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| Gainesville's 18 Most Interesting People |
| Friday, 01 January 2010 00:00 |
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Being the home of one of the best football teams in the nation isn’t the only thing that makes Gainesville interesting.
From championship coaches, a crowd-controlling DJ and a psychic with a PhD, we scoured the city for our third annual list of some of Gainesville’s most interesting people. This year, we delivered people from diverse backgrounds, businesses and even countries. We hope you have as much fun reading about them as we did writing them. By Christina McGinley
By Ana Senior University of Florida head volleyball coach Mary Wise says the game has evolved tremendously since she was a player. She has been a major part of that change. She is one of the winningest coaches in Gator history: With a percentage of .906, no one in the history of NCAA Division I men and women’s basketball, football or baseball with at least 10 seasons of coaching can claim a better winning percentage. Wise credits her upbringing in Evanston, Ill., where she grew up with four brothers. “I grew up in a team atmosphere,” she says. “It all shaped who I am today—a highly competitive individual who enjoys life,” she says. She graduated from Purdue University in 1981 with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and two Big Ten championships in volleyball. She then made the transition from player to coach at Iowa State University at just 21—the youngest coach in NCAA history. But that was just a first record. Mary has since clinched a record 18 consecutive Southeastern Conference titles, one for each year as UF head coach since 1991. She is the first coach in NCAA history to win 100 consecutive games, the first to win 130 consecutive regular-season conference matches and the only coach ever to win 90 percent of her matches in her first 15 seasons at one school. In 2006, USA Volleyball named Wise “All-Time Great Coach.” She completed her term as president of the American Volleyball Coaches Association in 2008—a great learning experience, she says, that gave her the opportunity to give back to the sport. The “Wise Era” has resulted in record attendance at the O’Connell Center, innovation in rules changes and youth volleyball, and the organization of the first SEC Coaches Beach Volleyball Championships. She has formed great relationships with her players while working hard to train and recruit. “Those relationships are the most rewarding part,” Wise says. She also credits raising her two children, Matt and Mitchell, and her relationship with her husband, Mark. “They are what inspire me,” she says. “I have one of the most interesting jobs in town, but me being interesting is debatable,” she says modestly. “[Coaching] has allowed me to remain involved in the sport I loved playing.” She looks forward to finally getting that national championship.
By Jon Silman Perhaps the most fascinating revelation in a lifetime of literary endeavors for Ellis Amburn is that as a young man, he found himself in the oddly precocious position of editing literary great Jack Keroauc. Ellis Amburn has written a number of books, including Pearl (his biography of Janis Joplin), Buddy Holly: A Biography and Subterranean Kerouac (a biography from a man who knew him personally). Amburn fondly remembers his time spent with the literary great. "I edited Jack Kerouac when he was down and out. It had been years since his 1957 bestseller On The Road , and such subsequent novels as Big Sur received disappointing sales and reviews,” Amburn says. “By the mid-60s, no one wanted him but me, a guy in his 20s at a less than topflight publishing house.” “I was crazy about him until he got too drunk to talk to and died in Florida after we did two books together." Amburn made his way to Florida in 1988, into what he affectionately calls a "literary mecca." "I bought a house equidistant from where Hemingway and Tennessee Williams lived, on Packer Street, " he says. "I wrote seven books there, but I got tired of fleeing hurricanes, so I moved closer to my brother, who lives in High Springs, in 2000." Amburn was born in Germyn, Texas, in the "deep, deep heart of Texas." His dad was a cowboy, a rancher and foreman. He attended Texas Christian University and wrote for the Skiff , where in his senior year he won a contest for Newsweek that provided a job in New York City. "I was penniless, but my mom gave me $50 for my first two weeks, and Newsweek provided me with the plane ticket," he says. He attended Columbia University while working for Newsweek—a job he held until the '60s. Amburn's break came when he got a job as a reader at what is now Penguin publishing for $15 dollars a day. He was discovered by Lois Dwight Cole, the woman responsible for editing Gone With The Wind . By the end of the '60s, he was vice president of the company. After a prestigious publishing career, Amburn decided to become an author with a helpful prompting from a widowed Priscilla Presley, who implored him to help her finish her soon-to-be wildly successful autobiography Elvis and Me . "Priscilla taught me how to write," he says. "Praise from a beautiful woman always sinks in." Ellis has also written biographies of American actress and Oscar winner Shelly Winters and Kim Novak, perhaps best known for her role in the Hitchcock classic Vertigo. With such a storied pass, you may assume the 78-year-old author to be a bit disconnected, but nothing could be further from the truth. Amburn is a kind, generous and genial man who welcomes the opportunity to talk literature and celebrity with other book lovers. These days, Amburn lives in High Springs and writes for HarperCollins Publishers in New York City. He recently finished an update of his 2000 Elizabeth Taylor biography and is currently working on a book about famed college football star Tim Tebow.
