Volume 1, Issue 7, 2018 the early 1940’s and by the mid 1950’s had produced the area’s first

Kentucky Derby winner, Needles.

In the late 60s, most people Police Reporting at The Ocala passed through Ocala on US-301, one Star-Banner of the main arteries into the state from the Northeast. Those who David Lee McMullen, UNC Charlotte stopped grabbed a quick meal in a roadside restaurant or spent the night in one of the numerous motels that It was the Spring of 1966. The lined the highway. If they stayed, they Civil Rights movement was at one of were probably headed for one of its most divisive moments, with Florida’s most popular tourist violent confrontations occurring attractions, Silver Springs, or perhaps throughout the South. America’s the now long defunct Six Gun military build-up in the Vietnam War Territory, a wild west town, complete was underway, motivating the with saloons, dance halls, and government to increase the number of regularly scheduled gun fights. This young men being drafted into service. was Florida tourism in the days just Anti-War demonstrations were before Walt Disney World. The 1960’s, beginning, particularly on university however, would be the turning point campuses among those who felt most for the community, as Ocala was affected by the threat of being called caught up in the state’s exploding to serve. population growth, experiencing more In those heady days Ocala was still than sixty percent growth during each very much a sleepy little, old Florida of the next two decades. village. According to the 1960 census, I was nineteen, a pimply-faced the community had a population of reporter for the Ocala Star-Banner less than 14,000 residents. Situated in with less than two years of college to the rolling countryside of Central my credit. It was my first full time job, Florida, Ocala was in the center of the a job for which I was totally state’s thoroughbred horse racing unprepared. The move would change farms, an industry that had begun in my Selective Service status to 1-A,

1 removing my student deferment and family a few years later when they making me eligible for immediate sold off the chain. It was the final induction into military service. It was heyday of newspaper journalism and a threat that worried a great many the Star-Banner, like many small town young men of my generation, twisting afternoon newspapers, was just our plans for the future and drastically beginning the fight against the assault reshaping our lives, but it was also an of television’s evening news programs. uncertainty that most of us tried to The newspaper had begun life as ignore, at least until the last possible the East Florida Banner the year after moment. the Civil War ended, later merging When I started at the Banner, I with the Florida Iacon, before had never taken a journalism course becoming a daily publication in 1890. or written for a student newspaper. I By the end of that decade, the rival still dreamed of becoming a great Ocala Weekly Star was born in the American novelist. At that point, my press room of the Florida Baptist only newspaper experience came from Witness, the official publication of the delivering the St. Petersburg Times Florida Baptist Convention. with my father and mother as a boy Interestingly, two of its early editors and working part-time for the same included Frank Harris, a Confederate newspaper as a copyboy, city desk veteran, and later C.L. Bittinger, who clerk, and early morning truck driver. served as a commander of the Grand As a result, I understood almost every Army of the Republic before moving aspect of how a large newspaper south. Not until World War II did the worked, from when the story left a Star and the Banner merge into the reporter’s notebook until the Ocala Star-Banner. newspaper was tossed onto the During my time in Ocala, the paper reader’s front lawn. was located on the second floor of an Why the Star-Banner hired me that aging, nondescript office building on a spring is still a bit of mystery, side street a block off the main especially with a major journalism square. I can still remember climbing school just thirty miles up the road. I those dusty wooden stairs to the hope it was because they saw at least second floor, which was one large a little potential, although it probably open space, divided only by the walls had more to do with the poverty level of the stairwell. To the left was the salary of $75 a week they paid, barely advertising department, occupying a fifty cents an hour above the space at least twice as large as the minimum wage of the time. When I newsroom, which says a lot about the was hired, the Banner was still owned true priorities of most newspaper by the Perry family newspaper chain, publishers, then and now. a tight-fisted group of 27 publications that would make millions for the

