Category: Uncategorized

BY JENNIFER NESSLAR
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Just before the 8:30 a.m. start of the St. Petersburg City Council meeting, reporter Kameel Stanley took a seat in the corner labeled “Press.” She pulled out the huge agenda package, which warned the meeting would last a long time.

A council member walked by.

“I hope you brought a cushion,” he said with a laugh.

Stanley groaned.

“And a neck pillow.”

Their fears proved true. The meeting lasted 11 hours.

The pace of City Hall is slower than what Stanley, 26, is used to. In 2009, the Tampa Bay Times hired her as the early-morning police reporter, a beat packed with action.

Stanley, a graduate of Central Michigan University, had experience interning at other newspapers such as the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and Washington Post. At the Times, she covered police and general assignment before her promotion to City Hall last fall.

Despite the prominence of her position, Stanley enjoyed her former beat.

“I definitely miss the adrenaline rush of cops,” Stanley said, “but that doesn’t mean interesting things don’t happen” at City Hall.

Although the June 5 council meeting was slow, Stanley stayed busy covering a variety of issues – the extension of the management contract for Al Lang Stadium and the Walter Fuller Complex, an update on homeless issues in the city, a vote on the downtown waterfront master plan, and another vote allowing customers to bring alcoholic beverages on pedal-powered buses.

At the meeting, Stanley furiously took notes on her laptop. Christopher O’Donnell, the Tampa Tribune reporter seated next to her, did the same.

To complete her work for the day, Stanley needed to multitask. She wrote three stories for the next day’s paper, several blog posts for its website, tampabay.com, and ongoing updates on Twitter.

She said she takes a lot of notes because “you never know what you may or may not need.” At meetings, she is constantly faced with a decision: take notes or work on a story.

The meeting was packed with important issues, but Stanley faced another challenge: She needed to pay attention to her phone. She had received a tip that Mayor Rick Kriseman would be narrowing the list of police chief candidates. She waited to hear the news while paying attention to the council meeting.

“It was a unique situation,” Stanley said.

While State Rep. Kathleen Peters, R-South Pasadena, addressed the council, Stanley began drafting the police chief story. During the discussion of the Al Lang/Walter Fuller management contract, she received the police chief news. She slipped out of the council chambers for about two minutes to take the call.

Her story on the homeless update made page 1-A the next day. While she was at City Hall, her editor, Heather Urquides, pitched the story at a news meeting.

To break up the monotony of marathon meetings, Stanley tweets about what is happening.

“It’s the quickest and fastest way to get out news,” she said. Twitter allows her to get the news out in seconds, rather than drafting a blog post and sending it to the newsroom to be edited and posted.

Her posts range from serious to funny. Sometimes she just tweets about how she is feeling.

“Pretty sure I’m never leaving City Hall today. Meeting has been going on for 4+ hrs & we haven’t even gotten to the most controversial stuff,” she tweeted before the first break.

When Stanley finally left City Hall, more work awaited her. She returned to the newsroom to keep writing and polishing the story for 1-A and two more for 1-B. She got home at 10.

A 13½-hour work day.

BY IAN MacCALLUM
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Ron Brackett’s work day starts about 9 a.m. with a cup of coffee and an email check. Then he surfs the websites of major national newspapers to check on their big stories of the day.

A coworker pops her head into his office. “President Bush jumped out a plane today. Seems like prime front-page material,” she said. (The 41st president marked his 90th birthday by skydiving in Maine.)

Brackett, 51, has spent 29 years in the news industry, all but a few months of that at the Tampa Bay Times. During that time, he has worn many hats and taken on many roles. His current title is deputy managing editor/tampabay.com and presentation. He oversees the paper’s website and supervises copy editors, page designers and news artists.

Brackett has helped lead the Times newsroom through events such as the Columbia shuttle disaster, the 9/11 terror attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the deaths of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

But he knows it isn’t just the big stuff that makes news.