By Madison Beerbohm Barber Tony Miranda, 25, has been trimming fades and cutting designs for almost 13 years. But what makes him interesting is not what he does but to whom. Miranda, of So Sharp Barber Shop, is the stylist to the stars—Gainesville’s athletic stars. He cuts and trims the hair of Gator athletes such as Joe Haden, Chandler Parsons, Aaron Hernandez, Vernon Macklin and more. Miranda is popular because of his ability to inscribe words and patterns within his hairstyles—something he learned by watching and doing. He just sits his customers down and cuts whatever design he is feeling at the time. “I won’t let the customer get out of the chair until I am happy,” he says. Before the Gators’ 2009 BCS championship football game, Miranda inscribed “SEC Champs” on cornerback Joe Haden’s head. He also put the word “Defense” on basketball guard Walter Hodge’s head. His craziest design, though, was eyes on the back of his friend’s head. His favorite part is interacting and joking around with customers. But Miranda doesn’t just talk sports with these popular players. “I talk to them just like I talk to everyone else … we talk about life,” he says. “People come here and tell me things that they don’t even tell their wives.” Miranda grew up in Miami with his grandparents. The fast-paced city influenced his “only the strong survive” mentality, and his grandfather inspired him to be the man he is today. “My grandfather taught me that you don’t have to take the conventional route to be successful,” he says. “It just all stuck in my head like glue.” When he started cutting his little brother’s hair at 12, Miranda knew he wanted to be a barber. By age 16, his friends were lining up to get their hair done, and at 17, he got his first job as a barber. At 20, he moved to Gainesville to search for a new beginning. Although no one can get it right all the time, Miranda says that a good barber can always fix his mistakes. “I just fix the mistake, and no one has to know about it,” he says. He is unsure where his ambitions will take him in the future, but he says that this city will be a part of him for the rest of his life. “I am far from my destination, although people think that I am already here.”
Story and Photo by Andres Farfan If you sit outside of Starbucks downtown, you might hear a student yell out, “Hey Ralph, good to see you!” from across the street, and the same from an actor leaving the Hippodrome, a resident sitting in a terrace above Dragonfly or a cook from 101 Downtown. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Ralph Strzalkowski, a 30-year-old University of Florida law student, is known all over Gainesville for meeting unusual friends through his random conversations. “I bump into people all the time,” Strzalkowski says. “I make friends easily.” But up until a few years ago, this would have been impossible. Ralph is wheelchair-bound due to cerebral palsy, a brain condition he's had since birth that affects muscle control. In Poland, his social life was restricted to only his family because handicap accessibility is rarely available. Today, what seems to the average resident a five-minute walk to a local restaurant, for Strzalkowski takes up to 25 minutes—mainly because people constantly wave him down to chat. He has a straightforward, sarcastic, humorous personality. "I do see myself as different," Strzalkowski says. "I am European; people approach me and want to know me." After earning a master’s in law from Warsaw University in 2003—"Living in Poland was not exactly easy"—he enrolled at the University of Florida law school and obtained his master’s in comparative law in 2005. At press time, he was a graduate student on track to obtain his doctorate in December. Ralph had never lived without his parents’ assistance or outside of Poland, until now. He has no family in Florida; however, he says it was never about having family. Living on his own was unimaginable for anyone who knew him as a teenager in Europe. Now that dream has become his everyday life. He wants to stay in the United States and advocate for the disabled. "It worked out here in the U.S.A," he says. "I could make it on my own."
