Not Racing but a Great Honor

FLORIDA STOCK CAR RACING KARNAC's FLORIDA STOCK CAR RACING
1

Since my dad can no longer walk, Govenor Rick Scott will bring this award to him at his home. This was very unexpected by a great honor to be named one of the Greatest Floridians. I am very proud and honored to call this man my father. Here are just a few of the names along with my dad’s for this award:

In 2007, the legislature resurrected, revised and formalized Great Floridians in Florida law as Florida Statute 267.0731. A defined committee consisting of the top members of the Executive and Legislative branches of government meets each year to nominate citizens for designation. The Florida Secretary of State then selects at least two nominees for the honor. As of 2011, 58 people had been included.[1][2][3] Governor Rick Scott added 22 names in 2013 including former Miami Dolphins Coach Don Shula, former University of Florida Gators football player and coach Steve Spurrier, 2012 Masters golf champion Bubba Watson Jr., former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Irvin, and Dr. Pedro Jose Greer Jr., an advocate for homeless and the disadvantaged in Miami, as well as Betty Sembler of St. Petersburg who has championed drug treatment efforts, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy, General Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. forces in Iraq, former state agriculture commissioner Charles Bronson (agriculture commissioner), former state treasurer Bill Gunter, Walt Disney, Patrick Smith (novelist), agricultural leader Ruth Springer Wentworth, former Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks, Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alto Lee Adams, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, retired General Craig McKinley, clothing designer Lilly Pulitzer, entrepreneur H. Wayne Huizenga, and James Robert Cade, an American physician, university professor, research scientist and inventor who led research efforts that developed Gatorade.[4]

2

Your father is in pretty good company on that list. You should be proud of him as should all Floridians. His love of our state is quite evident in his writings.

3

Thank you. Dad does love Florida although he was born and raised in Mississippi. But he found my mom in Florida in DeLand and spent every summer visiting her parents until we moved here in 66. Mom and dad met when my dad was a student at Ole Miss where mom’s dad was head of the ROTC unit back then. They met at the Ole Miss swimming pool where my dad nicely pushed my mom in. They could not stand each other when they first met until the summer my dad went to DeLand to visit my granddad and they fell madly in love and married.

Dad has books on his beloved Mississippi and books on his beloved Florida. When he wrote A Land Remembered after Forever Island, he had hoped that people would open their eyes and see what was disappearing before them in Florida’s environment. He hated to see that happen but nothing stops malls, subdivisions, growth, not even the environment that made Florida so special. But for generations to come, A Land Remembered while take them to a time when there were few people in our fair state, cattle drives across the state, and log cabins. Thank you for liking my dad’s work.