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Almost everything at the paper with two walls of windows behind him. seemed to be worn out – the offices, My only interaction with him outside of the furniture, even some of the his office was at civic club luncheons. people. The paper itself was printed His family moved to Ocala when he on an old press first used by one of was four and he has lived the vast the Atlanta newspapers, the Journal if majority of his life there. Except for a I remember correctly, to print their dozen years in Tallahassee, he spent color comics, another tidbit of trivia most of his professional career at the that sticks in my memory. Star-Banner. Today, in his early 90’s, he uses the wealth of experience he There were some fascinating acquired working for the paper to individuals at the Banner, some of write local history and he is the author whom came from old school of Historic Ocala: The Story of Ocala journalism, when newspapermen were and Marion County. hard-drinking, chain smoking escapees from a Damon Runyon play. At the other end of the newsroom Others at the Banner were the future sat Bernie Watts, the managing editor, of journalism, younger and more an almost speechless fellow who idealistic. These individuals were spend most of the hours approaching among my earliest mentors, people the paper’s early afternoon deadline at who helped to shape my career as a a small rectangular table in a dark, writer. windowless area, hunched over piles of copy. He was a real workhorse, the The editor of the paper was David man who oversaw every word that Cook. He was the man charged with appeared in the paper. A World War II the administration of the editorial side veteran and a University of Florida of the business, the public face of the journalism graduate, he made certain newspaper. He was also the the Banner adhered to basic representative who attended Chamber journalistic standards and met each of Commerce and civic club meetings, new deadline. glad-handed local politicians, and wrote editorials. He was the man who During my six months at the hired me, and he would be the guy Banner, I rarely spoke to Watts. To be who sent me packing. Curiously, our totally honest, I was afraid of him. paths would cross again, ever so Our conversations always came in briefly, at the Tallahassee Democrat. response to his questions concerning the news articles I wrote. I still have a Cook was the only member of the sense of dread when I think about editorial staff afforded any privacy. being summoned to his desk, I His desk was in the back corner of the imagine it is what it must have been newsroom, protected from roving eyes like to have faced the Spanish by a single wood and cork partition. Inquisition. He sat behind an old wooden desk,

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Watts went on to become editor of Howland. Both were a few years older the Star-Banner, when Cook moved to and looked after me like big brothers. Tallahassee. He worked for the paper Sam, the assistant sports editor, for more than 45 years, holding was the one man at the Banner almost every editorial position at some destined to become nationally known. point in time, finally retiring at the end A sports enthusiast, he briefly played of 1994. He died in 2013 at the age of professional baseball, rode the rodeo 93. In true Watts style, his obituary in circuit and enjoyed golf well enough to the Star-Banner remembered him as hobnob with sports figures such as “an inveterate, bred-in-the-bone Ted Williams. Back then Williams newsman, having composed his own worked for the Boston Red Sox minor obituary.” league teams, teams that did their Thom Wilkerson was the city spring training at Gerig Field in Ocala. editor, a frustrated poet from Boaz, One of America’s legendary baseball Alabama, who produced at least three players, Williams was noted for his thin volumes of verse. From my explosive temper. On a round of golf perspective, he was the friendliest with Sam, Williams started yelling and member of the editorial hierarchy. He screaming, throwing his golf clubs into appreciated words and edited them a water hazard after an especially with loving care. I also think of him as disappointing shot. As for the spring someone who hoped that fate would training field where Williams coached, not condemn him to a career in it was named for a local druggist and backwater journalism. I long imagined mayor, J.J. Gerig, who was known in that he went back to college and Ocala as “Mr. Baseball” because of his became an English professor at some love of the game. The field was built small liberal arts college in the during the Great Depression with Northeast. It was certainly where he funds from the Works Progress belonged. However, according to his Administration. biography on a list of Alabama Sam, or “Scooter” as only his authors, he took the path of a great closest friends were allowed to call many newspaper journalists, moving him, a nickname that came from his to corporate communications. It baseball days, and I were roommates appears that in the early 1980’s he for most of my time in Ocala. We edited a corporate magazine for rented the top floor of a huge old Barnett Banks, a publication that most house on Fort King Street, which had certainly benefited from his poetic a private elevator, and was one of the talents. coolest places I’ve ever lived. When My two closest friends on the we were first shown the apartment, he newspaper were my roommate, Sam had whispered to me to low key my Rawls, and a fellow reporter with interest in the place so perhaps we whom I shared the police beat, Brian could get the landlord to come down

