25 who mattered

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 28, 1999

Let's start with what they are not.

They are not the important people in Florida history, nor are they the most powerful. Most are not heroes. Some will never be mentioned in the history books. A few are not even likable or admirable people.

But they all mattered. For better or worse, in ways large and small, the people featured in this issue of Turn made a difference in the life of the state.

LeRoy Collins and Bob Saunders guided Florida through the firestorms of the civil rights era. Irwin Levy redefined the way old people live. Jackie Gleason made Florida look good and Norman van Aken made it taste good.

Naturally, you'll have questions. Why Edgar J. Watson but not Henry M. Flagler? Why the guy who invented air conditioning but not the guy who invented orange juice concentrate? For heaven's sake, why Marilyn Manson but not Jimmy Buffett?

Because the people on our list inspired us. Because they got us thinking about this place, and about ourselves.

And because, in the end, we had to choose.

These essays and pictures are meant to start a discussion, not end one. We hope you appreciate them -- for what they are, and are not.

Claude Pepper, 1900-1988
Senator, U.S. representative, champion of the elderly, staunch defender of Social Security

Jackie Gleason, 1916-1987, Entertainer
He arrived in Florida like the circus, on rails from the North, surrounded by clowning friends and a party that never ended.

Walt Disney, 1901-1966, amusement park founder
In the early 1960s, Walter Elias Disney took a plane ride over Florida. When he passed the vast area of scrub land south of Orlando, he pointed and said, "There."

Marilyn Manson, b. 1969, musician
He stood an arm's length away from everyone, the very picture of pouty-lipped, post-punk rock 'n' roll attitude.

Willis Haviland Carrier, 1876-1950, inventor of air conditioning
There was a time, half a century ago in Florida, when people appreciated a nicely prepared possum stew.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 1890-1998
Author and environmentalist whose love for the Everglades raised awareness across the generations

Joseph P. Hurley, 1894-1967, Roman Catholic archbishop
Long before television had a flying nun, Florida had a flying archbishop.

Mary Wyatt Allen, b. 1933, Benefactor
Hers is the swirl of skirts they watch for, the careful waves of honey-colored hair. One glimpse and a host can breathe again, enjoy the party, record the glittery success.

Edgar J. Watson, ca. 1855-1910, Legendary Florida pioneer
Editor's note: E.J. Watson owned a sugar cane plantation in the Ten Thousand Islands of southwest Florida during the lawless years of the early 20th century. A persistent rumor that he had killed notorious outlaw Belle Starr birthed still wilder rumors -- that he slashed a man's throat in Key West, killed his help and fed their corpses to the sharks, and buried bodies near his home.

Carlos Lehder Rivas, b. 1950, Drug Trafficker
Twenty-five years ago, the son of a German father and Colombian mother had a simple idea.

Robert W. Saunders, b. 1921, Civil rights worker
Almost everyone knows the names of the great martyrs of the civil rights movement -- Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers. Many still remember Harry T. Moore, killed by a terrorist bomb in Florida in 1951, Emmitt Till, lynched at 14, and Michael Schwerner, murdered in Mississippi in '64.

Norman van Aken, b. 1951, Chef
When we piled into the Ford wagon for Florida in the summers of the '50s, our Ohio minds were on the ocean, not the food. Oh, Dad would get his red snapper and Mom her broiled scallops, but for kids the best part of vacation meals were the place mats. That bright yellow Florida in sunglasses surrounded by cartoon fishermen, mermaids and gators was more fun than any Little Mate's Plate that sat on it.

Zora Neale Hurston, 1891-1960, Author
In 1973 author Alice Walker tramped through the Garden of Heavenly Rest, a segregated cemetery overgrown with weeds in Fort Pierce. She had been told that Zora Neale Hurston was buried there in an unmarked grave, but Walker was not interested merely in locating the burial spot. She was looking for the storyteller herself.

Osceola, ca. 1804-1838, Warrior
He wasn't really a chief, he wasn't really a Seminole, he wasn't even a native of Florida. And Osceola was an English vulgarization of his true Indian name.

Margaret Bowman, 1957-1978, college student
Nearly 22 years ago, Margaret Elizabeth Bowman was murdered in her sleep. During the early hours of Jan. 15, 1978, a man slipped into Margaret's room in the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University and beat her to death. Before he left, the man killed another sorority sister, Lisa Levy, and seriously wounded two more.

Bobby Bowden, b. 1929 and Steve Spurrier, b. 1945, Football coaches
The problem with millennium lists, of course, is they represent not what we are but what we imagine ourselves to be.

Mary McLeod Bethune, 1875-1955, Educator and activist
Robust and stately, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was a dedicated educator and sophisticated lobbyist who flouted the rules of race in the early 1900s and helped generations of black Americans see new possibilities for their lives.

LeRoy Collins, 1909-1991, Governor
Thomas LeRoy Collins came out of Old Florida to lead us into the New South.

H. Irwin Levy, b. 1926, developer
Like a lot of big successes, this one started badly.

Jorge Mas Canosa, 1939-1997
Cuban exile leader whose opposition to Fidel Castro influenced U.S. policy toward Cuba for decades

Fidel Castro, B 1927
Communist leader whose 1959 revolution transformed Cuba -- and Florida

Anita Bryant, b. 1940, Singer and crusader
Anita Bryant, as the year 1977 began, was an American songbird, a celebrity in her chosen hometown of Miami, and a kind of national icon treasured not just for her looks and talent but for the use to which she put them. For a generation, since emerging as Miss Oklahoma, a beauty of dark auburn hair, a rich clear voice and flashing smile, she had sung to the nation's faith in things wholesome, buxom and basic, to an American majesty passionate, Christian and strong.

Anne Dougherty, b 1952
Franciscan nun and founder of Francis House, a support agency in Tampa for people with HIV and AIDS

George Bean, b. 1924, Airport director
George Bean's airport -- most people called it by its given name, Tampa International -- wasn't like other airports.

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