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BY JAIMIE LUNA
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – After a diving accident left him with serious hearing damage, Phil Kinsman had to give up a promising career as a bass-baritone in the Metropolitan Opera.

So in 1952 he bought the Belmark Restaurant at 1001 First Ave. N and turned it into one of the city’s most popular eateries.

Kinsman never lost his love of song, however. Every Sunday for 15 years, he sang to Belmark customers, according to the St. Petersburg Evening Independent. And in 1967, he performed at two one-man shows, singing “opera to pop,” at the Bayfront Center, predecessor to today’s Mahaffey Theater.

Since Kinsman sold the Belmark many years ago, it has had at least three more owners and one name change. It’s now called Café-Ten-o-One, and its owner since 1999 has been Frank Edgar.

Edgar, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., doesn’t sing to the customers  like Kinsman did. But he bakes fine pastry, according to customers, and his restaurant caters meals to a client list that ranges from visiting teams at Tropicana Field to the recent Miss Florida pageant at the Mahaffey.

City Council member Jim Kennedy, a lawyer, has been a lunch-time regular since the Belmark days. “It’s great food and it’s within walking distance of my office,” he said, and Edgar is quite the pastry chef.

Edgar is modest about that. “I like to bake; I owned a cake company in my early 20s,” he said. “I learned early on you make more money catering than baking cakes. We make a lot of our own deserts, but to say I’m a pastry chef is a stretch.

“I just like doing it, and I do it well.”

Pictures of the restaurant in its Belmark days hang on the walls of Café-Ten-o-One, which serves breakfast and lunch – but not dinner – Monday through Saturday. The staff sees a lot of familiar faces.

“Fifty percent of our customer base is people that eat here all the time,” said Edgar.

When Café-Ten-o-One is closed, the catering side of the operation – called Creative Catering – is handling events around the bay area. It caters cocktail parties, weddings, housewarmings, corporate dinners and barbecues.

The menus of the café and catering operation stay fairly consistent, Edgar said.

“We’ll do some specials here and there; add to the menu what sells and take off what doesn’t,” he said.  “We change our menu semiannually.”

He said he hopes to start serving dinner a couple of nights a week.

BY KARLANA JUNE
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – For half a century, Fannye Ayer Ponder was a stalwart of civic activism, education and high society in St. Petersburg’s black community.

She and her physician husband, who came to the city in 1925, lived in a regal, seven-bedroom home with a manicured lawn and cherry hedge, antique furniture and carved mantelpieces.

While he led the drive to build a hospital to serve black patients, she taught school at all-black Gibbs High School, attended club meetings around the country and, as a protégé of educator Mary McLeod Bethune, had tea at the White House with Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower.

In 1942, she founded a St. Petersburg chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, which Bethune had started seven years earlier to unify black women around the country. A few years later, the chapter bought a lot at 1935 Ninth Ave. S and moved a nearby building onto the site. Dedicated in 1947, it was the first council house in America.

“It was the place where women of distinction came to talk about things for the community, to broaden the horizon of the community, to be more visible in the community,” said Allene Gammage-Ahmed, who grew up in the neighborhood and now serves as a chapter officer.

“I remember watching the ladies gravitate to this particular property, with hats and furs and beautiful make-up,” said Gammage-Ahmed. “I’ll tell you what; I sure wanted to be like them.”
The modest structure, which still serves as the chapter house, is about to get a $100,000 renovation, thanks to the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott.

The state appropriation will pay for new windows and flooring, a new roof and kitchen, and updated wiring. The house will be painted inside and out, and it will be brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“A lot of historical sites in the local African-American community are gone. This is one that has been well-preserved and I think is a good, befitting tribute to Mrs. Ponder and the community,” said Watson Haynes II, president and CEO of the Pinellas County Urban League.

Planning to renovate the historical site began months ago, when the chapter put together a team to tackle the project if the state money was approved. Chapter president Angela Rouson said the team is working with the city’s historic preservation staff and Wannemacher Jensen Architects Inc., which specialize in historical preservations.

“To be able to envision having the same impact on my community that she (Ponder) did …. It gives me chills,” Rouson said. “Advocacy is a huge part of our organization’s history.”

The national council’s St. Petersburg chapter, which has 50 members and 12 youth members, is active in the community, just as it was in the early years under Ponder.

It is the principal sponsor of the annual Dr. MLK Breakfast at the Coliseum. It has a summer reading program for young people, an annual food drive, a wellness expo and health fair, and a “ladies night out” event to benefit working women in Tampa Bay.

The New Girls’ Network, the chapter’s group for young women between 11 and 18, volunteers throughout the community.

“We have had some girls come through here, graduate from high school, go on to college, become professionals, and they are back home now, waiting to do something with the girls now, to show them, ‘Hey, we made it and so can you,’” said Gammage-Ahmed.

When the Ponders moved from Ocala to St. Petersburg in 1925, it was a time of rigid segregation and discrimination in St. Petersburg. The city’s black residents could not live outside certain neighborhoods, and they were barred from the white community’s schools, restaurants, night spots and swimming pools.

They also had few places for their meetings and social gatherings.

