Leader of the party pack

Buttons from Ken Walters parties in years past.

By BABITA PERSAUD

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 26, 2001

Frank Sinatra and tales of the Rat Pack gave a Tampa teen a style to emulate. And over the years, he became chairman of the anything but bored: Witness his upcoming annual Sinatra party.

TAMPA -- He has the garb: Navy crested jackets, nautical boat propeller cuff links, silk ascots that he wears even in 90-degree heat.

He has the car: A 1964 cream and chrome Cadillac convertible.

And the boat: A vintage Chris-Craft with teak trim.

And the girlfriend: An attractive accountant, Deborah Murray.

And Ken Walters has the circle of friends.

"In South Tampa, if Ken and his friends are going to a bar, it is bound to be a success," says Beth Brown, marketing director for an accounting firm.

Ken Walters is Sky Masterson of Guys and Dolls, Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby -- a larger-than-life character, or as close as they come in South Tampa. On Saturday he throws his annual soiree, a tribute to his style master, Frank Sinatra.

[Times photos: Thomas M. Goethe] Debra Murray and Ken Walters head for downtown Tampa in his vintage Chris-Craft. They enjoy visiting with friends during evening boat rides.

The invitation-only, $45-a-head, jackets-required Celebrate Sinatra party, held this year in the opulent Don Vicente de Ybor hotel, is "the summer party of South Tampa," exclaims one invite holder, Anita Valdez.

It's a night of dry martinis, hors d'oeuvres, Ward Cook's Big Band Orchestra playing and singer John Love crooning That's Life and New York, New York. The partygoers are Tampa's social and successful -- those who frequent 42nd Street, those who sail in Thursday night regattas off Davis Island, those with Harbour Island Athletic Club memberships.

The party is the talk of Tampa, and so is Walters, 36, who owns a printing and promotional products company that embosses logos on T-shirts, caps, mugs and the like. He grew up solidly middle class and works hard at achieving social status. He's schmoozing his way to notoriety.

Late at night, he's at the Chatterbox lounge on S Howard Avenue. At lunch, the Samba Room in Hyde Park. For cocktails, the Left Bank lounge at Le Bordeaux, a French restaurant. He's always going to charity fundraisers and art socials.

A Ken Walters holiday card.

"It's hard to go somewhere and not see him," says Tampa attorney John Fitzgibbons.

Every Christmas, Walters sends thousands of holiday cards. Last year's total: 9,000. Most are to people he doesn't even know.

He snags names from organizations he joins: the University Club, the Tampa Yacht and Country Club, St. Andrew's Society.

Anyone who has ever handed Ken Walters a business card gets a holiday card.

After he joined Tampa Yacht and Country Club, his phone rang one day, he says.

"Mr. Walters, I got your Christmas card," said the woman on the other end. "Do I know you? Do I owe you something?"

"No, ma'am. You don't owe me anything. It's just a Christmas card. Is that okay?"

"Oh, yeah, that's okay," she said.

In South Tampa, the Walters annual Christmas card has become something of a novelty. The covers are usually a frame from a movie with Walters' image added by computer.

There's Walters with Sinatra and Bing Crosby in a scene from White Christmas, Walters lifting Champagne glasses with Grace Kelly in High Society.

"I get people who say, 'You know I keep your Christmas cards every year, and I have a whole drawer of them,' " says Walters.

Walters isn't particularly chiseled of chest nor chin. He met his girlfriend of one year, Deborah Murray, three years ago -- while she was dating someone else and was a guest on Walters' boat.

Recently, he flew her on a private plane from Santa Barbara to Las Vegas.

"Ken's lots of fun," says Murray, 37. "Everywhere we go, he's got wonderful friends all over town."

His goal, he says, is to enjoy life. He also wants to make a lot of money. And hobnobbing helps.

His father owned Florida Typewriter Exchange, a sales and service shop, which was on Kennedy Boulevard until it closed in the early 1990s. When he was a teenager, his grandparents gave him a stack of 45s, among the lot Sinatra.

But there was another influence on his style, says his younger sister Mindy Socher.

Something that left a deep impression on him.

The movie Arthur. Actor Dudley Moore plays a Manhattan playboy.

"He used to watch that movie over and over," says Socher, 32.

And that was when, she says, he started dressing dapperly: handkerchief in pocket, tassels on the shoes.

At Plant High School in the mid-'80s, during the age of Flashdance and Izod shirts, the young Ken Walters stood out.

"His shirts were probably dry cleaned in high school," says Lee Phillips, classmate and friend.

Walters would park in the teacher's lot. "And no one ever questioned him," says Phillips. "He just did it and would have probably been appalled if they asked him to move."

Walters started his company, Graphic Communications, a one-man operation, about the same time he started at University of Tampa, in 1984. He eventually ditched college.

"I said, 'The heck with it.' You have to take advantage of whatever you got going on." What he had going on was a T-shirt and card printing business.

Walters works and lives a block from S Howard. He rarely ventures north of Kennedy.

Unless he's traveling the world. Walters has been running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, and sailing to Havana on his old boat, Bliss.

"I don't think he will ever change entirely," says close friend Andy Graham, a Tampa attorney. "He's a born bon vivant."

Walters loves Sinatra, adores "the music, the Rat Pack image, the whole Vegas feel," he says. But the autographed photo on his 38-foot cabin cruiser is a fake. Walters admits he signed it himself -- part of the "decor," he says.

Walters never saw Ol' Blue Eyes in person. Sinatra played the USF Sun Dome twice, but Walters didn't go. That wasn't the club-playing Sinatra he so loved.

To go would have blown the image.

Before Sinatra's death he told friends, "You know, when Frank dies, I should hold a party."

On that final day, May 14, 1998, Walters counted 20 messages on his answering machine.

"Ken, so sorry to hear about Frank."

"Ken, I know you are saddened."

"Ken, when's the party?"

At Harbour Island, Walters and Murray pick up passengers, from left, Bonnie Duggan, Nancy Valencia, Bob Evans, Melissa Hanson and Jack Richardson.

He has hosted one every year since. The parties now raise money for the Tampa Museum of Art; nearly 500 are expected at Saturday's bash.

His sister has a different perspective on Walters and his lifestyle. She married young, has three small children, runs a baby clothing consignment shop on Kennedy.

She says Ken has been spending a lot of time with her kids in the past six months. Their image of him: Uncle Kenny, she says.

Now it's Thursday evening on Hillsborough Bay, and 30 people are on Walters' cabin cruiser. "A light crowd this evening," he says.

A cork pops off a bottle of Moet. The well-tanned guests talk about spa vacations. One woman shows off her Jacobson's sunglasses. Laughter fills the boat. Walters steers straight into the sunset.

Ken's brand of black magic

People speak in glowing movie-critic blurbs when they talk about Ken Walters' party.

Anita Valdez: "Kenny knows ambiance."

Amy Ceresa: "A beautiful event, the band, the singer. We danced all night!"

Beth Brown: "Takes you back to a different time."

Andy Graham: "One year, they had to turn people away it got so crowded."

Maria Himes: "You dance. You dress up. You have a ball!"

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