Genome VIP Opening

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Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code opened at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL 32801) with a VIP opening reception in the lobby. The traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution is presented by Orlando Health and is open through January 6, 2019.

This special exhibit examines the complexities of the
genome—the genetic or hereditary material of a living organism—through
cutting-edge displays, animation, and fascinating real-life stories that
reveal the links between generations and how our histories begin long
before we are born. The exhibit also examines both the benefits and
challenges the study of genetics presents to our society.

The exhibit also contains a special area, custom designed by History Center staff, that
explores three genomic ties to Central Florida – in the fascinating
findings at the Windover Bog archaeological site in Brevard County, in
the development of citrus, and through the family histories of some
well-known Central Floridians, including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer; Jorge
Estevez, WFTV Channel 9 news anchor; journalist Brendan O’Connor of the
Bungalower; Toni Pressley, Orlando Pride soccer team defender; and
Geraldine Thompson, former state representative and senator and founder
of Orlando’s Wells’ Built Museum.

At the VIP reception all the participants in the family tree project were given time to discuss their feelings about the project. Buddy Dyer took time to thank Pam Schwartz for her contributions in spearheading a collecting initiative of memorial items after the Pulse Nightclub massacre. Geraldine Thompson gave the most moving testimony as she described her feeling after discovering that she had a close relative that she didn’t know existed. A man who was searching for his biological father contacted Pam and she was able to prove through DNA and family history who his father really was. Unfortunately the father had died a few years prior. But the man and Geraldine are both seem excited to meet one another.

The exhibit features large interactive displays with projections and video. You can literally spend hours learning about DNA and life’s code if you read every text panel. The evening was winding down before I could finish my explorations.

Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code

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The Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) has installed and opened a new exhibit called Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code. 

This special exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Institutes of Health examines the complexities of the genome – the genetic or hereditary material of a living organism – through cutting-edge displays, animation, and fascinating real-life stories that reveal the links between generations and how our histories begin long before we are born. The exhibit also examines both the benefits and challenges the study of genetics presents to our society. The exhibit runs from October 13, 2018 to January 6, 2019.

Pam Schwartz, the History Center’s chief curator, along with her staff, have added to the exhibit to make it tie into our Central Florida human history. As part of the project they asked five local Orlando celebrities to take DNA tests to track their heritage through Ancestry.com. She then began the painstaking process of researching their family trees.

Long-time mayor John “Buddy” Dyer has several generations of roots in Central Florida, so he was a natural choice. Research lead Pam to discover his family’s roots in colonial America. In 1758 his fourth and fifth great grandparents were in Fort Seybert, a frontier fort in the Allegheny
Mountains in what is now Pendleton County, West Virginia. They were caught by surprise by an Indian raid. The fort fell and those inside were lined up in two rows, one to be taken captive and the other to be murdered and scalped (at least as the European settlers story goes). Buddy’s distant grandfather was tomahawked in the mouth by a Shawnee warrior, sending his teeth flying. He died instantly. His daughter fainted, her life was spared as she was taken captive. 20 settlers died that day. By a stroke of luck, a small boy from the Dyer family was away at a distant village when the massacre happened. This is the boy who kept the family lineage alive and why Buddy is here today. Pam was also able to prove that Buddy and his sons are eligible to apply for the Sons of the American Revolution status since the Dyer family was actively engaged in the Revolutionary War up several branches.

Jorge Estevez, a news anchor from Channel 9 News, discovered that his family was a prominent part of Cuba’s early history. Documents contained signatures and seals from his distant relatives who were very prominent notaries in Havana. Cuban documents are not available online so a possible trip to Cuba could further bring this research to life. Channel 9 is considering sending Jorge there

 to dig deeper into his family’s past.



Geraldine Thompson, a former State Senator, may be united with a close relative she has never met before. Pam was contacted by a man who has spent his life – 47 years – searching for his biological father. The man he had been told was his father took a DNA test, but the results confirmed that he wasn’t this man’s biological father.  Through her research, Pam was able to confirm the father was, in fact, the Senator’s brother. Though he passed away in 2003, Pam was still able to unite the man with this new-to-him side of his family

Other family histories were for Toni Deion Pressley from Orlando Pride, and Brendan Bunting O’Connor the editor of The Bungalower. Each participant will receive a binder showing the breadth of what has been discovered so far. The rainbow colored tabs are a gateway to an amazing vibrant multicultural past. Each family tree will be part of the Genome Exhibit at the Orange County Regional History Center, check it out for more fascinating stories from these individual’s families.