Ponder, a graduate of Florida A&M University, was a civic and social leader in the black community. She sold thousands of war bonds during World War II, raised money for the American Cancer Society and a school for troubled girls, advised state officials about programs for disadvantaged youth, served the local Republican Party, and helped establish two community buildings, including the chapter house on Ninth Avenue S.

In the years before her death in 1982, the walls of one room in her home were filled with community service awards and certificates of appreciation.

The chapter house, which is named in her honor, was designated a city historic site in 1991.

At one time, the Pinellas Opportunity Council had an office there.  The Gibbs High School chorus, the NAACP and other groups have met at the house, which was called the Southside Community Center at one point. It sits on a site of a tennis court where the first West Coast tournament for African-Americans was held. The state-funded improvements to the house will make it more accessible to the community again, chapter members say.

Ponder was proud of the house.

“It’s just wonderful,” she once said. “That building has been used by many people. We’ve had marriages, birthday parties for the young…and many U.S. congressmen and local mayors have introduced themselves to the black community there. That council house has served a great purpose in the community.”

By COREY GIVENS JR.
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When Carolyn Brayboy went for her annual physical in 2007, she told her doctor she had been feeling a little nauseous.

The doctor referred her to a specialist for tests that led to a dreaded diagnosis: cancer.

For months, Brayboy underwent chemotherapy, which left her weak, exhausted and bed-ridden. But it worked. More than a year after the diagnosis, she was cancer free.

Shaken by her brush with death, Brayboy and her husband, Elihu, decided to take a risk. They invested $800,000 in real estate in the Midtown area of St. Petersburg.

Where some saw rundown old buildings and empty lots, the Brayboys saw opportunity. When some lamented what integration, urban renewal, an interstate highway and crack cocaine had done to a once-thriving neighborhood, the Brayboys remembered the good times of their youth and the values that a close-knit community instilled in them.

Now the Brayboys, both 65, are hard at work restoring four buildings along 22nd Street S, which in its heyday in the 1950s and ‘60s was the main street of a community that its black residents and business owners proudly called “The Deuces.”

In one building, at 909-913 22nd St. S, the Brayboys have installed an art gallery, a consignment shop and an ice cream parlor, which was inspired by their three young grandchildren.

In another building, at 901-903 22nd St. S, they will have a restaurant called Chief’s Creole Café featuring many recipes of Elihu Brayboy’s mother. It is scheduled to open in a few weeks.

Nearby, at 951-963, is the historic Merriwether building. The Brayboys plan to put more shops on the ground floor of the two-story, 1925 building and low-cost housing on the second floor.

The fourth building is at 1025, where daughter Ramona Brayboy-Reio and her husband have a hair salon and fitness center.

In an area like Midtown, the crime rate tends to be high and poverty levels even higher. The Brayboys say they knew they were taking a risk by investing there. But their experience has been positive.

“We know that we have to remain prudent of our surroundings no matter where we are, but in the six years we have been here, not once have we had a break-in, a single item stolen, or a broken window,” Elihu Brayboy said.

To outward appearances, the Brayboys are an odd couple. He is outgoing and talkative. She is reserved, reticent. He favors leopard print jackets and silk shirts with initials monogramed on the cuff. She is more likely to be in jeans, clambering up a ladder to help the roof repair guys. She’s good with her hands and watches expenditures closely – a good thing, he says with a chuckle, since budgeting is not his strength.

Unlike other business developers in Midtown, the Brayboys are not new to the area.

They both grew up in Midtown. “My mother was a nurse at Mercy (Hospital) and my father worked at Clark Funeral Home, which was one of the only black funeral homes at that time,” he said.

His strict upbringing in a close-knit community instilled in him values that he has carried throughout his entire life. “I remember my next door neighbor, Mr. Anderson, got me my first job bussing tables at a restaurant in Seminole. I saved my money to buy the things I needed, not the things I wanted.”

Brayboy was in the second group of black students to desegregate Bishop Barry High School (now St. Petersburg Catholic High) in 1962.  His skills as a football player there earned him a scholarship to attend Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, where he joined Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc., a prestigious accomplishment in the black community. During the career that followed, he has been a stockbroker, math teacher, mortgage broker and small-business developer.

He started his business career in New Orleans, where he spent several years in the 1970s. But family obligations brought him back to St. Petersburg in 1977.

Brayboy said it was local leaders like attorney Frank Peterman Sr. and Judge James B. Sanderlin who inspired him to come back and make a difference in the community that he once called home.

“I could have gone and established my business anywhere I wanted, but my history was on 22nd Street,” he said. “I was raised here, so therefore I’m going to invest here.”

In New Orleans, he said, he saw a lot of second- and third-generation black-owned businesses. He knew that was a concept he could bring back to St. Petersburg.

“Here in St. Pete the only black family-owned businesses you see are funeral homes, and today you don’t see many of those because they are being bought out or closed down,” he said.

The Brayboys, who have known each other since childhood, began dating when Carolyn was at 16th Street Junior High and Elihu at the Immaculate Conception Catholic School.

“It wasn’t love at first sight,” she said. “He was cute, but at that time boys were the furthest thing from my mind.”

She always knew that her calling was to become a businesswoman, she said. “My mother wanted me to become a teacher, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do. So I changed my major from math education to finance.”

