- November 30, 2025
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As the sun set on July 28, Ozzie Exposito was standing outside with his family, at Casa Blanca Vacation Rentals on Siesta Key, and they were waiting for a sound.
“She always times it perfectly,” Exposito said. “She never fails.”
The family were nonetheless surprised to learn it was also the 100th birthday of Irene Hryniewicki, who plays "Taps" each night on her balcony, from a handheld speaker.
It was a tradition that began with her husband, Rudolph (Buster) Heinle, who served in World War II. Since he died in 2018, Irene has carried on the ceremony every sunset.
The event continues to draw onlookers, as renters in the complex head outside, beachgoers look up toward the balcony, and hats come off in a gesture of respect.
For Hryniewicki, her 100th birthday was just like any day.
“I feel it,” she said of becoming a centenarian. “I feel okay.”
That day, as usual, she checked the time of the sunset on the news, which was 8:21.
"She knows exactly what it’s going to be in case it's cloudy," said her son Walter Jr. (Wally) Hryniewicki.
Hryniewicki lives relatively independently next door to her daughter Judy Mattes, fetching a half a chocolate donut, and a half a banana, for breakfast.
“I like chocolate, I always liked chocolate,” Irene said.
Irene is among those with longest ownership of property at Casa Blanca. She purchased the unit in 1968, with Mattes and Walter, after the complex was built in 1966.
The condo served as a rental home, then a winter home, and finally a permanent home, and the family prepared much of the interior themselves, which included painting the walls.
“There’s nothing she can’t do: paint, sew, knit,” Mattes said of her mother, calling her a "hardworking woman” who has “nothing she hasn’t done.”
Born in 1925 in a log cabin in Thorp, Wisconsin, Hryniewicki was raised on a farm, leaving home at an early age to work as a nanny, and then in a department store.
She was the youngest child, with five older brothers, one of whom died in 1945 at the Battle of The Bulge in World War II.
When she married her first husband, Walter Hryniewicki, she helped on the family farm and in his appliance store, the places where Wally and Judy grew up.
Another job she held was making shells for the Vietnam War with National Presto Industries in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
“She hasn’t aged in years,” said Wally. “She looks the same, spry, always cheerful, happy."
After Walter died in 1999, Irene remarried in 2003 to Rudolph (Buster) Heinle, a good friend of the family who was also a widower.
Buster had served in the Marines during World War II as a gunnery sergeant, and was involved in the Battle of Midway before he taught marksmanship to other personnel at Camp Pendleton in California.
The sunset tradition began around 2010.
“I don’t know, one day he just had one of those horns, bugle, and he just went out there and started blowing bugle," Irene said.
Eventually, Heinle was not able to play the song anymore due to dental work, so he bought a small device designed for insertion into a bugle, which plays a recording of "Taps."
The couple, initially snowbirds, would play "Taps" in the north as well as on Siesta Key, but when Irene turned 90, they moved to Sarasota permanently, where she has lived since.
Irene says she hasn't missed "any time at all." She's conscious of the people waiting outside each evening.
“Little kids, they’re playing ball, and when I start playing 'Taps,' they quit, and they stand like this,” she said, imitating a respectful pose. “Little kids.”
Currently, Irene is using what she says is her third speaker, which she obtained three or four years ago.
“It’s hard to get them though,” Irene said. “You’ve got to have a military person get them for you.”
The timing of the event is important to Irene, although she says she doesn't always manage to execute it perfectly.
“(The sun) keeps going down, and then it gets halfway, or not even halfway, then I play 'Taps,' and then it goes down," she said. "I don't always get it (perfect) though."
If the sun is setting into clouds, she'll play "Taps" to the clouds, while if the sun is obscured entirely, she will play at sunset time.
The appreciation doesn't end with the people turning out for the event, the family says.
Former renters will send cards addressed to “Bugle Lady."
Sometimes, flowers, fruit, or another gift will be found at the door. Sometimes there will be a note, and sometimes not, but they always know it's an appreciation for "Taps."
Outside of the ceremony, Irene enjoys keeping up with her friends, often by phone.
Some of the people she speaks with constantly are a nun she met during the ceremony, and an owner of the complex, while she noted she had just received a call from a friend of Buster in Germany.
Multiple times a week, she also works out with Judy's husband Aaron Mattes, who owns a local therapy clinic.
“I sure hope somebody takes over after I’m gone,” Irene said. “It is nice, it’s beautiful for the people, and everything else.”
The tradition holds a special meaning for Irene’s great-granddaughter Paige Kressin, 17, who is involved in JROTC at Manatee High School, and has hopes of joining the military.
“I’d say that the fact she’s doing this at 100 years old says a lot about her, and she does it in memory of her husband, who was a previous service member in the Marines, so, a lot of respect for that,” said Kressin.
“It’s Grandma’s kind of purpose, her purpose every night,” said Kressin's mother Leah Hryniewicki, who is Wally's daughter. “She watches the sun and makes sure that it’s just perfect, and goes over to Aunt Judy’s to catch the sun so the trees aren’t in the way and stuff. And she’ll never miss a time because she knows people are out here waiting for her.”
