{"id":12380,"date":"2012-01-19T15:41:21","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T20:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12380"},"modified":"2012-01-19T15:42:03","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T20:42:03","slug":"accident-claims-life-of-longshoreman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12380","title":{"rendered":"Accident Claims Life Of Long- shoreman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At 6:12 a. m. Wednesday morning, <strong>Melvin James Rolfe, Jr.<\/strong>, 39, was driving his usual route on his way to work at the Port of Manatee where he worked as a longshoreman.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Florida Highway Patrol, <strong>Rolfe<\/strong> was driving south on U. S. Highway 41, he approached 34th Avenue South where a semi- tractor trailer was blocking three lanes waiting to turn onto U. S. 41.<\/p>\n<p>Troopers said <strong>Rolfe<\/strong> applied brakes to avoid the tractor trailer, and swerved to avoid a collision. However, <strong>Rolfe\u2019s<\/strong> vehicle struck the undercarriage of the trailer and became wedged underneath. <strong>Rolfe<\/strong> was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>According to <strong>Rolfe\u2019s<\/strong> stepdaughter, <strong>Kizzie Peoples<\/strong>,<strong> Rolfe<\/strong> was a 1990 graduate of Hillsborough High School where he played football. He also was a member of the Belmont Heights Little League team.<\/p>\n<p>After graduation, <strong>Rolfe<\/strong> worked for Rooms To Go, before signing on as a longshoreman at the Port of Manatee.<\/p>\n<p>In 2003, <strong>Rolfe<\/strong> married <strong>Cynthia Rolfe<\/strong>, and he has one biological child, <strong>Jasmine Rolfe<\/strong>, a grandson, <strong>Zevontae Lee<\/strong>, 4 stepchildren, and 7 siblings.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2011, <strong>Rolfe\u2019s<\/strong> father, <strong>Minister Melvin J. Rolfe, Sr.<\/strong>, passed after a battle with cancer, and his mother, <strong>Mrs. Rose Rolfe<\/strong>, was still grieving over that loss.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been tough for the family, because we were still trying to deal with the loss of <strong>Melvin\u2019s<\/strong> father,\u201d said <strong>Ms. Peoples<\/strong>.<strong> Rolfe<\/strong> loved sports, especially football, and was known to participate in football pools at work. He also enjoyed spending time with his family, especially his 3-week-old grandson.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson\u2019s Funeral Home is working with the family on final arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who wants to visit the family to express their condolences is asked to come by 2714 99th Avenue, or contact <strong>Kizzie Peoples<\/strong> at (813) 458-3593, or <strong>Nicole Flowers<\/strong> at (813) 230-3141.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 6:12 a. m. Wednesday morning, Melvin James Rolfe, Jr., 39, was driving his usual route on his way to work at the Port of Manatee where he worked as a longshoreman. According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Rolfe was driving south on U. S. Highway 41, he approached 34th Avenue South where a semi- [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}