She was one of the first black students to attend St. Petersburg Junior College. She then earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s in business administration from Florida State University and landed a job at IBM, where she worked for 39 years.

The Brayboys lost track of each other for about a decade. But when he returned to Florida from New Orleans, they reconnected and married. They have three children: Gus, Lynae and Ramona.

“We’ve never given our children anything. Everything they’ve been given they have earned, because that’s the way it is in life. You have to work for what you want. To this day, our daughter (Ramona) pays us rent monthly for the salon space,” said Carolyn Brayboy.

On their mission to give back to a community that has lost so much, the Brayboys said they are determined to make their mark in the history of St. Petersburg.

Years from now, what will their legacy be?

“I want people to know that they have options,” he said. “They have the option to spend or the option to invest. When I am gone, let it be said that I chose to invest so that others could have a better life.”

BY TAYLOR WILLIAMS
NNB Student Reporter

The little leaguer is 52 now, the senior writer at the Tampa Bay Rays for the Tampa Bay Times. He has been at the paper since 1983 and its lead baseball reporter since 1987, long before St. Petersburg landed a team and 11 years before the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ inaugural game in 1998.

He has been to the All-Star Game and World Series many times. He blogs, he tweets, he talks baseball on the Rays’ radio network before every game, and he appears regularly on television. And, of course, he writes thousands of words – many of them on tight deadline – for the paper.

In the press box at Tropicana Field, his competitors seem to regard him highly; one calls him “a legend.” (For the record, they are not being sarcastic – noteworthy in a profession known for snarky jealousies.)

Topkin was born in New York and moved to South Florida when he was 12. He graduated from Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa, with a degree in journalism and mass communications.

“I worked for my high school newspaper and liked it. I worked for my college paper and liked it. I got a job and liked it,” Topkin said. “It’s good that I found something I liked and stuck with it.”

His favorite part of the job? “Being at the games and finding a way to tell people about stuff that they might not know from watching the game,” he said. “That and breaking news, which is harder and harder to do” in an era of social media.

One story that Topkin broke earlier this season was pitcher Matt Moore’s decision to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

“I was the last writer in the clubhouse (after an April game) and I asked him about it.” Topkin said.  At first reluctant, Moore disclosed his decision.

“I had to go back to the press box with a poker face,” Topkin said. “I didn’t want to tweet about it too early so the other writers could get it, and I didn’t want to tweet it too late because I didn’t want it to break and have been sitting on it.”

Topkin ended up tweeting it out at the perfect time. “We had it in the paper and the other paper (the Tampa Tribune) didn’t,” Topkin said. “Which is rare. It’s rare to have a scoop in the paper.”

On a typical day at Tropicana Field, Topkin takes his seat in the front row of the press box and readies himself for long hours at the ballpark, a day in which time is of the essence.

“You have to accept the fact that you’ll be here all day,” Topkin said. “If you have plans after a day game, they’ll probably change.”

For the June 17 game against the Orioles, Topkin arrived at 2:45 p.m. Once there, he spent 45 minutes or so reviewing game notes and writing a short preview of the June 18 game.

“All of the minutiae you hear on TV, radio, from us, that makes us sound smart, comes from them (the Rays),” he said.

At 3:25 p.m., Topkin headed down to the field to talk with Rays manager Joe Maddon and some of the players. At this game, Topkin and the other members of the media were greeted with a change in schedule. The Rays put in some extra work and the media had to catch players when they were done.

Waiting around is one of Topkin’s least favorite parts of the job. “The tremendous amount of waiting around and the travel time… it’s dead time,” he said.

The Rays stretched and did their extra work at 3:25 and took batting practice at 4:25. Topkin’s first interview was with Rays pitcher Alex Cobb, at 4:05 p.m. It lasted 10 minutes. His next interview, at 4:30, was with pitcher Brent Honeywell, the Rays’ third overall pick in this year’s draft.

Honeywell spoke of his hopes for the future and simply said, “Hopefully one day I’m a pitcher in the big leagues.”

At 4:35, Maddon chatted with the media. The talk ranged from the Rays’ extra work that day and their on-field performance to third baseman Evan Longoria’s new hairdo, a blond Mohawk.

At 4:50, it was Topkin who was interviewed. In a chat with Rays’ radio play-by-play announcer Dave Wills, he was asked about relief pitcher Grant Balfour’s recent struggles and the Rays’ on-field improvements. The interview ended with jokes about Longoria’s hair.

At 5:05, Topkin and other reporters chatted with Longoria on the field. They asked him about the Rays’ extra workout and the reason for his new ‘do. “I did it because of the World Cup and to show my support for Team USA,” said Longoria.

At 5:30, Topkin returned to the press box to transcribe the interviews, which he had recorded. He then had a bite to eat, and at 7:05 he was back in the press box for the first pitch at 7:10. He put the finishing touches on a “Notebook” piece for tomorrow’s paper, which previews the upcoming game with half a dozen short items like injury updates and notable statistics. Then he began to work on the game story for that night.

“To meet deadline for a night game, I write a filler story and then anticipate the quotes,” Topkin said. “Now we’ll write it as a Rays lose story and send that in after the O’s are done batting (in the top of the ninth), then we’ll work on a top that has a dramatic Rays win.”