By Ashley McCredie Uncensored. That’s the best word to describe Lady Pearl. Enter her dressing room and no topic, language or gesture is off limits. She sits topless drinking her eggnog with Crown Royal and smoking while applying a thick coat of makeup. She’s been getting ready for her show, “The Lady Pearl’s Pussycat Cabaret Show,” for about 30 minutes. Now it’s time for her to take to the floor at University Club to dazzle her admirers while balancing in heels, lip syncing and collecting dollar bills in her bra. “When you are out there, you have them in the palm of your hand,” Pearl says. “I pick on the straight, skinny girls and the fat men, and praise the fat girls.” Lady Pearl has been working her own show at the UC for 19 years. Throughout the years, she has integrated the club to become more of a place where straight and LGBT can have fun together. And now, being one year away from retiring, Pearl says her only regrets are the times her jokes have offended people. Pearl was born in Ocala and got her first taste of drag at an amateur show at the Cactus Club in Orlando. She sang “Midnight Train to Georgia” and won. From there, she did other shows and pageants including Miss Fayetteville, Miss North Carolina and Miss Florida Classic. Outside of being a drag queen, Pearl likes to garden, watch The Young and the Restless, march for gay pride and cheer on the Gators. “I was born a Floridian and, by the grace of God, became a Gator,” Pearl says. She also loves the movie Imitation of Life and the color blue. “I love the time 4:20, whether it’s at night or in the morning,” Pearl says. When asked about her life outside of University Club, Pearl doesn’t have much to offer, besides that the UC provides her with “a double-wide trailer in the back of a liquor store” to live with her 27-year-old husband. She also cares for four Jack Russell’s. After 19 years as a drag queen, Pearl has danced, seen and drunk a lot, and reminds those around her to “laugh a little bit more and don’t sweat the small stuff.”
By Molly Bruce Randy Hollinger is a sort of modern Renaissance man—something, he would like likely tell you, was purely by accident. The cross country coach of P.K. Yonge School first got involved in the sport when he attended Buccholz High School. Not because he wanted to, but because he thought he was attending the basketball meeting. “I signed up anyway because my friend did,” Hollinger says. “One of the best decisions I’ve ever made.” Hollinger, who has lived in Gainesville since he was 3, ran for the University of Florida on scholarship and has been coaching at P.K. Yonge, a developmental research school, for nine years. He calls the sport “the most natural human sport.” Hollinger may be better known, though, for roaming the halls playing the accordion and the piano with his nose when the mood strikes. You see, Hollinger, 36, is a master of many trades. He teaches the seventh-grade life science class at P.K. Yonge, where he introduces the middle-schoolers to exotic animals like tarantulas, scorpions and bearded dragons. Though the insects and amphibians are convenient in the classroom, Hollinger has had some escapes. Once, a rare 3-foot long salamander escaped its water tank, curled up in the bookshelf and entered “estivation,” a type of hibernation where the animal dries up. A student found the rigid salamander and returned it to its tank where it came back to life two days later. When he’s not running (after amphibians or otherwise), Hollinger teaches music. After failing piano lessons as a kid, Hollinger went on to learn piano on his own. He can now play more than seven instruments, including guitar, banjo and sitar. He self-learned or learned informally from a friend or cousin, and he allows the students a lot of creative freedom in the class. At the end of the year, he puts on a rock concert with bluegrass, rock, punk and blues bands. Once, he filled in at a school dance when the DJ was a no-show. He and his wife have three children, and he says his favorite part about his job is the kids he gets to work with. “They are amazing and remind me every day what I want to be like as an adult: curious, playful, goofy, adventurous, high energy and positive.”
