Civic activist shares courage award

Anna Yuninger, long dedicated to improving life in Wimauma, was a frontrunner when the county's Citizens Advisory Committee met in recent weeks to recommend a winner for this year's Moral Courage Award.

But in committee meetings, it was outspoken Dover nurseryman Roy Davis who got the most votes of all 10 nominees.

So Yuninger, 74, was a little surprised when county commissioners last week settled a contentious discussion of this year's award by giving it to her and Davis.

"I was surprised, but I was elated it went that way," said Yuninger, a Wimauma resident since 1984. "This award lets it be known that you gave your time, your days, your hours, and in some cases put your life on the line to make things better."

The commission decision came only after a majority of the commission rejected Commissioner Pat Frank's suggestion that the award be scrapped altogether this year, on the grounds that Davis' work on behalf of Hillsborough County farmers did not help the community as a whole.

"That doesn't surprise me at all," Davis said of Frank's suggestion, which was backed by Commissioner Jan Platt. "It certainly diminishes the prestige of the award for all these antics to have occurred."

Ultimately, Davis' nomination was accepted by a 5-2 vote, with Platt and Frank voting no. Yuninger's nomination was approved 4-3, with Storms, Commissioner Jim Norman and Chairman Tom Scott voting no. Commissioners in recent years have said they want just one winner.

The Moral Courage Award was established in 1992, at Platt's urging, to recognize residents who stand up to government for the "betterment of the county and its citizens."

Yuninger said she was happy just to have been nominated.

Born in Miami, she grew up in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, dropped out of school after the eighth grade and "went to work making hamburgers."

By the time she retired to Wimauma in 1984 with her husband, John, the place she loved visiting as a child had deteriorated.

The retired foster mother saw sewer water flowing into yards, and children playing near garbage bins surrounded by rats. Major streets had no lights, and neighborhood streets had no sidewalks.

"I just knew there was better living conditions than that, and I began to ring some bells!"

She helped found the Wimauma Civic Association, using the group to successfully lobby local government for lights along State Road 674, sidewalks in neighborhoods and two welcome signs outside the poor rural town.

Yuninger has pressured the commission to develop affordable housing, and to strengthen code enforcement in Wimauma -- a move that some viewed with suspicion and anger.

Her speech a few years ago before county officials prompted a code enforcement sweep that found dozens of mobile homes to be uninhabitable.

Yuninger said she later got phone calls from families who accused her of trying to kick vulnerable farmworker families out of their homes.

"We never wanted to get them kicked out, we just wanted them to live better," said Yuninger, who lives with John in a cottage on the grounds of the Church of God, not far from her 91-year-old mother.

"Most of the time, when you take a stand, you make an enemy. But you do it because you know you're doing it to help humanity."