and over time the City of Lake Worth became unrecognizable.

To intentionally confuse the public or just because they don’t care some reporters and editors still refer to places “in the Lake Worth-area” or “near Lake Worth” typically referring to places near the Village of Palm Springs or further west near the City of Greenacres. Some stories take massive amounts of hours and technology to report but taking one or two minutes to report where something actually happened is an afterthought. And these same people in the news media wonder why their reputations are lower than used care salesmen which is unfair to salesmen and saleswomen who sell pre-owned cars.

Maybe some time in the future the Christian high school in Boynton Beach will opt to change its name to Boynton Beach Christian High School. Or maybe they will keep the name as it is. However, Lake Worth Beach and Boynton Beach are each very unique and special places in their own right.

Lake Worth Beach and Boynton Beach are both true to history and both are very unique and very special.

However, some in the press and news media keep on harping about crime being THE REASON for renaming this City but the reasoning goes far beyond that. What began as a unique place one hundred and six years ago had ceased to be unique any more as over the generations former City residents, businesses and even schools packed up and left the City limits taking their version of ‘Lake Worth’ with them.

According to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser the Lake Worth Christian High School has a ‘Lake Worth’ mailing address. You have to dig deeper to find out the facts and learn more about what is actually another municipality, what is suburban Lake Worth and what is not Lake Worth Beach.

Another example is over and over again it’s reported the well-known Palm Beach Habilitation Center is ‘in Lake Worth’. It’s not. It is located in the Village of Palm Springs.

Once again, in the City of Boynton Beach is a school in a formerly unincorporated area in suburban Lake Worth called the Lake Worth Christian High School. It’s unclear when this property was annexed by Boynton Beach but will find out some time soon.

Click on map to enlarge.

See a red box? That is where the Lake Worth Christian High School is located — in Boynton Beach south of Town of Lantana (shaded Verdenia Lantana)  — unshaded areas are unincorporated PBC, also called suburban Lake Worth.

Keep in mind the effort to rename this City to become Lake Worth Beach was oft-lampooned by many, including the local press, and it’s very possible that effort had unintended consequences and actually drew even more attention to this important topic.

The effort to become Lake Worth Beach was and is overwhelming popular with our elected leaders but what went largely unnoticed was how popular it had become with the public as well.

And over time what will happen is businesses, organizations and even schools may add the “Beach” to their name when doing a renovation or a public relations effort like maybe even a Catholic elementary school in Lake Worth Beach.

Did you know there is a well-respected and productive Catholic elementary school in this City?

It’s called the Sacred Heart School located at 410 North M Street, click on this link.

Mission Statement

“As a faith community enthroned in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, our mission is to provide all our students, of diverse cultures and abilities, an education of excellence, in a Christ-centered environment, encourage them to live the gospel values of love, peace, justice, respect, and service, and prepare them for success in higher education and life, and to be productive, responsible, and effective members of society.” 


Thank You for visiting today and hope you found this information helpful.

And there are a lot of very knowledgeable Realtors right here in Lake Worth Beach. So if you decide to go looking around this City please pick a Realtor from Lake Worth Beach.