The deadline for the first edition, which goes to subscribers in Pasco and Hernando counties, is 10:40 p.m. Deadline for the second edition, which goes to readers in Pinellas and Hillsborough, is 11:40 p.m.

“If it (the story) doesn’t make the 11:40 deadline for the midnight edition, that’s when people get mad,” Topkin said. “Sometimes I cheat a little. I’m usually clean on editing, so I can push it (the first deadline) to 10:45, 10:46, maybe 10:47,” Topkin said. “The 11:40 can be pushed a little.”

This night’s game ended at 10:41 p.m., and Topkin headed to the locker room to interview Maddon and key players for the second edition story – Matt Joyce and David DeJesus, outfielders who didn’t make key catches, and Erik Bedard, the starting pitcher. He had a rough outing.

“The locker room is supposed to be open within 10 minutes of the game ending; sometimes it’s longer,” Topkin said. “Every minute is working against me.”

“That’s the danger of these deadlines,” he said. “In the old days, we had a better deadline, so we could wait around for whoever we want, but now we can’t.”

Topkin’s plan is to interview Joyce, DeJesus, Bedard, and Maddon. But with the clock ticking, he might have to settle for Maddon’s thoughts on the three players. “We’ll ask Maddon the questions because we might not have enough time to catch the players,” Topkin said.

Once inside the locker room, Topkin and other journalists went to Maddon’s office, where the manager addressed their questions. On Bedard’s start, Maddon said, “It wasn’t a loss (overall); we just didn’t have the starting pitching.”

On Joyce’s missed catch in right field, Maddon said, “He will say he should have caught that.”

Asked about DeJesus’ play on a home run that clanged off the left field foul pole and sent DeJesus crashing into the fence, Maddon was not critical. “Not an easy play. Jesus … DeJesus … Even Jesus couldn’t have caught that,” he said with a laugh.

At 10:59, Topkin interviewed Bedard, who simply said, “(I) tried to throw strikes and it just didn’t work.”

At 11:03 he interviewed Joyce and, seeing DeJesus emerge from the shower rooms, walked over to talk to him at 11:04.

“I only needed Joyce’s answer to the first part of the question,” Topkin said. “Then I saw DeJesus and he was in his underwear. He was either going to shower or to his locker and we couldn’t let him get to the shower.”

DeJesus was direct. “I was asking the guy (a server) at the wall there, ‘Where did it hit?’ And he said the wall. I looked up and saw that Sean (Rodriguez) got it (the ball) and made sure I was okay.”

After hustling back up to the press box, Topkin worked to meet his second deadline. He put on his headphones and transcribed the interviews in order to finish his story and work on notes for the next game. He left the ballpark around 12:30 a.m.

Tomorrow he will race against time again.

The Heater
Marc Topkin’s blog on the Rays is at http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/rays/  

BY IAN MacCALLUM
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When it opened in 1948, the Royal Theater became the second theater in town that catered solely to the black community during the Jim Crow era.

The occasion was so momentous that “they had a big celebration, with a parade right down 22nd Street S,” said Jon Wilson, a journalist and historian who has co-authored two books on St. Petersburg’s African-American neighborhoods.

The theater’s premiere featured a showing of a B-rated Western titled “Panhandle,” which offered the “most action-packed fight sequence ever seen on film,” said Wilson.

When equal rights became the law of the land in the mid-1960s, however, the Royal became a victim of progress.

Black residents could now live, shop, attend school and see movies in once-forbidden parts of the city. The Royal closed in 1966, one of several well-known venues along 22nd Street S – “the Deuces” – that shut their doors.

In recent years, the Royal has been home of the Boys and Girls Club. Its director, Kayren Lovett, says the club is a fitting tenant for the historic building – long a symbol of the community along the once-vibrant Deuces – and she wants to help ensure that it stays that way.

“Our main objective is to provide hope and opportunity,” said Lovett, 39, who has worked for the Boys and Girls Club of the Suncoast for two decades, the last two years at the Royal.

“The Royal is actually one of the most unique facilities I’ve been in, not only from the structure of it, but from the programming provided here,” she said.

The structure at 1011 22nd St. S is, in fact, special. It is one of the few so-called “Quonset huts” remaining in the city, and it was designated a historic landmark by the City Council in 2001.

The building style, which had its origins in England in World War I, got its name from a World War II production facility near Quonset, R.I. The huts were simple, inexpensive and portable, and they were widely used as barracks, warehouses and hospitals during the war.

In the postwar years, architects used the same elements in designing public buildings like churches and theaters. That was apparently the case with the Royal.

The theater, which hosted talent shows as well as movies, became the second theater to serve all-black audiences. The other, the Harlem, operated from about 1937 to the mid-1950s at 1017 Third Ave. S in the Gas Plant neighborhood, which was supplanted when Tropicana Field was built in the 1980s.

One of the downtown theaters, the La Plaza, admitted black customers, but they had a separate box office and entrance and had to sit in the balcony.

(Nearly three decades earlier, in 1921, a movie house for blacks called the Dream Theater opened on Ninth Street S. It closed after it was bombed – apparently by white residents who were part of a push to get blacks out of the area, according to Wilson.)