4 on the rent. As we walked into the and being southern was in style. As he main room of the apartment, his jaw later recounted the story, Scooter got dropped and the cigarette he was a phone call one day from New York. about to light fell to the floor. I am The caller said, “We’ll give you a surprised the landlord didn’t up the hundred dollars for a 24 hour option rent when he saw that reaction. on your book.” It turns out the call was from Bantam Books, which took One of my favorite memories was over publication, promoting it as “The the afternoon Scooter called me back laugh sensation that’s sweeping the to the newsroom after all the nation.” Forty years later the book is deadlines had passed and the place still in print. was normally empty. Upon my return I was introduced to a tall, lanky fellow Brian Howland, a more with a firm handshake and a friendly experienced reporter, shared the smile. That man was Satchel Paige, police beat with me, and introduced one of the greatest baseball pitchers me to some fascinating tricks of the of all times, a man who played most trade. His stories often quoted an of his career in the old Negro League. unidentified sheriff’s deputy, who Then in 1948 he became the oldest always seemed to have the perfect rookie, at age 42, to play in the Major punchline for finishing a news story Leagues. Life at the Banner was filled with a humorous twist. It turned out with surprises. Brian was an honorary deputy, complete with miniature badge and ID Scooter would ultimately abandon card. He was the unidentified deputy the sports desk and become a full being quoted. Brian had a rather time cartoonist, publishing under the interesting history. He was a graduate name SCRAWLS, which were his first of a Michigan university where he was two initials and his last name pushed a guinea pig in some of the early together. Clearly it was his destiny. I scientific research concerning the wonder if his first professional cartoon effects of LSD. In Ocala, he is still hanging on the wall at the supplemented his income by working Banner. It was a drawing of LBJ as as a classical music disc jockey for a Batman. local radio station. I remember Working for the Palm Beach Post spending a Sunday morning with him during the mid-1970’s, Scooter and a in the control room, watching this columnist for the Post, Steve Mitchell, rather seedy looking, unshaven fellow wrote How to Speak Southern, a in a cut-off college sweatshirt, collection of cartoons and one-liners. spinning Beethoven and Bach for his Published first by the Post, the book audience, explaining his selections sold out two editions, but that was with the exceedingly cultured voice of just the beginning. It was the opening an English gentleman. Radio benefits days of the Jimmy Carter presidency from the imagination of the audience.

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Turnover among reporters has Both men had previously held senior always been high on small town positions at larger newspapers, but as newspapers, mainly a result of low is often the case in journalism they pay and because these small had fallen victims of alcohol. The newspapers tend to attract people Banner would prove to be their last who are just starting their careers or hope. those who are close to the end. There I had known one of the men, were two other reporters, both with a Ogden Sharpnack, by reputation wealth of experience, who joined the during my time at the St. Petersburg Banner the same week I started work, Times. He had been city editor of the and despite my brief tenure, I afternoon newspaper, the Evening outlasted them both. Independent. A World War II Navy When I arrived in town, I rented a veteran, he worked for St. Petersburg room in the Ocala Hotel, an old newspapers for 25 years. I owe him a railroad hotel that sat between the lot. He was one of the few people who town square and the train station. took the time to help me with my Once a showplace dating back to the copy, making suggestions before I early boom days of Florida, it had passed it on to the city editor. Of all slowly declined and would reach its the people I worked with at the final days before the end of the Banner, he is the one I wish I had decade. The hotel was a dusty gotten to know better. He was a kind establishment, with faded and well- hearted fellow, a short term mentor trodden carpets, high ceilings and who took me under his wing as few transoms over the doors to allow air have ever done. Sadly for me, to circulate since there was no air Sharpnack left too quickly, moving conditioning. The rooms were clean, back to St. Petersburg, where he died which was what mattered, and mine just two years later at the age of 47. had a large window overlooking a side The other person who started with street. I could only image the parade me at the Star-Banner was a fellow of traveling salesmen and tourists who whose name I don’t remember for had occupied the hotel in the many sure. I have researched the paper decades prior to my arrival. from those days and think it was Bill The two other new reporters also Statham, but this is based solely on took rooms in the hotel and as a result the time frame, the fact that his we had several long and fascinating stories focused on the civil rights conversations during our off hours in movement and that his is the only the upstairs lobby down the hall from byline that rings a bell in my memory. our rooms. There we sat together in Bylines were rare back then. They cracked leather chairs with broken were generally used to impress springs, while they chain smoked and readers with the efforts of the I absorbed their tales of earlier times. newspaper, such as sending a staff