“That’s always been our brand at the Times:  strong local news,” he said.

Even on a slow news day, the newsroom bustles with increasing activity as the day’s deadlines draw closer.

Brackett grew up in Inman, a community in northwest South Carolina. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

“I spent the whole of my senior semester working on the college paper, The Carolina Reporter,” Brackett said. “I spent half of my time reporting, and the other half editing.”

Although he enjoyed reporting, “news editing appealed to me because it allowed me to take something – in this case a story – and make it better. To improve on someone else’s work,” he said.  “I also enjoyed the coaching aspect of that.”

Brackett’s first job was at the Greenville News, about 30 miles from Inman. He was hired as a copy editor and page designer for the paper in 1985.

Later that same year, Brackett began his career with the Times, then known as the St. Petersburg Times.

“It was a weird transition for me,” Brackett said. “This is a much bigger city; then, the Times had a Sunday circulation of around 450,000 papers.” (Although the population of the Tampa Bay area has grown dramatically in 30 years, the Times’ circulation has not. The paper’s website says Sunday circulation is 397,000.)

Once another coffee has been consumed, more emails have been read, and the news wires have been perused again, the next order of business is the 3 p.m. news meeting.

At the budget meeting – the name is derived from the budget of stories for the day – editors from each department discuss what should appear on the front page of the next day’s paper.

On a typical day, there are about 20 people at the meeting. Each department describes its top stories. The most important and interesting stories are pitched for the front page. The day’s best photographs are presented on a TV at the front of the conference room.

There is often spirited conversation during these meetings, and usually a few laughs.

While there is normally a strong focus on the day’s deadlines, sometimes the newsroom gets to relax and celebrate.

“The most fun days are when you win a Pulitzer,” Brackett said with a chuckle. “There are speeches and Champagne and cake. It’s the only time we can drink in the newsroom.”

Brackett has been present for seven of the newspaper’s 10 Pulitzers. “On Pulitzer (announcement) day, everyone in the newsroom gathers around one computer for the announcements about 3 p.m. If our name pops up, we all clap and cheer like crazy.”

Once the stories for the front page are selected, the department heads return to their desks to make the discussion become a reality. A page designer then drafts several examples of how the front page might look.

At 5 p.m., eight to 10 editors meet to look over the front-page design options and decide which one they like best. Of course, if a major news story breaks during the evening, they tear up the front page and design a new one.

The newsroom is an electric environment as deadlines approach. Reporters, editors, photographers and designers all work together to assemble the newspaper.

As the day wears on, Brackett remains composed and collected. As he gets his night editor caught up on the day’s happenings, he checks the Times website one last time before leaving the office. He usually heads home about 7:30 p.m.

With the speed at which news travels, it can be difficult to fully process a big, breaking story. 9/11 was one of those days for Brackett.

“We were trying to make sense of it for the public and that was very hard,” he said. “It was so trying because we couldn’t stop and make sense of it ourselves.”

For the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2005, Brackett helped produce a special section honoring those involved in the war, both here and overseas. It is one of his most enjoyable memories at the paper.

“I solicited stories from readers,” he said. “What they remembered from the war. We got great responses – love stories, war stories, rationing stories – I got to talk to so many people.”

The section was put into an online special report, which can still be enjoyed today.

“They shared their treasured old photos and scrapbooks with me. You don’t always know that you have an impact,” Brackett said, “but I know I had one on that edition.”

To see the special report on the 60th anniversary of WWII, visit http://www.sptimes.com/2005/webspecials05/wwii/index.shtml

BY MARK WOLFENBARGER
NNB Student Reporter

TAMPA – In another life, Bobby Thompson was named John Donald Cody.

As Cody, he was a Harvard-educated lawyer and former Army intelligence officer in Phoenix.

As Thompson, he was a con man and federal fugitive who was living in a rundown duplex in Tampa’s Ybor City.