After the Royal Theater closed in 1966, the building housed a laundromat for a time and also stood vacant, according to city records. In 1975, it became a youth center, and in 1977 it was sold to the Boys and Girls Club.

In 2004, three years after it was designated a historic site by the city, the Royal got a $1.2 million renovation that restored some of its previous glory. The renovation was financed by the city, with additional funds from philanthropist Bill Edwards.

Once a single, open hall that held 700 seats, the Royal got separate rooms in the renovation – classrooms, computer rooms, a state-of-the-art recording studio, offices, and a stage area for productions.

The arching, white ceiling towers over the rooms, creating a sense of openness while still retaining its charm.

The Royal Theater Arts Academy is one of seven Boys & Girls Clubs in Pinellas County. For the busy summer season, the Royal has 60 children registered for its programming.

To Lovett, the programming at the Royal is as special as the architecture. She sees it as a venue to effect positive change in the community.

“For the kids to have a supportive relationship with caring adults, I think it makes a difference in the child’s life,” she said. “We are going in a great direction, helping the kids and the community that we serve.”

The Royal has programming year round, with summer the busiest time. Lovett wants to see continued growth in attendance and showcases throughout the year.

“I hear a lot that we’re one of the best-kept secrets in the area,” she said. “Hopefully the parents throughout the county will take advantage of the Boys and Girls Clubs.”

The spring and fall programming at the Royal were close to Lovett’s goals in attendance. She is counting on word-of-mouth to bring in more children.

“For the kids’ sake, I hope we grow beyond that secret,” she said.

Lovett herself is a product of the Boys and Girls Club. As a child, she attended clubs in Sarasota, where her grandmother lived, and in Tampa, where she grew up. She worked for Boys and Girls Club chapters in Hillsborough County for 18 years before moving to the Royal.

BY MARK WOLFENBARGER
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – For decades, the sprawling warehouse district on the northern edge of the Midtown neighborhood was as lifeless as the dried-out, wheat-colored grass that surrounded the mostly abandoned buildings.

The district sprang up after a railroad freight depot was built at 420 22nd St. S in 1926. Forty-one years later, the depot closed and the commerce around it gradually crumbled.

In 2000, the St. Petersburg Clay Co. and its ceramics operation moved into the former depot, and the warehouse district began a comeback, slowly at first, then rapidly.

In 2010, Duncan McClellan, a renowned glass artist, moved his operation from Tampa’s Ybor City to St. Petersburg, where a blossoming arts community was gaining national attention. Before it suspended publication at the end of 2012, the magazine AmericanStyle ranked St. Petersburg as the top midsize city for art three years in a row.

McClellan transformed a former tomato packing plant at 550 24th St. S into a glass art utopia – and his home. In the process, he helped transform the seedy warehouse district into a trendy arts mecca where more than 200 artists now work.

“I know art can really change a neighborhood,” he said.

Not just artists are noticing. On the second Saturday of every month, when dozens of galleries and museums around town open their doors to the public in an event called ArtWalk, people who were once reluctant to venture south of Central Avenue are visiting the shops run by McClellan and his neighbors.

“To a lot of people, Duncan is a savior in many ways,” said Michele Tuegel, who runs a cozy gallery at 320 Central Ave. and helped start ArtWalk two decades ago.

On the southern edge of the warehouse district, which stretches from First Avenue N to 10th Avenue S between 16th and 31st streets, another art establishment is beginning to attract attention, too.

The Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum at 2240 Ninth Ave. S became a stop on the ArtWalk tour in January. The modest museum – a red-roofed, yellow-and-white building that was once the office of the Jordan Park public housing project – unveils a new exhibit in its one-room gallery every month. Much of the art is contributed by the community.

Although the area’s image is improving, many of ArtWalk’s attendees are scared to venture deep into the warehouse district at night, said Terri Lipsey Scott, chairwoman of the Woodson museum’s board.

“The trolley (carrying ArtWalk visitors) makes its way here, and it’s filled with white riders,” Scott said. “They are afraid to get off the trolley because of the area.”

In June, the Salvador Dali Museum hosted a trolley tour that made a noon stop at the Woodson museum, Scott said. Several of the riders marveled at the museum’s African art exhibit, Scott said, and several returned that night with friends.

“There’s a comfort level when you can do it en masse,” Scott said.

There were no trolleys in the early days of ArtWalk and only six or seven galleries, including the Museum of Fine Arts. Nor was ArtWalk a monthly event; it had a loose bimonthly schedule.

Tuegel used to participate in art shows, but now dedicates her Central Avenue gallery and most of her time to the work of 60 artists from around the globe.

The ArtWalk’s founders were a “loose-knit group” who came together to market their institutions as a unit, she said. They also wanted to debunk the myth that art was only for the rich.

From 1988 to 2004, Tuegel was director of the nonprofit Florida Craftsmen, one of the artist organizations that kick-started ArtWalk – then known as the Gallery Hop. It became ArtWalk about seven years ago.

While she can’t give an exact history, Tuegel  said, “I think we were probably one of the first cities in the U.S. to have an art walk.”

By the mid-‘90s, the founders of ArtWalk  became known as “pioneers of the arts community,” Tuegel said. People later called art an “anchor for downtown revitalization and culture.”

