By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
TWENTY QUESTIONS with Lamothe Lormier, President of The Global Family, Inc. Any current discussion of Haiti is bound to include mention of the recent earthquake and its impact on the nation’s long-beleaguered history. But in interviewing Haitian-born Satellite Beach resident Lamothe Lormier, president of the Global Family, Inc., a non-profit whose aim is to construct an eye clinic in the Haitian countryside, we feared talk of the tragedy would overshadow his organization’s goals. What... [Read more...]
By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
TWENTY QUESTIONS with Aaron Collins, Conductor of the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra Within the profound realm of classical music, conductors are some of the most caricatured personages of the lot. The mere mention of them conjures images of gloweringly imperious white-maned figures gesticulating wildly from their symbolically heightened perches. But along with a clutch of up-and-coming younger maestros throughout the country — and the world — conductors like 27-year-old Cocoa Beach native... [Read more...]
By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
To say that life is good for Bert Jacobs is not only a hackneyed journalistic cliché, it also happens to be a very misleading statement. It implies is that everything’s hunky dory for the Life Is Good co-founder simply because he’s fabulously wealthy and successful. What it fails to recognize is that life is good for Bert because he’s chosen to make it so through a refreshingly optimistic life philosophy, one that gauges wealth and success not in monetary units, but in smiles. By now, everyone... [Read more...]
By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
Since December 2008, our good friend Frank Duffy — or Petty Officer Duffy, an E-6 Electrician’s Mate in the U.S. Coast Guard — has been stationed on the remote, treeless island of Attu, the last link on the Aleutian chain of islands and the westernmost point of Alaska. Originally from Cocoa Beach, Frank joined the Coast Guard at 23, and his first unit was stationed with the Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley from 2001-2004 in Kodiak, AK. From 2004-2005, Frank served with an Aid to Navigation... [Read more...]
Interview by: Matt Badolato
Article Category: 20 Questions
TWENTY QUESTIONS with JOHN FISHER, MARINE FISHERIES OBSERVER Interview by Matt Badolato Meet Indialantic’s John Fisher, a 22-year-old Florida Institute of Technology grad who took his first job out of college as a marine fisheries observer in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. He’s a Floridian surfer/fisherman/diver raised in the southern heat on the often mellow Atlantic shores. Now he’s cruising the merciless Bering Sea on huge fishing boats, “Deadliest Catch”-style, in search... [Read more...]
By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
Not long after Kelly Slater won his first world title, former Ron Jon’s president Bob Baugher commissioned a statue of Cocoa Beach’s famous son to greet visitors to the famed surfing institution. Everyone admires it, but few locals (and even fewer visitors) know that it’s Slater. Some 13 years after its installation and an astounding 8 more world titles later, there’s never been a better time to update the image of this undisputed icon of surfing, a man who has gone through... [Read more...]
In 1985, the National Trust for Historic Preservation formed the National Main Street Center and introduced the “Main Street Four-Point Approach” as a community-driven comprehensive methodology for revitalizing older, traditional business districts throughout the Country. Those four points? Organization, by building cooperation and consensus among many groups and individuals, or “stakeholders;” Design: By working with property owners and the City to enhance the physical appearance... [Read more...]
By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
A mere six days after Air Force Reservist Lt. Colonel D. Brent Baysinger took command of the 301st Rescue Squadron, he and his team of Airmen were deployed to Afghanistan as part of an Air Combat Command mobilization of an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter aircrew, maintainers and support personnel. The 301st, which originated in 1956, is now part of the 920th Rescue Wing based at Patrick Air Force Base and has saved countless lives since their deployment to the remote, mountainous region in late March.... [Read more...]
By: Tobin Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
Randy Smith, Founder and President of Sea of Dreams “Fred Hunt Jr. of Berwick, Maine and his wife, Cynthia, were walking on Cocoa Beach in Florida when a man came running out of the water, yelling for help for his wife. Hunt handed his wife his wallet, cell phone and shirt and darted into the water. At 6 feet, 4 inches tall, he was a strong, experienced swimmer. Hunt and another man, Qemal Agaj, soon reached the woman, Maureen A. Jennings, a Canadian mystery novelist. Each had an arm and they... [Read more...]
By: T. Bennison
Article Category: 20 Questions
Those of us who live in Cocoa Beach have a lot to be thankful for. There’s the beach, of course, the ocean and the beautiful weather, yet even without these blessings, the City itself holds enough treasures to bear us up. When the thunderheads roll in and the ocean lays itself down like a vast concrete parking lot, we can avail ourselves of some great restaurants and music venues, a large library that’s the envy of the beachside, and what could be our greatest civic treasure, the Surfside... [Read more...]