That is where Cody caught the attention of the Tampa Bay Times and became the focus of the biggest, most complex case in the career of John Martin, the Times’ senior news researcher.

For months, Martin and Times investigative reporter Jeff Testerman used mountains of records and dozens of interviews to produce a series of stories that exposed Thompson’s fraud and made him the subject of a national man hunt.

Before good journalists write a story, they dig through records and backgrounds to uncover every possible detail.

Martin, 49, spends most of his days entrenched in archives.

With a clean-shaven bald head, wire-rim glasses and well-groomed goatee, Martin has a scholarly appearance.

A Tampa native and graduate of the University of Tampa, Martin began with the Times in 1995, two years after he earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Whether it is government officials or private citizens, Martin’s job is to research their past. “If we’re going to do a story about someone, we want to know who that person is and what kind of baggage they carry,” he said.

Martin said he likes researching people who have something to hide. And none of his subjects had more to hide than Cody-turned-Thompson.

In 1984, soon after a judge threatened to hold him in contempt of court for making false statements, Cody abandoned his Corvette in a Phoenix airport parking lot and disappeared. It was discovered that he had stolen almost $100,000 from clients.

He was put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list in 1987. Cody’s legal assistant, Margaret Chapman, said that investigators searching Cody’s office found documents that indicated several plastic surgeries.

In 2002, Cody started the U.S. Navy Veterans Association under the name Bobby Thompson. It was a scam operation disguised as a charity.

Martin and Testerman began investigating the operation in 2009 when it contributed $500 to Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White’s re-election campaign – an unusual gesture for a supposed nonprofit.

Several weeks after Testerman interviewed Thompson outside his Ybor City duplex, he disappeared.

In their reporting, Testerman and Martin learned that Thompson had attended Republican dinners and posed for photos with bigwigs like George W. Bush and John Boehner.

By 2010, the scam had brought in more than $100 million. Cody contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns, the Times learned, but veterans received little.

That was the same year the Times broke the story. It reported that 84 of the 85 officers of the charity listed on documents – all but Thompson – were nowhere to be found and that 99 percent of its annual revenue could not be accounted for.

It was “totally a records-driven story,” Martin said.

Thompson spent two more years running before an Ohio-led U.S. Marshals Service task force caught him in Portland, Ore., where he was hiding under the name Anderson Yazzie. He refused to disclose his identity, which authorities eventually learned through fingerprints.

Throughout the trial that followed, Cody’s body withered and became frail. His hair grew into a greasy, salt-and-pepper mop. He acquired a scar on his forehead from bashing it against a cell wall.

By the end, he resembled Charles Manson more than a man with such lofty credentials.

In 2013, Cody, 66, was convicted of 23 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft in the scam that Testerman and Martin first exposed three years earlier. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Martin said he “spent more time on this story than any other story I’ve worked on.”

Testerman may write a book about the case.

If he does, he won’t be able to use one obvious title. That has already been taken for a Leonardo DiCaprio movie: Catch Me If You Can.

Information from the Tampa Bay Times was used in this report.

BY EMILY WEHUNT
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When the Sweetbay Supermarket pulled out of Tangerine Plaza in February 2013, business at Meme’s Beauty Gallery came to a screeching halt.

Business at the beauty shop had been booming, said owner Jamekka Harris, 39. She had seven employees and a steady flow of traffic, most of it from the grocery store a few steps away in the shopping center at 22nd Street S and 18th Avenue.

Then Sweetbay departed and the bottom fell out, Harris said. She lost more than half her income and struggled to pay her bills. She laid off her employees, and for a few months she worked alone.

“I had thoughts of closing down,” she said.

But Larry Newsome, the head of the company that runs the shopping center, persuaded Harris and other Tangerine Plaza tenants to stick it out. He worked with those who couldn’t pay their rent on time, she said. With a Walmart coming to replace the Sweetbay, he said, surely their sales would rebound.

