Adam's song was brief, tragic -- but inspirational

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By JAN GLIDEWELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 18, 2001

that turns the spiral star

to show us all

what we truly are

-- From Dragonfly

by Adam Morris and Gary Bukstel

Those words, from a voice too suddenly stilled, will be heard Sunday at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa and some of the top acts in Florida folk music will sing in a celebration of Adam Morris' life and to help make other lives better.

And you're invited.

What's going on, a little after 3 p.m., is a concert featuring acts well-known on the folk circuit, all donating their talents to raise money for a memorial scholarship fund to give other young people the chance for what Adam called a life-changing experience.

Adam was 23 and had just graduated from college when he drowned last year in a lake near Gainesville.

He was the kind of kid who could make you wish he was yours.

I knew him only slightly as the polite young man who helped his parents, Rochelle and Norman Morris, at Coffee Talk Cafe, a mobile gourmet coffee shop that is a fixture at music festivals.

I didn't learn until too late that he also was a poet whose main goal in life was to be "a leader, a teacher, and a helper to others."

That attitude came from his upbringing, and from the Outward Bound camp, a wilderness-based educational program in North Carolina that the standout athlete had attended before his senior year at King High School in Tampa.

Outward Bound offers participants a chance to experience personal growth through courses that use outdoor challenges and shared adventures.

Adam's parents say the experience "changed his life. He would want other young people to have this same life-enriching experience."

Contributions to a memorial fund established after his death already have paid for one scholarship to the program. Featured at Sunday's show will be the release of a CD by Gary and Ellen Bukstel setting to music Adam's poem Dragonfly. The Bukstels, brother and sister, who are members of a Miami group, Legacy, also will perform.

The family of Florida folk musicians and performers is a large one that comes together quickly in times of crises. My friend Rochelle Morris has been a member of that family for longer than she probably wishes I could remember.

She is one of two female vocalists with the New Sand Mountain Wildcats, one of the first Florida folk groups I ever heard perform.

She also plays with Hot Flash, an all-woman group, and recently recorded with Dennis Devine as Devine and LaRoche. She will appear Sunday with Devine and the Wildcats.

Headliners for the day will be Ann and Frank Thomas of Lake Wales, who are known for their historical and environmental passions, and for a collection of extremely funny original songs.

Also appearing will be Southwind, a longtime favorite group that features the harmonies of Sharon Nauman, Sandra Jemison and Mary Ann DiNella, supported by Dennis Devine.

Devine, who is, by his own admission, "musically promiscuous," appears with several groups, including the New Sand Mountain Wildcats, the 97th Regimental String Band and others.

And if you don't see Devine onstage, you might well see Art Crummer, another omnipresent performer who plays a mean slide-guitar and dobro.

Crummer will play, as will Dale Crider, who does double duty in the movement as a biologist and folk singer known as Florida's wildlife troubadour.

Singer-songwriter Sue Grooms will play too, as will Joey Errigo of Register Georgia, who was the 2000 winner of the Merlefest and Suwannee Springfest songwriting contests.

Jeanne Holton of WMNF FM-88.5, performer Jan Milner and I will split emcee duties, part of a plot to keep me from singing.

But those who can, will.

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