I attended the Friday luncheon of the Florida Press Association at historic The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida. During the luncheon the Florida Press Association presented awards to those of the daily papers. Also given were awards from The First Amendment Foundation. The Pete Weitzel/Friends of the First Amendment Award was given to Pat Gleason, who is an assistant to Governor Charlie Crist on many things including open government. She is a great lady. She assisted Sandra and I when visiting the Governors Library & Sandra donated many of her books. Governor Crist was at the luncheon to present the award. Below is a fuzzy photo of Pat Gleason speaking, to the right of the photo.

I was honored to receive the Sunshine Award for my editorial cartoons on the subject of Sunshine Week. Below the photo are the two Sunshine Week cartoons. My time at Orlando City Hall greatly helped my constructing these two cartoons. Director  Barbara Peterson was a big help!

To the right is a colored sketch of drapery in The Breakers.

While at the Florida Press luncheon I met Mark Mathes who once editted a ton of cartoonists when he was with Tribune Media Services. Amongst those is cartoonist and editor, Dick Kulpa. Dick was one time editor of the infamous Weekly World News.  I once penciled a week of comics strips for Dick’s comic strip ‘Ghost Story Club’ many years ago.

Anyway, Mark invited Dick over and we went to dinner. Dick and I drew each other and a photo of such is below.

The next day (the 9th) I slipped over to the 1713 Powder Magazine. Please click on the links to lean more of each location.

The first tour for Tuesday was to Patriot Point. Photos below. Patriot Point is home to the U.S.S. Yorktown naval ship which is so large that inside is a naval air museum full of airplanes.

The locations honors our Medal of Honor recipients. Below is a photo of the wall of those who earned the honor.

Below our exemplary guide, Ken Goodman, helps writer Stuart Newman locate a school buddy of his who posthumously received the first Medal of Honor during WWII. The terminals are set up to look up all those honored with the Medal of Honor.

From Patriot Point we made our way to Fort Moultrie. The fort is where Seminole leader Osceola was imprisoned and then killed. More about that soon at our Genuine Florida site.

Our next tour was a movie set tour. Amongst the places we stopped is the current working set for Lifetime network’s ‘Army Wives’. Below are sketches from around the sets we visited. We got to get a very private tour just for our group that included watching scenes being shot.

Below are photos from the costuming area. Buckets of military boots and racks of military shirts.

Later that evening we were driven out to Middleton Place and had a farewell dinner with some fine entertainment from this bluegrass band. Middleton Place is a fantastic site of gardens and history.

The next morning (the 8th) was a breakfast meeting for the SATW. I went out and got a photo of one of two neon signs left in Downtown Charleston.

The first of our tours of Charleston was to The Citadel.

I loved these hand painted metal soldiers. I wish I had that kind of patience to paint such intricacy!…Well, a lot of people wish I had that kind of patience!

The second tour was to Magnolia Gardens. Below is a page of sketches made there.

Below is a few photos from Magnolia Place.