The next talk given was by Jay Starkey who is from the Starkey family that has lived in the Tampa Bay area for many generations. He told of his parents and himself and growing up in the Tampa Bay area. This is a drawing of Mr. Starkey.

The second part of this talk was done by Jay Starkey’s daughter, Laura. Suddenly the talk became a real estate sales pitch as she started talking of what she and her three siblings are developing on the 6,000 acres. She had all of the developers terms down pat.

 

In the audience was the great writer, Stetson Kennedy. He is a contemporary of Zora Neale Hurston and Arlo Guthrie.

The first session I attended at the Florida Historical Society Annual Meeting at the Belleview Biltmore was about the developing Brevard Heritage Park.  The drawing is of the speaker.

Amongst the items that will be on display will be the lost papers of Harry T. Moore, first to be head of the NAACP in Florida, who was murdered with his wife in their Mims home when a bomb blew up their home. The sketch is of the notebook that holds the notes. One page indicates that the first members paid a $1 fee to join.

The sketch of the church is of the oldest church in Brevard County that the park is hoping to be part of their village.

Met with friends at Dubsdread Golf Course’s restaurant, The Taproom. To the left is a sketch of items at the table.

While there I drew and painted a caricature for the mother of a friend of mine, Sylvia Saunders. Sylvia belongs to a group that will be celebrating the person I drew, Floreine. Below is the caricature.

We gathered at Fred’s Marketplace Restaurant in Plant City for dinner with my brother, Jeff, my Aunt and her husband, friends Susie and Russell Noell and my sister, her husband and their two children.

This restaurant has a great history. I let you wander to their website to learn about it. Also great is their food! One of the best Southern buffets in Florida!

One stop for my birthday was at the Pioneer Florida Museum and Village in Dade City. Lots of wonderful historic buildings, a train, oodles of historic tools, books, dolls and typewriters. The drawing is of a one room school house that once stood in Hernando County. Too bad we don’t have those any more. I guess the closest to that we have is home schooling.

I was back at the Taproom at Dubsdread with folks. This restaurant shares the property with the City of Orlando owned Dubsdread golf club. The two have been thriving for over 80 years. To learn more, click here!

 The drawing is of a half podium the Rotary Club uses for it’s meetings at Dubsdread.

I grew up near Dubsdread and am very, very glad to see it is still around!

We rode the Tampa street car to a stop in Ybor City and walked over to the Ybor City State Museum. The drawingis of an outhouse that is amonst other historic buildings from the cigar making era of the late 1800s and early 1900s that are part of the museum complex. Learn more by clicking here!

This is the chimney you’d see on the side of the Tap Room banquet area at Dubsdread golf course. The golf course is being redone, but this original building still stands after 80 years in College Park in Orlando. I was at the Tap Room for an event.

We headed over to Dunellon to greet author Tim Dorsey at ‘Our Florida Books’. He had been travelling like us, coming from Jacksonville to Dunellon and then heading home to Tampa Bay. A large standing room only crowd greeted him and it was a successful visit for Tim and Jean Tullis, the owner of ‘Our Florida Books’. The quick sketch is of Tim Dorsey.

‘Our Florida Books’ is one of two all-Florida bookstores in existence. She stocks all books fiction and non-fiction of Florida along with Florida art. All of it is in a terrific Florida Cracker house set amongst others like it in Downtown Dunellon. The other all Florida bookstore is ‘Mickler/Smith’ in St. Petersburg. If you’re in the area of either, please visit and support your locally owned and operated bookstores!

Here is ‘Our Florida Books’ info:

20709 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Dunnellon, FL 34431
(352) 489-3114
ourfloridabookandart@aol.com

We made a stop at the Governor’s mansion to add a stack of Sandra’s books to the new Florida library that opened last January in the mansion. While she signed each, school groups came through and Sandra gave talks to all. To learn more of Sandra’s books click here.

The drawing is of one of the shelves of books. The book at the right is Hampton Dunn’s Pictorial History of Tampa. Surprisingly, or maybe not, Sandra and I have a larger Florida library! We’ll help, though, by willing the collection to the mansions library. How else will they get all 77 books by John D. MacDonald??????? Click here for a link to the governor’s mansion.

My being too busy has made me miss the last four months of ‘Orlando Remembered’ meetings, a group I’ve been a part of for twenty years. Click here to learn more of ‘Orlando Remembered’. I finally made this months meeting.

Here are sketches of members Texann Ivey and fellow artist, Ellen Smith (No relation, of which she is grateful!).