If you are curious about finding out about your family History, you should stop out to Lunch and Learn, which will  discuss Genealogy on November 2, 2018 at Noon at the Orange County Regional History Center. Guest speakers will include Elaine Hatfield Powell of the Central Florida Genealogical Society and Allison Ryall of the Orange County Library System’s West Oaks Branch and Genealogy Center. Bring a lunch or let them order one for you by calling 407-836-7046 – lunch orders must be made at least 24 hours in advance. Members are free; non-members $5. With lunch: Members $8; non-members $13.

Beefy King turns 50

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Tom Veigle founded Beefy King in 1968. He had discovered the roast beef sandwich on a trip to New York City and immediately opened the restaurant in Orlando. He also owned a chain of pizza restaurants. Tom sold the original Beefy King location to Freeman Smith that same year. He made the company public and expanded the chain. He eventually sold the Beefy King brand and the Smiths restaurant became the only restaurant to remain in the franchise.

Son Roland Smith took over when Freeman Smith retired. The restaurant changed hands several times over the five decades but remained in the family. Now
Roland Smith’s daughter and son-in-law, Shannon and James “Woody”
Woodrow, run the restaurant.

The restaurant decor clearly  has not changed since the 60s. Tacky clowns hang from the ceiling. They remind me of the paint by number clown painting my parents had hanging in the basement when I was a child in New Jersey. Those clowns had been painted by my older brothers.

I have had lunch at Beefy King several times with the Orange County Regional History Center staff. It makes sense that folks who know about Orlando’s history would be attracted to the place. The sandwich was dissected and photographed for a recent exhibit at the History Center about how things are made. No family secrets were reveled in the process. Melissa Procko stopped in for the 50th anniversary celebration and she shot photos for the History Center archives.

On the day of the 50th celebration the line to get roast beef sandwiches went out the door and wrapped around the building. I went inside immediately and got a seat to start sketching while Pam stood in the line that wrapped around the aisles towards the food counter. Channel 6 News showed up with a TV camera and was interviewing the owners.

The menu hasn’t changed for 50 years. They do one thing and they do it well. It is a simple and direct path to success. I know I will be back.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for June 16th and 17th

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Saturday June 16, 2018

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. Orlando’s 2nd Annual Solutionary Peace Walk and Festival. Lake Eola Park. Orlando’s Solutionary Peace Walk is back for another great day of
celebrating peace, health, and compassion! Mark your calendar for June
16th to come by the beautiful Lake Eola Park in Orlando to meet amazing
eco-friendly and compassionate vendors and join other peaceful people in
a walk around Lake Eola Park.  Donations for the walk
are welcome.

Featuring a peaceful and educational 1 mile walk
around Lake Eola Park, amazing vegan food, live music, knowledgeable
speakers, yoga, educational exhibitors, eco-friendly vendors, activities
for youth, and more!

This event is brought to you by Solutionary
Events, a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational outreach organization with a
mission to create healthy, compassionate, and sustainable communities
through coordinating socially responsible vegan events all throughout
the state of Florida and beyond. Donations are tax-deductible and very
much appreciated!

4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Free. Cruisin’ Downtown DeLand Car Show! East Indiana Ave Downtown  Deland FL. Classic cars & rods. Live DJ, giveaways, shopping and dining. Fun for the family! Every 3rd Saturday night!

6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Free. Improv Class – 8 weeks Improv Training Comedy Class. Orlando Public Library 100 E. Central Blvd., Orlando, Florida 32801.

Time and space is running out for this summers Improv comedy class
starts Wednesday, June 13th At 6 PM and last for 8 weeks. ending with a
student showcase. This class is for teens and adults ages 13 and above.
The class takes place at the Orlando Library on the first-floor main
stage. Come learn the skills to unleash the improv within you. The class
teaches Short Form Improv in the style of the hit TV show “whose line
is it anyway” This class is taught by Improv Coach Matt Gervia, he has
taught this class for eight years. He is a founder of Power2improv,
Monster Lab, and of the Orlando Comedy Festival. Space is limited so
sign up with the Orlando Library or at Power2improv.com  This is the only
FREE eight-week improv training class in Florida.