By Stephanie Granada Pernel Dove gives off the aura of a person who has seen a lot. That is true in more ways than one. Dove, a psychic, medium and owner of Krystalnet Psychic Consultants, is clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient—she can see, hear and feel things that aren't in front of her. Because she is also a remote viewer, she can see things happening miles away. ”My family is used to it," she says. “I'll be eating dinner; all of a sudden I'll look up, and they'll know." Mostly, Dove can control what she sees. She asks permission before tapping into someone's mind, but she has no control over seeing violent or major events. Five years before Sept. 11, she started having visions. She sent letters to the CIA and made announcements, but she was quickly turned away when her professional title was revealed. She’s used to it. "People think I am weird because I can do this," she says. "I think they're weird because they can't." Dove's first vision occurred when she was 3. A boy was murdered in the Michigan town where she lived, and she knew who the killer was. Her father, who was also clairvoyant, made her keep quiet. Dove's grandmother, who also had the gift, was heavily ridiculed and persecuted; he didn't want that for Dove. But in college, her abilities came in handy. "I seldom bought a book," she says. "And I always passed with an A." She graduated with a bachelor's in community development from Central Michigan University, a master’s in religion and a doctorate in metaphysics, the area her practice falls under. "I'm not into occult, wacked-out stuff like clearing energies; I don't do prophecies," she says. She is passionate about discrediting frauds in her field. To legitimize her credibility, she has been tested by scientists, yielding a 97.6 to 99.8 percent accuracy rate. Her most vigorous testing was done by a NASA scientist at Devil's Den. The weeding-out process, which began with about 300 psychics, ended with just Dove and another psychic. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done," she says. She uses her gifts as a vehicle to help people. She has a strong connection to the weather. Her blog is constantly updated with extreme weather reports. She consults with clients in person, by telephone and through e-mail. Her predictions mostly focus on tough issues, not because she is morbid, but because she wants to help people prepare. She was once offered $50,000 to be a participant on the ABC show Wife Swap and declined. Occasionally, she helps the authorities with cases, a service they ask her to keep mum on. Her interests range far beyond her psychic work. She has two published books and a third on the way. She’s a big fan of Captain Jack Sparrow and Legolas Greenleaf, whose figurines and posters decorate her office. She reads five to six books a week, and is a loving grandmother and devoted wife. "My interests range far beyond all this," she says.
By Kate Ashby and Kevin Ireland At a time when everyone else seems fixated on FCATs and preparing high school students for college, Dr. Dave Edwards makes sure every kid is prepared for life. As director of the Alachua County School District’s career and technical education, Dave has developed 14 award-winning technical programs in disciplines as varied as culinary arts, finance, health and biotechnology, helping thousands of non-college-bound students build the skills they need to get good jobs after graduation. “These occupations provide opportunity for kids who aren’t going on to academic schools to earn a good wage,” he says. “They might even own their own company one day.” Dave says he can relate to his students because, like them, he didn’t always excel in school. He suffered from attention deficit disorder and was considered a failure because he didn’t go to college right out of high school. But he persisted, first earning his journeyman’s license as a machinist, then progressing on to college while working for the Cessna Aircraft Company. Edwards combated his ADD in college by recording his professors’ lectures, transcribing them in longhand, typing them, and then going back to underline and tab what he thought was important. “It was an enormous amount of work, but if you do all that, it’s almost impossible not to retain a good bit,” he says. Eventually, he earned his bachelor’s, masters and PhD. Today, he uses his experiences by preaching a can-do attitude toward learning and encouraging his students to take full advantage of their opportunities to learn practical skills in high school. “[As a society], we sort of center school around doing well in school, but the reason for school should be to do well in life,” he says. “You need to think about what you want to do after high school and plan some of that while in high school.”
Story and Photo by Christina McGinley Despite no support from his 24 brothers and sisters or his father and his five wives, Mohamed Dacosta decided at 8 that he wanted to be a dancer. According to him, everything in Africa and in life has to do with music. So it’s no surprise when he made his life about dancing and sharing that part of his culture with the world. “I grew up watching people dancing,” Dacosta says. He would attend performances at celebrations in his hometown of Boke, Guinea in West Africa. “I am the only one who dances, drums and sings. I am the only who [took] art,” he explains. Dancing was not considered a promising career in Boke, but that didn’t keep him from trying. By 10, he was considered a professional dancer, and at 19, he was asked to join a professional dance company. He soon started his own company and was invited to tour throughout Europe, but in 1989, he decided it was time for another change. “I moved to the U.S. mostly [for] an opportunity…and to share my culture with the world,” Dacosta says. “I’ve been all over the world, but this is one of my favorite places.” While teaching in Greensboro, N.C., he was discovered by University of Florida teachers. Six years ago, UF offered him a full-time teaching position. Today, he continues the outreach program to local elementary and middle schools, and he is also the director and choreographer for the annual Agbedidi African dance show. Since Dacosta no longer has a dance company in the U.S., he misses performing. “My favorite thing is being on the stage, entertaining people,” he says. But one day, he says he’ll find a way back on the stage. When he first started making money, his parents reconsidered whether he could make it as a dancer. But for Dacosta, that moment came when he was able to bring his mother to Mecca, one of the most sacred places for Muslims. “Everybody’s eyes [are] on me now,” he says, “but I’m glad. I’m doing OK for my living here.”
