Your Neighbor: Danny Palmer

Neighborhood: Sleepy Lagoon

Your neighbor since: 2013

For Danny Palmer, life in Sleepy Lagoon is anything but sleepy.

Palmer and his wife, Debbie, moved to the north-end community nearly two years ago from Punta Gorda after many years in the restaurant business.

“Longboat Key was our stopping point when visiting our son and his family in Tampa and we just fell in love with it,” said Debbie Palmer. “It kind of found us. ”

Although Palmer has retired a few times before — “Yeah, we retired again. How many times is this, Danny? How many times have we retired?” jokes Debbie — he decided to take on another venture, this time, in radio.

“It’s an old-time station with big-time technology,” said Palmer of his Longboat Key-based station, WICW.

Because the station plays over the Internet, people from all over the world can listen to wicwradio.com and hear CD-quality sound, whether it’s over a computer, phone or even in the car. WICW mostly features songs from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but, with his computer, Palmer has a library full of music at his fingertips.

“We can really play anything, but, in the daytime, I’m going to keep it this mellow, good music,” Palmer said.

Not only is his station popular with residents and businesses for its easy listening, he’s hoping the community will use it as an informative guide to traffic and any emergencies on the island.

“If you just pick up the phone and call us, I can tell people to stay home for another 15 minutes until traffic clears up,” Palmer said. “Don’t add to the problem. Any kind of emergency situation, like a boil-water order, you’ll hear it here.”

Although some may want quiet during retirement, Palmer is happy with his musical journey into broadcasting.

“This is truly a wind down,” Palmer said. “We had bars and restaurants ... That’s insanity. This is just fun.”

Contact Kelsey Grau at [email protected]