6 writer out of town to cover a story, or experience. For that I must credit the for an important piece of reporting. In Selective Service’s decision to test those days a byline was a reward that young men of college age to see if reporters earned. They were never they were worthy of a student taken for granted as they are today. deferment. I was nineteen and a prime candidate for the draft, a fate I Statham came from a newspaper would be spared the following year in Mississippi, a paper that had taken when I joined the Marine Corps a courageous editorial stand in Reserve. The Selective Service test support of the civil rights movement. was not mandatory, but was highly As a result, the newspaper was encouraged, and offered the attacked and the lives of the staff possibility of regaining my student were threatened by local members of deferment, so I signed up to take the the Ku Klux Klan. Statham’s wife and test at the local community college. family had left him, and so he drank There I spent the best part of a to escape the insanity and violence of Saturday, pencil in hand, hunched the Deep South during the early over the exam in a large teaching 1960’s. He was one of the untold theatre with other hopeful young men. victims of southern racism, black and I never learned the quality of my white, who struggled to overcome the performance, since several weeks bonds of bigotry. later the exam idea was abandoned. It is odd some of the experiences Such were the frustrations of young that stick in my memory from my men in the mid-1960’s. The only days at the Banner. Perhaps the people to profit from the examination strangest is how I spent my first day were the folks at the Educational off. Not really knowing anyone, and Testing Service who prepared the test. not having a television, I went to the Most of the news I covered back movies. It was the long ago then was pretty basic stuff. I made demolished Florida Theatre on Silver the rounds of the local police Springs Boulevard. They were showing agencies, attended civic club a collection of four truly bad horror meetings, and wrote an occasional movies, one after another, all with the feature. Looking back I suspect that word blood in the title. I spent the the editor had devised an unofficial afternoon watching this odd collection training program to help get me of films, sitting in the back row of an started in journalism. I also think he almost empty theatre, with only an must have felt sorry for someone occasional trip to the concession struggling to survive on such a counter for candy, popcorn and meager salary, or maybe it was to another soft drink. help a young man whose cooking skills My afternoon at the movies was were limited to ordering at a local not, however, my most wasted restaurant, which is where I ate most

7 of my meals, or opening a can of metal, but never again was I required beans. As a result, I was assigned to to see or photograph the human cover two or three civic club meetings victims of such terrible events. every week, an assignment that It was in Ocala that I also got my always included a free meal. first taste of political campaigns, One of the first and perhaps the hanging out at the local headquarters most important learning experience I of Miami Mayor Robert King High’s mastered as a young police reporter campaign for Governor. High was a had to do with traffic accidents. reformer who bucked the established Accidents stories were a standard part Democratic Party in Florida by of local news coverage, from fender supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 benders to death on the highways. and working for racial equality. The two incidents I remember most Forgotten by most modern historians provide examples at both ends of the of Florida politics, High was one of the scale. The first involved two drivers people who helped Florida escape the from Silver Springs, Maryland who chains of the Old South. met for the first time when their cars A veteran of the Army Air Corps crashed into each other at the from Tennessee, High moved to entrance to Silver Springs, the famous Florida where he used the GI Bill to tourist attraction east of Ocala. The attend the University of Miami and oddity of the story made it Stetson Law School. Becoming mayor newsworthy. The other was the first of Miami in the mid-1950’s, he helped fatal accidence I covered. Then it was to expose the seedy side of the standard procedure for the highway community, working undercover with patrol to call the newspaper any time a local reporter, he visited strip clubs there was a fatality on the highway. notorious for cheating customers, As the police reporter, I was expected gambling and other shady dealings. to grab a 35mm camera, jump into He also led the fight to get the Florida my car and get to the accident site as East Coast Railroad to pay long quickly as possible, which I did, overdue property taxes. He was fluent arriving before the ambulances. What in Spanish long before that was a I found was a scene of horror, necessity for Miami politicians and he something I knew I never wanted to successfully pushed for reductions of see again. both electric power and telephone I had learned a very valuable rates in the area. Perhaps his most lesson. While I would cover a number memorable accomplishment as mayor, of fatal accidents later in my career, I at least from today’s perspective, was always drove slowly until I saw the convincing the American Football ambulance pass me in the opposite League to put a team in South Florida direction. Then I would speed up, – the Miami Dolphins arriving at scenes with lots of twisted

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In 1964, High ran unsuccessfully Vizinczey’s newly published novel In for the Democratic nomination for Praise of Older Women, a tale that governor, losing to Jacksonville Mayor whet the sexual appetite of many in Hayden Burns, an old guard Democrat my generation, and it certainly added nicknamed “Old Slick” because of both to the thrills I imagined might result the amount of oil in his hair and his from having a relationship with her, questionable politics. Ever since something that never happened. Reconstruction, statewide elections If my inexperience offered one end had been decided in the Democratic of the scale, the sexual adventures of Primary. Because of a change in the one of my Ocala friends, who will Florida Constitution, the governor’s remain unnamed, certainly provided election was moved to non- insight into life at the opposite end. Presidential Election years, giving High He was worldly, wise and seemed to a second chance in 1966. my innocent eyes, a truly experienced High ultimately won his party’s fellow. One of his more exciting nomination in 1966, but lost the adventures occurred one evening general election to Claude Kirk Jr., the when he appeared at the door of my first Republican governor of Florida apartment in just his underwear. He since Reconstruction. That campaign had been having an ongoing was significant in that it marked the relationship with a woman in the beginning of Florida’s transition from a advertising sales department, a tall, state controlled by Democrats to one thin beauty with just touches of silver controlled by Republicans. in her hair. Every man in the Interestingly, racism also seems to newsroom had the hots for her, but have made the same transition her wedding ring kept most of that between the two political parties. lecherous hoard at a safe distance. Sadly, that was the end of High’s Well one evening, while her political career. He died the following husband was away, my unnamed year. friend and the lovely advertising I will admit that my motivation for saleswoman embarked upon a very becoming involved with the campaign dangerous tryst. They were enjoying had less to do with politics and more themselves in her bed when the to do with an attractive older woman, husband returned home unexpectedly. a divorcee, who managed High’s local Needless to say, my friend only had campaign office. At 19 almost time to grab his boxer shorts, literally everything revolved around sex -- if jump out the bedroom window and not real, certainly imagined. I don’t make a mad dash for safety. He remember her name, but more than worked his way to my apartment half a century later I still remember through back alleys in the dead of having an intense attraction. It was night, avoiding street lights and the same year I read Stephen passing cars. The problem was he had