By Jon Silman Vijay Seixas' job starts where your job ends, with those blaring beats at the club. The Brazilian-born DJ's signature undone 'do, tight "Members Only" jacket and bright blue Trans Am define Gainesville's club scene. The former Hot Topic employee, fired for tardiness, has been working as a DJ for five years (he's 22). He frequently plays frat parties but won't do weddings—even though he gets asked a lot—and his signature gig is Saturday's electro indie (i.e. Neon Liger) at Club Spankk. "The key to being a good DJ is timing," he says. "If you can mix in the perfect song at the perfect time, it sounds like one long song." DJ Vi grew up in the U.S., living in Miami, Detroit before Gainesville. After a couple years at Santa Fe College, he started going to electronic music festivals and clubsshows. That's when he knew he decided to become a DJ. "It's almost like mind control," he says. "You have this whole crowd and if you're playing a good set, you're affecting their emotions in a positive way." Once, a male partier decided to remove his clothes and hang from the ceiling at Spankk: "I had to tell him to stop because nobody else even noticed. He just got down, put his clothes back on and continued dancing like nothing happened." With life as a constant party, Seixas unwinds by "nerding out." He recently bought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and has maxed out his player at level 70. "I don't really go [out] anymore. When your job is partying, you lose interest in it," he says. "I'd rather go home and hang with my girlfriend." He's a bit obsessive about his clothes. Seixas has more than 70 pairs of shoes and 50 Members Only jackets. He's currently on the hunt for a white nylon "Miami Vice style" jacket in small. Seixas does not consider himself interesting, but he does have an interesting motto, from The Lost Boys: "Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire." This New Year's Eve, Seixas played at Club Victor in South Beach, with Miami DJ Danny Daze and fellow Gainesville DJ Will Buck. Tickets were $150 in advance. But Seixas doesn't have any desire to move away from a town that has been so good to him. "There's a nice niche for me here," he says. Oh yeah, and he dates a model.
By Stephanie Granada If you wander into Persona Vintage Clothing & Costumes downtown, you may think it’s just an eclectic clothing store. But every skirt, shoe and piece of furniture are expressions of owner Nava Ottenberg, a woman who’s already led several interesting lives as art student, Israeli soldier and world traveler. Nava grew up in Israel and developed an ardor for beauty and art, thanks to parents who encouraged creativity. "We were always free to do what we wanted," she says. At 17, she was drafted into the Israeli army, but her distaste for discipline and structure made military service a bad fit. "I was always getting into trouble," she says. “They didn't know what to do with me." A case of wanderlust brought her to San Francisco, where she studied painting at the Academy of Art University, married musician David Ottenberg and had her first son, Elya, who is now a filmmaker. Her younger son, Eric, is a student at New York University. She came to Gainesville in 1979 to visit friends with $600 and a baby in a bassinet. A year later, she decided to try her hand at retail when she was asked to become a partner in Persona. Since then, she has built a strong following as a designer with her own clothing collection and as an art teacher for the last 12 years. Nava's mantra, "If you can see it, you can do it," is evident in her hand-stained, one-of-a-kind pieces, but it's really brought to life in her art teachings. In her painting and sculpting classes, which require a one-year commitment, Nava teaches children and adults how to “see.” "We're all very creative, it comes from the core," she says. "Technique is only about ten percent of it." Every year, she spends a couple months simply traveling. It seems fitting that her advice to anyone is: Nothing is impossible. She sees her whole life as a long history of making the impossible possible. "With how I live my life and what spills out of me, I make my mark," she says.