His counsel proved wise. Since the Walmart opened on Jan. 29, Harris said, business has picked up, although it is still not as brisk as before. She has three employees and they see 10 to 20 customers a day.

For years, Midtown did not have a supermarket. Residents had to leave their neighborhood to shop at a full-service grocery or else pay higher prices at nearby convenience stores.

The city spent heavily in the quest to bring a supermarket to the neighborhood, according to the Tampa Bay Times. It paid $5.1 million to buy the land at the northeast corner of 22nd Street and 18th Avenue and tear down the buildings there. It loaned another $1.4 million to a nonprofit to build out the inside of the store and spent $400,000 to bury power lines.

Then it leased the shopping center to Urban Development Solutions, which is headed by Newsome.

It took several years for the city, Newsome and private entrepreneurs to persuade Sweetbay to put a store in the low-income neighborhood in 2005. And when Sweetbay pulled out eight years later, it took several months to land Walmart as a replacement and several more months for Walmart to upgrade the space and move in.

In the meantime, Meme’s Beauty Gallery and other shops in the shopping center watched their business drop dramatically.

Harris said that she has lived in Midtown her entire life and that five generations of her family have grown up in the community. She began doing hair when she was 16 at a salon on the corner of 22nd Street S and 15th Avenue.

“It was my first job,” Harris said. “It’s all I know.”

She continued her education and got her cosmetology license from the Pinellas Technical Education Center. She opened her salon in Midtown in 2007 because she loved the community and wanted to give back.

When business dragged last year, Harris still kept her salon open every day. The construction upgrades for Walmart made things even worse. Some people thought the shop had closed.
“Thank God for the regulars; they are what kept us going,” said Harris.

She said she has been working on marketing the business more and hopes to eventually hire a larger variety of licensed staff, including nail technicians, estheticians and makeup specialists.

Harris believes in the community and is looking toward the future.

“It’s a great area.” Harris said. “We just need the community to strive together and keep supporting each other’s businesses.”

Information from the Tampa Bay Times was used in this report.

BY MATTHEW LIDDELL
NNB Student Reporter

SARASOTA – Joey Panek may be on the Monday noon news like many others, but he’s far from an ordinary reporter.

“I don’t really want to have, like, a news voice,” he told his assistant recently as they prepared to shoot a segment by the Ringling Bridge in Sarasota. “I still want to sound like myself… which I hope is very charming.”

It’s apparent from his joking manner that Panek approaches his work with a lot of levity.  But he isn’t goofing off. It’s the reason why he is a social correspondent on WWSB’s ABC 7 News in the first place.

Panek, 36, grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and earned an associate degree at Onondaga Community College. He spent 13 years on the professional stage before moving to Sarasota in 2006.

Panek, a self-proclaimed “man about town,” is a social media guru for a media group called the HuB, where he makes online content like ads and web series. He also covers pop culture on his own website, HowBoutJoey.com.

His talent comes from his jovial personality and his eye for social events, which is exactly what the managers at ABC 7 thought when they approached Panek last year.

He started at the TV station by reporting on weekend events for the noon Monday program. But he soon wanted to branch out.

“Practically, there aren’t as many events now that the (winter) season is over,” Panek said. “Personal reason was that it was exhausting. I was becoming a run-and-gun cameraman, sometimes covering three events in a single night. They realized they could send a cameraman to get footage for the news and that it was a waste to have me doing that.”

Now, Panek goes to the ABC 7 studio every Monday to introduce his series “What’s Up, Joey.” He covers trends – in health, food, weddings and travel – with Florida-centric spin and tries to keep the tone conversational and light.

This became evident recently as Panek and his crew worked on a few stories.

“Do it again, but this time with a smile!” yelled his assistant, Christine Alexander, after a bland take for a story at the Florida Studio Theatre. Panek’s face, voice and gestures immediately came alive, changing everything about his delivery and on-screen presence.