9 left his new sports car abandoned with their song “Snoopy and the Red within gunshot of her house. Baron.”

Together, we drove back in my Another odd story involved a car, not certain what to expect. Baptist minister who was promoting Certainly a jealous husband with a his latest book. During the interview, I shotgun on the porch was well within asked him about premarital sex. the realm of possibility. Dropping him Having been raised a Southern off a couple of doors away, he silently Baptist, I knew the church considered slipped out of my car, stealthily such activity a deadly sin. Much to my approached his car, opened the door amazement, the minister condoned it. and grabbed his keys from the His statement seemed like heresy and floorboard where he always left them, certainly highly newsworthy, so I fired up the engine and was off. No included it in my story. The editor, shots fired. however, wasn’t impressed and cut it from the article. The definition of what On the following day, the lovely is and is not news has always been advertising saleswoman walked highly subjective. nonchalantly through the newsroom and dropped a small brown paper Without question, the most grocery bag into my colleague’s chair. memorable, and certainly the saddest Inside were his clothes and wallet. news story I covered during my days Fortunately for all concerned, the at the Banner was a murder trial that unsuspecting husband had been slow involved a young black man charged to reach the bedroom, and all the with the death of a filling station incriminating evidence had been attendant during a late night robbery. hidden away. Some people, and my The proceeds of the robbery totaled friend was certainly one of them, live less than $20, even small change back charmed lives. then, and certainly not equal to the value of a human life. The trial lasted Of all the forgettable feature for several days, and for some stories I wrote for the Banner, one of mysterious reason I was the reporter the few I remember was one about a assigned to cover the verdict. Sitting local band called the ”Posmen,” a in the first row immediately behind the group of guys from Ocala who were defendant and his public assistance trying to make it in the music world. attorney, it was easy to eavesdrop on My article was the first news article their conversation. written about them. Not long afterwards, they changed the name of When the trial came to its their group to “The Royal conclusion, the jury was out for only a Guardsmen,” taking advantage of all few minutes, returning to the the British groups topping the music courtroom to announce their verdict. charts, and become a one-hit-wonder They found the defendant guilty as

10 charged, which carried a mandatory makeshift office behind the corkboard death sentence. Everyone in the partition where his opinion of the courtroom except for one person incident proved to be far less understood the punishment. That one forgiving. That was the way things person was the defendant, who turned worked back then. to his attorney and asked simply, All in all, my departure from Ocala “What does this mean?” proved to be a good one. I went back That question and his totally to college that fall, enrolling at Florida innocent tone have stuck in my State, taking a job on the daily memory all these years. I cannot tell campus paper, The Florida Flambeau, you if I thought the man was innocent where I had far more real life or guilty. In the South then, black experience than most of my men rarely got fair trials, certainly not colleagues, and got part time jobs from a jury of all white men. What I writing sports for the Tallahassee do know, based on the tone of his Democrat and working in the Cowles voice and the expression on his face, Capital Bureau. My extraordinarily is that the man had no idea what had diverse career as a writer, which happened, nor did he understand the would be filled with numerous twists fate that awaited him. Even today that and turns, had officially begun. still seems very wrong.

Race was a key reason why I lost

my job at the Banner. I committed a fatal error for a reporter on a small town southern newspaper. In those days, news stories identified African Americans, usually with a phrase such as “a local Ocala negro” after their name. Inadvertently, in a news article of only two or three paragraphs, I switched the names of a black man stopped for a traffic violation and the name of the white highway patrol officer who pulled him over. The officer seemed to take it as an honest mistake, although looking back that may have been because he did not want to confront me directly. He may have expressed a very different opinion to the management of the Banner. Upon my return to the office, the editor summoned me to his

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