By Stephanie Granada From a ppearing as an expert in documentaries to testifying on behalf of Native Americans, John Moore's work as an anthropologist is celebrated time and again. His accomplishments have been recognized in associations and anthropology publications nationwide. He has been featured on the Discovery Channel twice for his expertise in demographics of new populations and what they need to survive. He participated in Freedom Summer in 1964, helping to register black voters in Mississippi and participating in sit-ins with the Congress of Racial Equality and NAACP. In 1969, John studied the Cheyenne's religion in Oklahoma while he was an anthropology grad student at NYU. He learned about the 1865 Treaty of Little Arkansas made with victims of the Sand Creek Massacre, which promised descendants compensation and has yet to be paid. He’s since spent countless hours over the past 30 years working to right the wrongs brought upon Native Americans during the colonization of the U.S. Now a professor at the University of Florida, he splits his time between teaching and fieldwork. John's sensitivity to minority struggles started early on. He remembers playing softball with friends in Arkansas, when two black boys tried to join the game. His friends chased the boys away; it was the first time he heard the “n” word. John graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in chemical engineering and began work for Proctor & Gamble. It wasn't until he joined the army looking for excitement that anthropology came into the picture. It was the first time he had been around African Americans; plus, he got to travel the world. He read African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man and The Korean. After reading The Korean, John visited the island the book was based on. "I met all the people he wrote about and they were all so nice," he says. "I thought, 'How great would it be to make a living out of talking to interesting people?'" Despite growing up in the Old South of the ’40s, John credits his mother for his open-mindedness. His mother told him at a young age, "Any black person is as good as me." His inquisitive mind often puts him in formidable situations, but his candid disposition and quick humor help him get by unscathed. "I have no shame," he says. "I'll just naively walk anywhere and talk to anyone."
By Stephanie Granada Growing up a Palm Beach princess, Victoria Rohn had a private school education, a designer closet and private parties. But she wanted a little more. Today, Rohn is a personal shopper, a stylist, a wife and mother of two, and she promises she can find shoppers anything—vintage Kenneth Jay Lane jewels, Oscar de la Renta, Cavalli—always signed and original, and always at a low price. "I have access to a museum of vintage clothes," she says. "[In Palm Beach], you've got these supermodels and socialites who have closets full of vintage couture, and what are they going to do with it? They are not fitting into those size twos anymore." Rohn knows a thing or two about that. She spent most of life at 200 pounds—an experience that propelled Rohn's creativity in attire. "No woman should feel like an ugly duckling," she says. "Every woman is beautiful; you just have to spice it up." Rohn can tell by the stitching if clothes are real or fake. "I have spent hours researching the pieces I come across,” she says. “I have to know I'm giving you quality." Her mother, a Palm Beach socialite, bought fabrics from Lily Pulitzer before she was a household name. In the 1980s, Rohn paid her way to study abroad in Italy by working on Seventh Avenue for designers like Ferregamo and St. John. Later, Rohn traded her funky style for Armani suits as one of the first women on the stock market floor. After Sept. 11, Rohn returned to Palm Beach, where she acquired her own vintage collection through lifelong connections. This year, she moved to Gainesville with her husband, a Gainesville native, looking for a better place to raise their twins, Alexandra and Jack. At birth, the children suffered from strokes and seizures and she was told they wouldn't live. After three years of administering therapy herself, Alexandra, who has Asperger’s syndrome, and Jack, who is autistic with cerebral palsy, are Rohn's pride and focus. The hours of therapy also produced another side effect; now 85 pounds lighter, she finds that she can fit into all the beautiful clothes she loves. She hopes to open “Vicky P’s,” to sell her vintage collections with showroom models and gift-wrapped purchases. "We don't have to be drones to fit into society," she says. “You can come out and scream who you are with a broach, a hat, a bright coat." Practicing what she preaches, she turned out for our interview in a pink furry Carnegie Street mod bucket hat, velvet Pucci tunic, layers of gold chains and black Stuart Weitzman boots. As Rohn walks out of the downtown library, where she spends a lot of her time with her children, a bystander calls out, "You are just too sharp." "Thank you," Rohn says modestly. "I get that all the time here."