It’s no wonder that theater and acting are among Panek’s great interests. With his experience on the professional stage, he knows how to present himself to an audience.

Panek was wrapping up on his next piece, a story about a couple of online health fads – adding butter, not cream, to coffee and “oil pulling,” or swishing a tablespoon of oil in the mouth for better oral health. He also went to the Perq Coffee Bar to learn about proper coffee shop etiquette.

It may not be hard-hitting or traditional journalism, but Panek strives for professionalism in his material.

“They’ve given me the freedom to go outside the box,” he said. “I didn’t (do that) immediately because I wanted to show them I could do a professional package, and that’s what solidified me there.”

BY KIM DOLEATTO
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – The homeless guy throwing the hotel room parties had amazingly fresh breath. His Social Security checks financed both the parties and his disability: alcoholism.

His drink of choice? Mouthwash.

Another man lived in a 6-by-8-foot hole in the ground because, he told the reporter, “it just felt better” there.

In 27 years as a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, Curtis Krueger has covered the silly as well as the solemn.

Krueger , 55, is from Bloomington, Ind., and has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University. After working at the Fort Wayne, Ind., Journal Gazette for four years, he asked his wife, Vicky, a copy editor, where they should seek new jobs.

“Nowhere where it snows,” she replied. She is now director of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg.

Krueger has covered the homeless, social services, politics, space and science, and natural disasters. Now he covers the courts beat, following 60 to 80 cases at a time.

“When I write, I feel like I’m shining a light on something people should know,” he said.

He has shined a light on St. Petersburg’s juvenile gun problem. In 2011, 16-year-old Nicholas Lindsey murdered a police officer. In 2013, police say, an armed 13-year-old shot a 15-year-old three times for taunting him.

But perhaps Krueger’s highest-profile story was the murder of an 8-year-old girl: Paris Whitehead-Hamilton, who died in her home in a gang-related shooting in 2009.

“This story raises questions about where we live and why a little girl died,” he said.

He covered the trial two and a half years after the murder. “Unlike cop shows, it takes months to figure things out,” he said. Three men, all 21, were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. A fourth defendant, also 21, testified against the others and was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Shortly before the trial, Krueger got an interview with Paris’ aunt and guardian, Shenita Williams, who was at home with a sleeping Paris when the shooting – 56 bullets from two assault rifles – broke out.

“It’s traditional to talk to the family of the victim right before a trial,” he said. “It reinforces what it’s all about, and (why) we should feel that pain again.”

The family’s emotional state is usually still raw, and Krueger’s advice to young journalists is this: “Just say you want to talk, not for an interview – just talk.”

Williams was angry that the news media’s account of the murder included police suggestions that there was some gang involvement in her household, he said. But most “people will want to talk, tell their side of the story outside of the cold facts.”

Krueger and Williams talked over lunch at the Olive Garden. He learned about Paris the little girl, not the victim. He learned that the girl’s late mother – Williams’ cousin – had named her after the famous French city, which she visited while in the military. And he learned that Paris had read more than a thousand pages during a book-a-thon.

It was rich detail that – with Williams’ approval – Krueger put in subsequent stories.

“I like to see something most people won’t (see) and bring that image to life,” he said.

His coverage of the case included a slide show of images of the bullet-riddled home where Paris died, accompanied by recordings of multiple 911 calls to police that night.

“Appeal to the senses – the look plus the smell, the look plus the sound,” Krueger said. “Then you really get a full image.”

BY JACOB COONFARE
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – The desk sits in a corner framed by two large windows with a view of St. Petersburg rooftops. Cartoons and drawings that illustrate stories from a range of categories hang on the wall between the windows. Well-thumbed books with titles like Art Deco and News Design sit neatly on a shelf.

The desk belongs to Don Morris, assistant news art director for the Tampa Bay Times.

For 26 years, he has illustrated stories in the Times with work that ranges from simple, one-column maps to extravagant, multi-day sketches that dominate the paper.