In its first decade, ArtWalk saw slow but steady growth. Sales weren’t great; word-of-mouth was the biggest asset. The St. Petersburg Times would often sponsor ArtWalk to help with expenses.

By 2000, Tuegel said, there were about 12 galleries in ArtWalk. Today it comprises more than 30 galleries across five arts districts: The Waterfront Arts District, Edge District, Central Arts District, Grand Central District and Warehouse Arts District.

Although it has grown dramatically in size and popularity, ArtWalk has maintained its ethos: art education and artist exposure. “The root of any creative community is supporting the artists,” said Tuegel.

In the warehouse district he helped establish, McClellan’s operation stands out.

Rope lights stream high above brown wicker seats and a large patio surrounded by a lush, green yard outlined with trees. A walkway connects two green warehouses.

The front warehouse displays the work of 40 international artists, most of which is blown glass. McClellan rotates exhibits and flies in the featured artist for a month, which he said is “very good for creating the buzz.”

The artists provide demonstrations in the 2,400-square-foot rear warehouse – a sweltering hot shop that smells of sweat and torch fire. Because of the extreme heat, the hot shop is closed from June to September.

The front warehouse also contains a massive glass shower, two kitchens and a bedroom.

McClellan is so connected to his work that he and his wife, Irene, live in their gallery.

His hot-shop artists, Jacob Stout and Mariel Bass, craft their own art and assist the featured artists. They said that creating glass art is an intricate process that requires at least two people. “Generally, hot-glass-making is a team sport,” Stout said.

McClellan sponsors local events, donates money to various charities and provides glass-art education for inner-city youth and students of all grade levels.

He is self-funded, but donors contribute to programs. He said that ArtWalk generates attention and money.

Meanwhile, at the Woodson museum, a young, Jamaican-born visual artist named Sharon Norwood opened her first solo exhibit for the April ArtWalk.

Norwood graduated from the University of South Florida in Tampa with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.

Norwood – who is now the museum’s curator – visited the museum several times and became acquainted with its volunteers. This led to the invitation to open her exhibit there.

“The ArtWalk really made a difference for me,” she said.

Until the museum’s invitation, Norwood said, she thought that her art’s controversial and political themes of identity would force her to move to a state known for art like New York or California.

“I attempt to rewrite and give a different narrative to popular images of blackness,” she said. “It is like reading a book and imagining yourself as one with the characters.”

The museum embraced her aesthetic and handled all the marketing. “I could show my work without having to censor it,” Norwood said.

In addition to visual art, the museum features a musician from the Al Downing Tampa Bay Jazz Association at each ArtWalk.

If you go
ArtWalk runs from 5 to 9 p.m. on the second Saturday of every month. For a map and list of venues and trolley stops, go to stpeteartsalliance.org

BY JACOB COONFARE
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – A new opportunity for residents of Midtown and nearby neighborhoods is rising on the corner of 22nd Street and 13th Avenue S.

When in opens in mid-2015, the three-story building for St. Petersburg College will quadruple the college’s space in Midtown and enable it to expand its offerings for students.

The $14 million, 45,000-square-foot building will have classrooms, labs, rooms for counseling and financial aid, a library and community space.

It will be named after the late Douglas L. Jamerson Jr., who grew up in Midtown and served as a state legislator, state education commissioner and state secretary of labor. He died in 2001.

St. Petersburg College has had quarters in Midtown since 2003. But its 10,000-square-foot building at 1048 22nd St. S, two blocks north of the new facility, has just a handful of classrooms. In March, that building was renamed to honor Cecil B. Keene Sr., a longtime Pinellas County school administrator and former member of the St. Petersburg College Board of Trustees who died in 2008.

Kevin Gordon, provost of the Midtown and downtown campuses of the college, called Jamerson and Keene community icons.

“Each made significant contributions to education, St. Petersburg College and the community,” he said in a college news release in December 2013. “This is the perfect way to continue their legacy and uphold the vision they held for Midtown.”

During the groundbreaking for the new Midtown Center in March, Mayor Rick Kriseman commented on his excitement.

“You have to know where you’ve been to know where you’re at,” he said. “Here we are now – we’re going to have a place of learning. We’re going to have people who can go to college right here on 22nd Street, on the Deuces.”

The expansion of the Midtown campus could help business ventures in the area, said Nikki Gaskin-Capehart, the city’s director of urban affairs.

“We have absolute excitement and energy going into the campus,” she said.  “I would love to see Midtown become a ‘college hub’ and grow business around the area.”
Workforce training will a part of the expanded campus.

Jessica Eilerman, the city’s small-business liaison, said that the college will help fledgling small businesses and get people exposure to the workforce.

“I think the impact will be great,” Eilerman said. “When you have an institution like SPC in the area, it makes a huge impact.”

LumaStream Inc., a company that makes low-voltage, highly efficient lighting systems, recently  moved its manufacturing operation from Canada to a building at 2201 First Ave. S. in the Midtown area. LumaStream will supply the space and the college will supply the teachers to train workers for the company.

In an announcement in May, the company said it plans to increase its workforce in the St. Petersburg area from 25 to 200 in five years.

“They’ve already hired three or four folks from the program,” Eilerman said.