Story and Photo by Sean Kelly You can see his images on album covers, in the opening credits of T.V. shows and on expensive wine bottles. You might say he is to photography what Salvador Dali is to painting, but Jerry Uelsmann dislikes the word “surreal” to describe his work. “It’s become to mean ‘strange,’” he says. “‘You have a strange wart on your face; it’s surreal!’” A retired University of Florida professor and world-renowned artist, Jerry Uelsmann is a pioneer of the conceptual representation of photography. His work has earned countless awards (including the Guggenheim Fellowship); more than 125 individual shows in museums and galleries across the globe; and, a solo exhbition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art at the age of 33. He started in the early 1960s, at a time when traditionalist photographers tried to capture reality in a single frame. Instead, Jerry used multiple images and a bit of darkroom magic to produce montages that look real but seem impossible. You might see, for example, his 1969 image of a tree floating over a mountain lake (roots included) and think, “Oh, that’s easy in Photoshop.” Then you realize it was produced 30 years ago. Before the digital age, nothing quite like it had been produced using film and chemicals. Even Jerry admits he is fascinated by the process. “Traditional photography has a certain alchemy aspect to it, with the dimly lit room … there is definitely an element of magic there.” He learned his trade from the likes of Minor White and Henry Holmes Smith, taught workshops with Ansel Adams and sat for a portrait by Arnold Newman. He still produces more than 100 images a year—about 10 of which are released. He likes to think there’s no such thing as a typical day, but every morning, after finding an interesting image from decades’ worth of stock photos, he’ll go into his darkroom and spend as much as eight hours on a single image each day. He’ll repeat this process several times for each image, sometimes spending up to a week. “It’s a struggle,” he says. “But it’s comforting to know you’re creating the mountain you’re trying to climb.” So what keeps him inspired after this long? “Ultimately, my goal is to amaze myself.”
By Ashley Hemmy Melissa Miller knew what she wanted to do with her life when a group of high school friends built a ramp for an elderly woman, and her neighbors asked for their help. “It just snowballed,” Miller says. “And we just continued down the street, helping the neighborhood with their home repairs.” Her decision has more than paid off. Miller, 28, is the executive director of Rebuilding Together, a nonprofit organization that performs home repairs for the low-income, elderly and disabled of Gainesville. According to a 2003 study, there are 7,500 substandard houses in Gainesville, which can mean no running water or electricity. Miller grew up in Gainesville with her single mother and brothers. Her mother was active in church and community service. While getting her bachelor’s from the University of Florida School of Building Construction, Miller hosted groups of students to do repairs around Gainesville. In May 2005, Rebuild Gainesville applied to become a part of the national nonprofit organization Rebuilding Together, which is comprised of 204 affiliates. Rebuilding Together has never advertised its services, and most people hear about it through word of mouth. Partnerships with other organizations in town such as Shands Hospital and Meals on Wheels also promote the program. The Gainesville affiliate of Rebuilding Together currently has more than 250 applications from homeowners who need repairs, and that’s growing. For about 30 homes a year, volunteers replace the roof, fix the electrical programming and complete other tasks. About $6,000 of donated money is put into each home. A second program covers between 200 and 250 homes every year. Rebuilding Together works with the Community Weatherization Coalition to improve energy and water efficiency in the homes. Miller hopes to expand the program to other towns. For now, Gainesville has been keeping her busy, she says. She strives to get the community involved. Rebuilding Together is largely comprised of volunteers and is always looking for more help. “Rebuilding Together fosters development and relationships between the volunteers and those they help that would have never have happened otherwise,” she says. Miller says her idols are influential individuals such as Mother Theresa and Gandhi. "A big reason I do what I do is because of my faith," Melissa says. "I hope to leave a positive imprint in this world."
By Lindsay Smith In the ’80s, it wasn’t so hard to sneak a camera into a concert. As long as you could stuff your camera under your clothes when they tore (not scanned) your ticket, you were good to go. Ask John Davisson; he’s been working as a concert photographer for 30 years, publishing in everything from Rolling Stone to Pollstar and our very own INsite. From following Pete Townshend and The Who cross country—his photos are throughout the DVD booklet for Pete's In the Attic tour—to covering every music festival you can think of, Davisson has become Gainesville’s go-to guy for photos of every musician who’s performed in the last 20 years. John began working as a concert photographer after a Rush concert in 1978. Although he had no formal training, he had plenty of motivation. After the show, his friends asked if he remembered a particular bass solo or song. “My friends were all, ‘Remember when Geddy Lee…?’ Well, no, I didn’t. I was just digging it, and I didn’t pay attention. Afterward, I thought, ‘If I take a camera in, I’ll know what they play,’” he says. John grew up in Tennessee, and came to the University of Florida to get his Master’s in accounting. He wanted to be where The Police and Blondie had performed before they were big. Gainesville’s ideal location (rural areas with nearby cities) has kept him in town for nearly three decades. Since then, he’s hardly missed a music moment. He can usually get a photo pass to any show—he has an encyclopedic knowledge of artists’ publicists and goes to about one show a week. According to his spreadsheet, he went to 100 shows in 2007. He’s put 150,000 miles on his 2003 Buick, even though he flies to most of the concerts. Oh yeah, and John works as a CPA auditing for the State of Florida during the day. He enjoys math, especially calculus, and finds economics and politics “fascinating and scary right now.” A typical press pass will get John into the pit for the first three songs, right in front of the stage, but shooting a show wasn’t always so strict. “When I started, most were general admission—no seats on the floor, which was good for me, because if I got there early enough, I could work my way up and photograph,” he says. John’s favorite moments to capture on film have been the collaboration of artists who normally wouldn’t perform together, adding a new element to his repertoire. “One year, I shot Paul McCartney and Tony Bennett, arm in arm, singing a song,” he says. “I didn’t want to be a professional. I just wanted to have memories,” he says.
