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Great Floridian
Great Floridian is a title bestowed upon citizens in the state of Florida by the Florida Department of State. There were actually two formal programs. The Great Floridian 2000 program honored deceased individuals who made "significant contributions in the history and culture" of Florida (many times within a local community), the new program is more restrictive by selecting persons, ''dead or alive, who made "major contributions to the progress and welfare" of Florida. Great Floridians 2000 The Florida Department of State and the Florida League of Cities created the program in 1998, and it ran to 2000. The process bestowed commemorative blue plaques in Florida to honor deceased individuals who significantly contributed to Florida, similar to the blue plaques that are found in the United Kingdom. A total of 385 persons were so honored. The historians on the Great Floridians 2000 Committee approved or rejected applications, which included a section for specifying an appropriate histor ...
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Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most popular of her four novels is ''Their Eyes Were Watching God'', published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida, in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. In her early career, Hurston conducted anthropological and ethnographic research while a student at Barnard College and Columbia University. She had an interest in African-American and Caribbean folklore, and how these contributed to the community's identity. She also wrote fiction about contemporary issues in the Black community and became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her short satires, drawing from the African-America ...
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Tampa Bay Times
The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single year for the first time in its history, one of which was for its PolitiFact project. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism school directly adjacent to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus. History The newspaper traces its origins to the ''West Hillsborough Times'', a weekly newspaper established in Dunedin, Florida on the Pinellas peninsula in 1884. At the time, neither St. Petersburg nor Pinellas County existed; the peninsula was part of Hillsborough County. The paper was published weekly in the back of a pharmacy and had a circulation of 480. It subsequently changed ownership six times in seventeen years. In December 1884 it w ...
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Wayne Huizenga
Harry Wayne Huizenga Sr. (; December 29, 1937 – March 22, 2018) was an American businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He founded AutoNation and Waste Management Inc., and was the owner or co-owner of Blockbuster Video, the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, the Florida Panthers of the National Hockey League, and the Florida Marlins (now Miami Marlins) of Major League Baseball. Background Harry Wayne Huizenga was of Dutch descent. His grandfather, Harm Huizenga, came to the United States from the Netherlands. Starting with a horse and wagon, Harm Huizenga built trash hauling service, Huizenga & Sons Scavenger Co. in suburban Chicago in 1894. Wayne Huizenga's parents, Gerrit Harry Huizenga (1916–2001), a cabinet maker, and Jean Huizenga (née Riddering; 1918–2006), a home decorator; grew up in the Dutch community in Chicago and were strict Dutch Reformed Christians. Huizenga was born at Little Company of Mary Hospital, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, ...
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TPC At Sawgrass
The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass (TPC at Sawgrass) is a golf course in the southeastern United States, located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, southeast of Jacksonville. Opened in the autumn of 1980, it was the first of several Tournament Players Clubs to be built. It is home to the PGA Tour headquarters and hosts The Players Championship, one of the PGA Tour's signature events, now held in March. Paul and Jerome Fletcher negotiated a deal with the PGA Tour, which included the donation of for one dollar (the original check is prominently displayed in the clubhouse). The TPC at Sawgrass is situated in Ponte Vedra Beach's Sawgrass development. It has two individual courses, the Stadium Course and the Valley Course. The Stadium Course was designed by noted golf course architects Pete and Alice Dye, and is known as one of the most difficult golf courses in the world. Constructed specifically to host The Players Championship, it employs a distinctive "stadium" concept: like i ...
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Governor Rick Scott
Richard Lynn Scott ( Myers, born December 1, 1952) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Florida since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 45th governor of Florida from 2011 to 2019. Scott is a graduate of the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. In 1987, after serving in the United States Navy and becoming a law firm partner, he co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation. Columbia later merged with another corporation to form Columbia/HCA, which eventually became the nation's largest private for-profit health care company. Scott was pressured to resign as chief executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997. During his tenure as chief executive, the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs. The Department of Justice won 14 felony convictions against the company, which was fined $1.7 billion in what was at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlemen ...