The college is one of 11 state schools in a consortium that provides short-term, advanced manufacturing training to high school and college students, returning veterans and the unemployed. It is financed by a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

“A college in an urban area is exciting,” Gaskin-Capehart said. “There are so many opportunities with a campus in Midtown.”

Information from St. Petersburg College News and the Tampa Bay Times was used in this report.

For more information
Additional details about the Midtown campus of St. Petersburg College and its expansion are available on the college’s news blog.
Click here for additional details about LumaStream.

BY EMILY WEHUNT
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – It was a slow Saturday afternoon at the Tampa Bay Times. Photojournalist John Pendygraft, was editing a video at his cubicle. Suddenly, a text alert went off on his cell phone.

Within seconds, he was up from his desk. Carefully but swiftly, he gathered his belongings and headed out the door.

“One of the biggest mistakes reporters can make is running out of the building before making sure they have everything,” said Pendygraft.

A minivan had run into an apartment complex’s guard gate. Although he made it to the scene quickly and snapped some photographs, there was nothing newsworthy about the accident. You never know what you will find until you get there, he said.

Pendygraft, 43, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1992 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. During his college years, he was the photo editor for the student newspaper, the Daily Texan, and worked at KLRU-TV as a production assistant for “Austin City Limits,” the popular music performance program.

Although Pendygraft was an anthropology major, he believes the field goes hand-in-hand with journalism.

“The universal stories about human struggle are both journalism and anthropology. Good ones – if you do it right,” Pendygraft said.

In his work, he has covered natural disasters, the hardships in Third World countries and the trials of individuals. He and reporter Lane DeGregory told the story of one young woman, a prescription drug addict working toward recovery, in a package titled “If I Die Young.”

After graduating from college, Pendygraft got an internship with the St. Petersburg Times. The Times didn’t have a full-time job opening so he took a job as a crisis counselor at a mental health care center in Tampa, a job he held for two years.

“I worked in the Baker Act unit,” he said. “It was an amazing, amazing experience.”

Under the Baker Act, people with possible mental problems can be involuntarily committed for up to 72 hours by police, doctors or mental health professionals.

Following that, he worked at the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate before returning to the Times in 1997.

In 1998, he began traveling for the paper. He spent a lot of time in Latin America, covering stories with reporter and good friend David Adams. The duo worked on countless stories together over a 10-year span.

“We went everywhere, from Cuban to Honduran jails, you name it,” said Pendygraft.

He also covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005.

“It was the first time I had been somewhere in America where it felt like a Third World country,” he said.

When an earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, Pendygraft was there to cover it. He documented how the Haitian people dealt with the aftermath.

“I pitched a ‘we will rebuild Haiti’ story about the Haitians who will actually rebuild Haiti. That is how it happens, after all of the big plans and promises; that is what it comes down to,” he said.

Steep budget cuts at the Times have meant less travel for Pendygraft, but he has become both a photographer and reporter for the paper.

In recent months, some photographers have left the paper and one was laid off. This has resulted in more work for those who remain.

He is working on a series called “In My Shoes” – a character study on a person with an interesting story to share. He has published one piece so far and a second is in the works. For each person, he will do a story, a photograph and a video.

Pendygraft is confident in his photography skills, and he is working to perfect his video editing. He uses Final Cut Pro – which he taught himself – to do his videos.

“Final Cut is just Legos, for the easy stuff. I can put something together quickly, but will edit it for a long time,” he said.

Pendygraft lives in Gulfport with his wife, reporter Letitia Stein, 34, and their 2-year-old daughter, Isadora. They met at the paper in 2004 and married in 2007.

Pendygraft handled the courtship the same way he tackles an assignment – with focused energy.

“We meet at the paper, and I stalked her,” he said. “Only because I could tell we had something.”

BY JAIMIE LUNA
NNB Student Reporter

SARASOTA – With a sense of adventure and $500 in his pocket, he bought a round-trip ticket to Queensland, Australia.

His plan?  To stay for two weeks.

He stayed for a year, making surfboards to pay the bills.

During that time Eric Nalpas began to discover his love for photography. And by the time he was 25, he had turned that love into a career.

“I realized with photography, you really have to give it 100 percent to make anything happen,” says Nalpas.

He became a part-time correspondent photographer for the Sarasota Herald Tribune, covering Red Cross efforts during Hurricane Katrina and the San Bernardino wildfires.

Nalpas, 37, is now the photographer for the Sarasota Polo Club in Lakewood Ranch. During polo season, he covers up to nine games a week. Sunday is his busiest day.

After the first year, he started playing polo himself. “I think if I didn’t start playing, I wouldn’t still be there,” says Nalpas.

His skill in the game helps him predict what is going to happen next, capturing the best moments with his Nikon D800.

His assistant, 23-year-old McKenzie Chadwell, is pleased to be working with him.

“I see life in angles and so does he,” says Chadwell. “It’s nice to be able to see our work together through a camera lens. I give him my own perspective on things, all while he’s teaching me how to become a professional in this field.”

On top of everything, Nalpas has taught Chadwell it doesn’t matter what kind of photography equipment you have. What matters is what you do with it.