By Allison Griner Mickey Marotti gives the Gators their bite. As director of strength and conditioning for the University of Florida football team, Marotti is the only coach allowed to train the players year-round. He has more than 17 years of collegiate coaching experience, has coached many current NFL and NBA players, and in 2003, became one of just 36 people in the world to hold a Master of Strength and Conditioning Certification—the highest honor possible in his profession. Marotti started strength-training in the 7th grade in Pittsburgh, but it was when he was playing full-back for West Liberty State in the ’80s that considered it as a career. “From day one, I loved it,” Marotti says. “I saw how it improved performance on the playing field, just being stronger and quicker and in better condition.” He met Urban Meyer, then a receivers coach at Notre Dame, while working at the University of Cincinnati as a strength and conditioning coach. Meyer recruited him to join him as the Fighting Irish’s director of strength and conditioning in 1998. When Meyer became the Gators’ head coach in 2005, he hired Marotti. Marotti implemented one of the most grueling training regimens in the country. With athletic facilities in need of an upgrade, Marotti designed the sleek new 25,000-square-foot weight room in the James W. Heavener Football Complex. By outlining position-specific exercises for each player, Marotti’s personalized workouts focused on creating better weightlifters and on shaping better players. When it came to training a young Tim Tebow in 2006, Marotti advised against so much weightlifting and instead recommended exercises targeted to a quarterback. Marotti’s regime includes speed training, anaerobic conditioning, nutrition and flexibility, and requires as much mental strength as it does physical. “It’s more about getting the mind right before you can get the body right,” he says. Marotti’s mentorship extends beyond the playing field. “I’m almost like a life coach, just teaching the kids to be accountable, responsible, on time, and if things go wrong in their life, how to fight back and get stronger,” he says. “I have so many athletes contact me and just tell me, ‘I really didn’t like what you were doing to us when we played, but it’s really helped me in life to keep working and be tough out there in the world.’”
By Ashley Spencer On one hand, he’s an English antiques collector and gardener with a penchant for donning leder hosen should the occasion arise. On the other, Dr. Geoffrey Giles is an acclaimed scholar and tenured University of Florida history professor educating the public about Nazi atrocities against homosexuals. Giles began teaching in the Department of History at UF in 1978 and, at the request of the Holocaust Educational Foundation, launched his popular History of the Holocaust course in the mid-90s. In 2000, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., asked Giles to be its senior scholar in residence for this rarely discussed topic. “There was nothing in the museum on homosexuals, even though they were an important target group among the victims of the Nazis,” Giles says. He helped to create an ongoing, traveling exhibit, Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: 1933-1945, filled with photographs and documents detailing an era when hate ran rampant. Giles shares his message around the country—his talks at the Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg and D.C. draw some of the largest turnouts in the museums’ histories. His decision to focus on memory and the Nazi era developed as a German literature undergraduate in Tübingen, Germany. Volunteering with a local Boy Scout group, he was shocked to discover that 10-year-old boys refused to salute the German flag because it was considered “something the Nazis did.” He has run the annual UF in Munich Thanksgiving study abroad program for the past five years and founded the UF in Cambridge summer program at his alma mater more than 25 years ago. “I like to give opportunities to expand the horizons of students who don’t come from an upper-middle class background,” Giles says. A Gainesville resident for 32 years, he has no intent to ever leave this “very congenial place” and is currently finishing his book, Homosexuality and the Nazis. “There’s tremendous interest in this unknown topic because there’s still homophobia in society today,” Giles says. “And there’s an increasingly visible gay and lesbian population who want to learn about the history of people like themselves.”
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