Announcing a Swampy’s Florida Kickstarter program to get five Swampy’s Florida books produced! In the past three years I’ve produced 14 Swampy books, 37 prints, 2 DVDs and seven cards. There’s lots more to come! However, I’ve poured a ton of time in all of this and have more than run out of resources to produce more without backing. Funding will ensure more educational and activity books available to help young people know more about the great state of Florida.

Click here to head over to Kickstarter!

There’s a goal to get five funded by June 21st! Lots of goodies! I’ll even try to hand deliver the goodies if the donor falls within my travels this Fall.

The five books are:
–  Historical Women of Florida
– Florida History Puzzles and Games
– A Short History of  trains in Florida
– Birds of Florida
– Fish and Aquatic Life in Florida

All five will be coloring and travel guide books and able to be used in home schooling or just for fun!

There will be constant updates here as I build all five books.

But wait! There’s more!
There are four other books involved that are left over prior to the new arrangement with The Knowledge Exchange. These four will also be completed at the same time:
– Polk County- Titusville
– Dunnellon
– Marion County ABC
The funding will also loosen my time to wrap up these four books.

All will be available by Fall.

I hope you will help me in getting these books out and to beter help educate our young people of Florida’s incredible history, heritage and culture.

Thank you to The Knowledge Exchange, for so much help, and Dave Stewart, who produced the video on the site and gave sage advice, for all their help putting this together. I’ll have to share the video here as the next month goes along.

Thank you to all that donate to this project!
I’ll be posting updates here as this Kickstarter program continues!

Tim and Daniel Reynolds, of The Knowledge Exchange, the publishers of all things Swampy, delivered over a thousand copies of my brand new ‘Swampy’s Florida: Silver Springs State Park’ book to Deb Wilson, ranger, at Silver Springs State Park. – http://swampysflorida.com/?p=9928

The Life and Legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune by Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a relatively short biography of Mary McLeod Bethune and very good. I debated giving it a 5 star rating. But, at the end are a set of individual memories of Bethune by various family and friends, which adds a so much to better define the biography.

The book is very thorough and well covers her life, along with the building of Bethune-Cookman College. It is also well written.

I’m trying to think of something to write bad about the book and it’s a bit tough. Maybe more about her personal life, but it appears her life was one of an endless engine for the college.

Bottom line: i recommend the book.

View all my reviews

Got together with my friends during our Orlando Remembered meeting at the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando this morning. Here’s a few of the attendees. First row: Ann Bennett, Shirley Cannon, Joy Wallace Dickinson and Tana Porter. it’s me and Grace Chewning in the back.

Had a great meeting with lots of plans to preseve Orlando history!

Attended the 8th Annual John Young History Maker Celebration put on by the Orange County Regional History Center. Grace Chewning, Peggy Jo van den Berg, Charlie Gray, Shirley Cannon, Bob & Texann Ivy Buck were there from our Orlando Remembered group.

Curtis Stanton was honored as a past History Maker for his extensive work as leading the Orlando Utilities Commission to what it is today. As Present History Maker, Rita Bornstein was recognized for her being president of Rollins College from 1990 until 2004 and her philanthropy.

As usual, I took no photos of myself but of Swampy. Above is a photo of Swampy with History Center volunteers with stacks of mini cupcakes handed out to attendees as they left.

‘Funny Folks Behind the Serious Business of Cartoons’ is the name of a fun panel of Florida cartoonists and author Tim Hollis this Saturday at the Orange County Regional History Center.

Tim Hollis starts off the event at 12:30 with a talk about the history of cartooning and tourism. He will also be introducing his new book, ‘Part of a Good Breakfast’ about cereal premiums for the Baby Boomer set. Tim will be available to sign books after his talk.

The cartoonist panel starts at 1pm with cartoonists Bruce Beattie, Allen Bellman, Mike Osbun, Jeff Parker, Mark Simon, and me. Each will talk about the cartoon work they do.  Then the floor will open to questions from the audience.

Afterward be sure to take a stroll trough the Peanuts exhibit of comic strips reflecting outdoor issues.

I organized the cartoonist panel and dove tailed it with our annual Florida Chapter meeting of the National Cartoonists Society, which I am also Florida Chapter Chairman of. I’m also involved with the History Center.

On July 28th I introduced the new Florida History text book at The Knowledge Exchange. I conducted to talks. One about cartooning and the other about Florida history. Above are some from the Florida history class.

During the cartooning class I got the attendees to contribute various ideas and we all came up with this scene.

Here’s a close up of the artwork.

Professor and author, Susan McManus was the guest speaker at the Pasco County Historical Society Meeting. As she spoke about her new book and showed slides, I sketched various buildings shown as fast as I could. A page of sketches is above with McManus in the center. Her new book, ‘Going, Going…Almost Gone’  is a continued history of southern Pasco County around Land O’Lakes and Lutz.

Was at our Orlando Remembered meeting on Wednesday. Here are sketches I made during the meeting. Below is a photo of some of the gang during our meeting. From right to left: Chariman Bill Milligan, Bob Buck, Betty Bandy, Hillis Bandy, Robert Serros, Claude Hunter, Claude H. Wolfe and Steve Rajtar.

Hard at work on the next Swampy’s Florida Coloring Book and Guide.