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CHASE SQUIRESA section of street is renamed for auto dealer Dick Jarrett, as a means to permanently honor his local philanthropy.
DADE CITY - A crowd of city officials and business leaders gathered Wednesday at a surprise ceremony honoring car dealer and philanthropist Dick Jarrett, naming the street outside his dealership Dick Jarrett Way.
City Commissioner Lowell Harris said the idea to honor the longtime businessman came from Louis Abraham, another fixture in the city's business circle.
"It's long overdue, well deserved," Harris said. "I don't know of anybody in the community who has given more to everyone, all the way from infants to people as old as me and Louis Abraham."
"This is one man who came to Dade City as a stranger and became a friend," Abraham said.
Mayor Scott Black read a city proclamation naming the stretch of road from Old Lakeland Highway to the U.S. 98 Bypass after Jarrett.
Jarrett, 75, moved to Florida in 1949 and worked at car dealerships until 1977. He was awarded a Ford franchise in Dade City in 1978, now named Jarrett Ford Lincoln Mercury.
In Dade City he has been a leader with the Rotary Club, served on bank, hospital and college boards and led the area chamber of commerce. He also has donated regularly to local youth sports events and school sports programs, as well as the Habitat for Humanity program and a variety of other local charities.
Black recalled how Jarrett awarded dinner show trips to students who made the honor roll at Dade City schools, something that Black said inspired him to do well when he was in school.
Jarrett said he was taken by surprise at the honor, which was quietly arranged at City Hall and through the business community without tipping him off.
Jarrett's son, Brian, said he arranged to have his father at the dealership Wednesday by telling him the Ford company was sending a photographer by for some standard publicity shots.
"I'm a little choked up," Jarrett said and smiled at the crowd.
He said the street naming was an honor he won't forget.
With a tug of a drawstring, Jarrett pulled down the paper covering the newly erected blue street sign, revealing its new name: Dick Jarrett Way.