Regardless of the topic, Morris believes the most important thing about every piece is the story it tells the reader.

“People see images everywhere they look,” said Morris, 59. “When you look at a newspaper it better look good, but those pictures and illustrations better tell a story.”

It often starts with a place and a photo.

Morris begins the illustration process by going to the location of the story and taking photos. Then he returns to his desk to sketch out the photos and begin brainstorming.

“I love to go out and sketch things and write down what I’m sketching,” Morris said.

For a story on Greenlight Pinellas, a proposed project that supporters say would improve public transportation in the county, Morris could be found traveling on the bus daily to get a feel for how the bus system worked. He then sketched ideas on his pad.

While the story easily lends itself to visuals, Morris said, there was another reason for riding the bus.

“I admit I’m not the most objective about it (the Greenlight Pinellas proposal),” he said. “I want to go out and find the facts and report them.”

In 2013, Morris and reporter Michael Kruse collaborated on a three-day series on the final voyage of the Bounty, which sank off the coast of North Carolina during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, killing two of the 16 crew members. He, Kruse, Lee Glynn, Alexis Sanchez and Maurice Rivenbark built an interactive, scrolling website that is organized into chapters to read like a book. Morris’ sketches and paintings of the ship dot the pages as if taken from a ship engineer’s notebook.

Morris says it was rewarding to get a month to work on the project.

That “was a real joy,” he said. “It is the epitome of what the Times can do.”

Morris doesn’t work exclusively for the newspaper. He also freelances. One of his art projects was for Chick-fil-A. He illustrated the Virtue Valley Tales, children’s books that tell the stories of animals that discover their inner courage, initiative and joy.

The Chick-fil-A project and other freelance art projects were arranged by Morris’ agents.

“As artists, we tend to downgrade ourselves and not ask what we’re worth,” he said. “That’s where agents come in. My agents are kind of the middle man in the whole thing.”

As a news artist, Morris wants to continue to use his gift as a way to tell stories. He hopes to see more long-term projects. He also wants to see more interactive websites and graphics.

He says this would help push art at the Times in a new direction – something he hopes to lead.

“I want the last years of my career to be devoted to pushing art at the Times in a new direction,” he said. “Use what you’re good at as your tool to tell a story.”

BY SAMANTHA MESERVEY

NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The small storefront bursts with incense and candles. As you walk through the door you are immediately greeted by a fiery smell and sunlight bouncing off crystals.

The Looking Glass is a new-age shop located in Midtown that specializes in metaphysical supplies and spiritual healing.

Shop owner Chris Otazo met his wife Sara Otazo in the little store. With similar interests in Holistic qualities both enjoy working there together. The mission is to empower others by helping them on a spiritual journey.

The Looking Glass concentrates on a form of healing called Reiki which is a Japanese technique that uses energy and small amounts of touch to create stress reduction and relaxation.

“We only touch the customers’ shoulders and then the energy goes where it needs to,” Chris Otazo said.

The shop has a varying group of customers including people living with HIV or Lupus. Chris Otazo explains how about 30% of first time customers are skeptical the holistic healings will produce results.

“Most costumers are referred to us by friends and family, they wouldn’t have come on their own,” Chris Otazo said.

He also explained how many people who tried countless different forms of western medicine come to The Looking Glass hoping an alternative healing will cure them.

Sara Otazo recently realized how popular new age healing has become.

“It is the new thing, people you wouldn’t think would ever come in here are here all the time,” she said.

The Looking Glass provides customers with numerous types of healing. One popular form of healing is Chelation.

Chris Otazo describes Chelation as bringing the lines of life through mother earth then through the body for detoxification. The process allows toxins and waste to leave the body.

Polarity healing is different from Chelation but just as popular. This form of healing focuses on balancing out energy fields. By balancing a person’s energy stress and disease are thought less likely to occur.

Other forms of healing offered at The Looking Glass are sound healing, crystal bed healing, and life coaching.