His favorite part about being a photographer is interacting with people and traveling. He says he’s always had a thirst for travel.

“I love it. I love every minute of it,” he says.

Before becoming full-time photographer, Nalpas was shaping surfboards around the world for famous surfboard builder Juan Rodriguez.

“I used to joke and say I made surfboards for the life and the style,” says Nalpas. “Turns out I didn’t have a life or style. I wanted more.”

When he’s not working at the Sarasota Polo Club, Nalpas is an independent photographer, part-time bartender at the Selva Grill, and dad to 6-year-old Logan Nalpas.

Nalpas also recently dove back into making surfboards.

“It’s my familiar getaway,” he says.

Despite his successes, Nalpas strives to be a better photographer.

“I don’t think I’m the best,” he says. “On a scale of 1 to 10, I give myself a 6. I want to be better; that’s what keeps me going.”

BY MARK WOLFENBARGER
NNB Student Reporter

CLEARWATER – Sitting at a table in the cafeteria of the Pinellas County Justice Center, courts reporter Curtis Krueger organizes notes as he prepares for Monday morning pre-trial hearings.

Like the attorneys who pass by, Krueger is dressed for the occasion – white dress shirt, blue necktie, dark gray dress pants.

A casual demeanor and a green Tampa Bay Times neck strap holding a press badge separate him from the attorneys who stop to chat.

Becoming acquainted with attorneys is invaluable. This is one of the ways Krueger discovers and keeps track of interesting cases.

In fact, it is how he heard about Le’Genius Wisdom Williams.

Krueger says an attorney asked him, “How come you didn’t write about the 13-year-old who shot somebody?”

Williams was arrested in August 2013 on an attempted murder charge for shooting a 15-year-old boy on 17th Avenue and 26th Street S. Prosecutors may seek adult charges.  A trial date has not been set.

Krueger, 55, is from Bloomington, Ind. He attended Indiana University – and ultimately got a bachelor’s degree in journalism there – until he became a reporter at the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Once he gained confidence as a journalist, Krueger joined the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), where he has been a staff writer since 1987. He has covered courts for the Times since 2010.

Krueger scans a piece of paper with a list of five names written in black ink, each tagged with a letter. The names belong to defendants whose cases have Krueger’s attention. The letters identify which judge (and division) is presiding over the case.

After getting organized, Krueger heads across the first floor to the media room, where he drops off a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee and a black bag containing his laptop.

He then takes a series of escalators to the fourth floor. That’s where most of the felony pre-trial hearings and trials are held.

Most of Krueger’s writing is about trials. Pre-trials offer updates and sometimes a new case to follow. “Pre-trials are usually uninteresting,” Krueger says.

He enters the first courtroom, marked D.

More than a dozen people – defendants, family, friends and observers – sit in the wood-paneled room. They are separated from the judge’s bench and attorneys’ tables by a partition with a swing door in the center.

Bailiffs stand guard as defense attorneys, accompanied by their clients, approach the lectern to confer with the judge. Most are given a trial date.

Krueger says about 20 defendants can be in a courtroom at one time. Because there is no schedule, Krueger often has to wait for his case to come up. Atop his list today is Leonard Lanni Jr.

Lanni was arrested at a St. Pete Beach resort in July 2013 on a disorderly conduct charge; police say he was drunk and belligerent. On the way to jail in the transport van, police say, he savagely kicked another drunken man into a coma.

When the victim later died from his injuries, Lanni was charged with second-degree murder.

A shackled Lanni enters the courtroom in a blue corrections uniform.  His attorney and the judge discuss a trial date; it is tentatively set for Oct. 7. Krueger writes it down, then leaves and walks down the hall to the next courtroom, marked A.

Krueger doesn’t see his next defendant or the attorney.

While he waits, another attorney stands at the lectern. When one defendant finishes, the next joins her.

A large man wearing a suit approaches the lectern and stands next to the attorney. “It’s interesting when a client is dressed as well as the attorney,” Krueger says. It often indicates a sex offender.

After about 10 minutes, the judge calls for a five-minute recess. Krueger exits. He says the recess is probably a bathroom break.

Krueger stands in the hall and identifies familiar faces, mostly attorneys, then walks to the opposite end of the hall. He stops to speak with an attorney named Richard Watts.

Watts is a slender man with white hair and charisma. He and Krueger have a brief discussion about law and journalists’ favorite amendment. “I am a big believer in the First Amendment, but I don’t like my name in the paper,” Watts says.

Before heading to the media room to gather his belongings, Krueger stops by the office of Ron Stuart, the public information officer for the Pinellas-Pasco circuit court.

Stuart is a tall, older man with a belly and a Southern accent. He and Krueger often discuss cases.

Stuart’s office has a variety of decorations including framed newspapers.

One is a Clearwater Sun front page from May 9, 1980, the day one span of the original Sunshine Skyway collapsed after being rammed by a freighter. “That was one of the last extras in America,” Stuart says.

He was managing editor of the Sun, which folded in 1989.

From Stuart’s office, Krueger heads to the media room to retrieve his black bag and neglected cup of coffee. He walks across the first floor and down the hall toward the doors next to the cafeteria where his morning began.

For many, the courthouse is where their stories end. For Krueger, it is where stories are born.