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James Van Fleet
General James Alward Van Fleet (March 19, 1892 – September 23, 1992) was a United States Army officer who saw service during World War I, World War II and the Korean War. Van Fleet was a native of New Jersey, who was raised in Florida and graduated from the United States Military Academy. He served as a regimental, divisional and corps commander during World War II and as the commanding general of United States Army and other United Nations forces during the Korean War. Early life and education James Van Fleet was born in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee, New Jersey, but his parents moved to Florida when he was an infant and he was raised there. Van Fleet received his high school education at the Summerlin Institute in Bartow, Florida. After graduating from Summerlin in 1911, Van Fleet received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. While he was a cadet at West Point, he was a member of the Army football team and was a standout ...
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Dick Pope (promoter)
Richard Downing Pope Sr. (April 19, 1900 – January 28, 1988), better known as Dick Pope, was the founder of Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, Florida. He was also known as "Mr. Florida" and "Mr. Water Skiing." He played a key role in the development of tourism in the state of Florida, and in the growth of theme parks as tourist destinations. He was a highly accomplished athlete, and helped to popularize the sport of water skiing. Personal life Dick Pope Sr. was born in Des Moines, Iowa, according to legend during the middle of a tornado, from where he was said to have derived his whirlwind personality and energy for life. At the age of 7, in 1908, his family moved to Lake Wales, Florida. For a while, he lived and worked in New York City. In 1926, while in North Carolina, he met his future wife, Julie Pope. Together they spent most of their lives in and around Winter Haven, Florida. They were active members of St. Matthew's Catholic Church in Winter Haven. They had two chil ...
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May Mann Jennings
May Mann Jennings (born May Austin Elizabeth Mann; April 25, 1872 – April 24, 1963) was an American activist who was the first lady of Florida from 1901 to 1905. As one of Florida's most powerful and influential women, she was a leader of organizations, both civic and philanthropic, and founder of the League of Women Voters of Florida. Her father, Austin Mann, was a state senator and May Mann worked as his assistant when he ran for and was elected state representative. She became the first lady of Florida as wife of Governor William Sherman Jennings and is credited with having advanced his political career significantly through relationships gained while working for her father and through her many activities. Early years May Mann was born in the Centerville section of Bayonne, New Jersey. Her parents moved to Crystal River, Florida, in 1874. While living there her father, Austin Mann, was elected to the Florida Senate. Her mother, Rachel Mann, died in 1882 when May was n ...
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Spessard Holland
Spessard Lindsey Holland (July 10, 1892 – November 6, 1971) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as the 28th Governor of Florida from 1941 to 1945, and later as a US senator for Florida from 1946 to 1971. He would be the first person born in Florida to serve as Governor and US Senator for the state. While serving as a US Senator he would notably introduce the 24th Amendment. During his tenure as governor, he was mainly preoccupied with the preparations for World War II and the actual war itself. With the death of United States Senator Charles O. Andrews he would be appointed by Governor Millard F. Caldwell on September 25, 1946 to serve out the rest of his term which was set to expire next January. However, he would be reelected during 1946 and would continue to seek reelection during every opportunity available serving as a Senator until he retired in January 1971.Stone, Spessard (2002) "An Extraordinary Floridia: A Profile of Spessard Lindsey Holland," Sunland T ...
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Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida and Cuba; it is the only state that borders both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Spanning , Florida ranks 22nd in area among the 50 states, and with a population of over 21 million, it is the third-most populous. The state capital is Tallahassee, and the most populous city is Jacksonville. The Miami metropolitan area, with a population of almost 6.2 million, is the most populous urban area in Florida and the ninth-most populous in the United States; other urban conurbations with over one million people are Tampa Bay, Orlando, and Jacksonville. Various Native American groups have inhabited Florida for at least 14,000 years. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first k ...
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