Sara Otazo admits that the life coaching has less to do with healing and more to do with advice giving. She understands that some people hit a cross road in life and just need some spiritual, outside guidance.

“We try to help people on their path, we look inside them and use our intuition to help,” she said.

Both Chris and Sara Otazo believe the healing is done by God, not themselves. Through them God is able to channel energy and heal the patients. Chris Otazo believes once a customer is healed they should not have to be healed again, unless they mentally allow the sickness to redevelop. Life coaching and balancing therapies are a routine procedure while healing should only be done when a disease or anxiety manifests again.

The Looking Glass allows customers to take control of the experience by charging a fee of $1.00 per minute for healings. The customer is permitted to choose how long they want a session to last. Chris Otazo suggests at least 15 minutes for a proper healing experience.

“We try to make it as affordable for everyone as possible,” he said.

Along with healing services The Looking Glass also provides hundreds of different healing products including crystals, candles and jewelry. Sara Otazo, who grew up with a fascination for crystals explained how their healing is recognized by western medical professionals.

All the inventory at The Looking Glass is special to the two owners, they agree there is a special reason why it produces such strong healing.

“We put love into all our inventory which enhances the healing properties,” Sara Otazo said.

BY LORI CASTELLANO

NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Most days you will find Antwon Fowler sitting in his front yard relaxing with friends and family and enjoying some of the fruits and vegetables of his labor.

Fowler’s garden is located on 3rd St. and 20th Ave. S. in St. Petersburg, Fla., and while it might not look very big, it packs a wallop feeding his family for two growing seasons.

Fowler, who grew up in St. Petersburg, has only lived at this location a year but knew when he saw all of the earthworms, it was going to be a perfect area for planting his crop.

“I knew I had a good garden to plant,” he said. “When I started, I planted cabbages, but right now I have mustard greens, collard greens, and pineapples for the cooler season.”

Fowler grew up appreciating the importance of growing your own food from his father, and he wanted to teach this to his family.

“My youngest granddaughter helps me the most in the garden. She likes to keep the other kids out,” he said. “She’s very protective of it.”

She’s not the only one who is protective of the garden.

“Cocoa, my Chihuahua, stands guard and chases any animals away, if there are any brave enough to venture close enough,” he said.

There usually aren’t.

The food from the harvest not only feed his daughter and her three children, all of whom live with him, but friends as well.

Garfield Anderson, a friend and fellow gardener, can be seen often sitting out front with Fowler talking about their plants.

“I have a small garden, but since I am from Jamaica, I like to grow yams, bananas, collard greens and sugar cane,” Anderson said.

Fowler does get his share of curious visitors.

“I just had a couple of people who just stopped by and asked how to grow plants in the sandy soil. A lot of people stop by to talk about the garden,” Fowler said.

Todd Pardoll walks up to ask Fowler about it.

“I have been riding down here and checking this out for at least a year and wanted to stop by,” he said. “I am trying to grow a garden myself and would like to get some ideas.”

Fowler’s outdoor area is usually a gathering place. Marcellus Morris drops off some mangrove snapper he just caught.

“My dad and Antwon are best friends, and I have my garden in pots,” he said. “I have four boys, and they all plant with me. It absorbs into them.”

Pardoll is taking pictures while he is talking to Fowler.

“It’s really good for the community. If you nourish the earth, you get repaid with the seeds from the garden. We take that with us,” Morris said.

BY COURTNEY PARISH

NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Many people rely on caffeine as fuel to power them through daily responsibilities. LaVerne Feaster-Johnson, on the other hand, is fueled by a desire to make a difference in people’s lives. She works as the Program Manager at Department of Veterans Affairs for Bay Pines Veterans Affairs Healthcare System.

As one of the first people to graduate with a Masters in Social Work from the University of South Florida, social work is in Feaster-Johnson’s blood. Her mother was a Licensed Practical Nurse at the state psychiatric facility in Philadelphia, Pa.; she worked with individuals who had mental health problems.

“I remember picking my mother up from work one day and a patient tried to follow her home. She coaxed him back into the building by reassuring him that he wasn’t different or dysfunctional, he just functioned differently,” Feaster-Johnson said. Her mother’s kind and accepting attitude is something Feaster -Johnson admires and wants to pass on to the people whose lives she touches.

Feaster-Johnson moved from Philadelphia to St. Petersburg, Fla. in 1974 after receiving her undergraduate degree in Social Work. Fresh out of college, her first job was as a paraprofessional for Wildwood Elementary School where she taught remedial reading and math. She enjoyed working with children but desired a job in her field.

In 1975, Horizon Hospital, a private hospital opened in the St. Petersburg area which later hired Feaster-Johnson as a Clinical Social Worker. As part of her responsibilities she recorded patient’s medical and family history, performed psychological assessments and conducted individual and group counseling.

The University of South Florida launched their masters degree program for social work in 1981. Feaster-Johnson participated in a task force that conducted a survey on the bay area to see if there were enough people interested in social work to keep start a masters program in social work. After participating in the task force, they asked her if she had considered attending to graduate school. She was part of the first class to graduate from USF with a master’s degree in social work in 1983.

After graduating USF, Feaster-Johnson left Horizon Hospital to work for a residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed children. Children with emotional problems, aged 6-16 were housed in the facility. Feaster-Johnson conducted individual and group therapy and family therapy. She enjoyed working with the children and their families to communicate openly and find ways to improve the child’s environment.

“The needs of the children spoke to me. I enjoyed seeing the gratification of the individuals who I served. Especially when they learned that funding and services were available to help improve their quality of living,” Feaster-Johnson said. While she enjoyed working with the children and families, she desired job security.

Feaster-Johnson left the residential treatment program she was working for to work for Bay Pines VA hospital. In the 30 years she has worked for Bay Pines VA, she has built her career. Feaster-Johnson has worked as a Medical Social Worker, an Inpatient Psychiatry and a Family Therapist. She is currently serving as Program Manager at the Department of Veteran Affairs.

During this time, Feaster-Johnson was inspired to create a rehabilitation program that helped homeless veterans get back into a working environment. She went through the grant podium program and drafted a grant for the homeless program.

She was awarded funds and a team of people who focused on hiring homeless veterans for oddball jobs around Bay Pines VA Hospital. The Veterans were offered stiffen in exchange for their labor. Some of the veterans who went through the program were offered a job at Bay Pines VA Hospital. Others used the opportunity as a chance to build up their resume and network to get jobs elsewhere.

Feaster Johnson is serving her last year at Bay Pines VA Hospital as Program Manager at the Department of Veteran Affairs.

“As a 30 year employee who is now planning her retirement, it is amazing to see how effective she can be to resolve problems,” Patricia Frederick, Suicide Prevention Coordinator for Bay Pines VA Hospital said. “Just this morning she was able to assist a veteran with something very complicated and she knew exactly who to speak with and was persistent until she learned that the problem had been resolved. When she informed the veteran he was delighted.”

Though Feaster-Johnson plans on retiring this January, she is not hanging up her hat and will continue her leadership role as President of Blacks in Government. An organization that helps young people in the Midtown community make connections to earn jobs working for the Federal Government.

“Laverne is a very unique leader she is very committed to the VA first and then to Blacks in Government as President of our chapter. She is very committed, very thorough, very organized and very hard to say no to. Her charm, caring, genuine personality and commitment to her beliefs make her hard to say no to,” Jonathan Wade, Vice President of Blacks in Government said.

Feaster-Johnson plans on investing the money she has earned into opening her own practice. She wants to focus on individual and couples therapy, since this has been her strong point through out her career. As a way of giving back to her struggling community, she wants to continue helping people in the Midtown community by opening her practice in St. Petersburg.