Sunday June 17, 2018 Fathers Day

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free admission. Harry P. Leu Gardens1920 N Forest Ave, Orlando, FL 32803 on Father’s Day. 

Noon to 5 p.m.  
Free admission for dad at Orange County Regional History Center 65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL 32801 on Father’s Day. 

Noon to 3 p.m. Free admission Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum 656 N Park Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. This is a great place to take Dad this Father’s Day. On Fathers Day
you can enjoy the music by Guitarist George Grosman as you explore the
historic home.

The Orange County Regional History Center Clears the Pulse site to make way for the Temporary Memorial.

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In February, just 11 days after the mass shooting in Parkland Florida that killed 17 students and faculty, the staff of the Orange County Regional History Center cleared the Orlando Pulse Nightclub site of the last of the memorial items left there. It was a hot day, and the media was out in force. As the staff placed items in archival boxes the cameras rolled. 49 potted succulents had survived months in the intense Florida heat, one for each victim of the mass shooting here in Orlando. A large three dimensional rainbow included the names of the victims. At either end of the rainbow were two clouds created with spray can foam. Those clouds had soaked up the many Florida rains becoming insanely heavy and attracting a small army of palmetto bugs.

This collection day was relatively easy compared to the 31 days of constant collecting that occurred the weeks following the first vigils here in Orlando in the summer of 2016. Organic matter would be slated for compost and the last of the memorial items would go to the off site storage facility of the Orange County Regional History Center. Rose pedals strewn on the pavement ended up looking like blood spatter when added to my sketch.

The rainbow colored fence covering, with designs by local artists, was rolled up and it was one of the last things loaded up onto the U-Haul truck the History Center had rented for the day. TV News camera men were looking for anything to film and they ended up shooting over my shoulder as I worked on my sketch. I have been told that footage was on the news that night.

Shortly after the final collection, a new construction fence was erected much closer to the street. Dix Hite Partners redesigned the area around the nightclub with input from the onePULSE Special Task Force to include far more landscaping along with new trees for shade. That project would progress over the next two months.

Another Year Passes at the Orange County Regional History Center

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I sketched the final day of the exhibit install for,
Another Year Passes: Orlando After the Pulse Nightclub Massacre. The Exhibit will be on display from June 2, 2018 through October 14, 2018. Last year’s exhibit honoring the victims of the
Pulse Nightclub shooting was only up for one week because a
wedding was booked in the exhibit hall. This year the exhibit will be up
for four months in a different space.

I was on hand to sketch the install of a huge piece of art created by Jeff Sonksen of

Paint the Trail fame. He paints
on wooden fencing and has created a long stretch of art along the biking
trail in Longwood, Florida. After the Pulse Nightclub massacre he
painted 49 portraits of the victims of the shooting.
The portraits surround a large fence panel that has the Orlando skyline
along with several tourist attractions in silhouette. The museum staff
had to remove the heavy and cumbersome wooden supports he used when he
left the panels freestanding at the Dr. Phillips
memorial in 2016. They devised a method of disassembling the panels so
it could be brought into the museum and installed for the exhibit that
is opening just two years after the fateful shooting on June 12, 2016.

Assembling and hanging the piece was a herculean task. The staff looked like the soldiers who raised the flag at

Iwo Jima in the famous WWII
photo and sculpture. The sign, along with a set of 49 beautiful
hand-painted tiles, however will not be present for a few days to the
public and will have to be taken down intermittently throughout
the exhibition to allow for weddings happening in the same space. If
isn’t up when you come, I recommend you come back another time to see
them. 

I walked through the exhibit and it is incredible, with so much
information about how this community continues to try and heal after the
tragedy. It wraps around the second floor hall bringing the walls close
for an intimate view. Over 1,800 images of quilts
from the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild were miniaturized and then
exhibited en mass together on one wall. The shear volume of colorful
quilts is staggering. A few of my sketches from oral histories are
scattered throughout the exhibit.


The museum staff have to be commended for again crafting an incredible exhibition.
The Orange County Regional History Center has received five significant national awards from the
American Alliance of Museums,
the American Association for State and Local History, and
the Southeastern Museum Conference for their work on the One Orlando
Collection in the last two years related to the impact and legacy of the
mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016. It is hard to
see their hard work needing to be compromised
against a funding initiative. It would be a great day when the museum
was well enough funded by the community so it no longer needed
income from weddings.

Unloading Pulse Memorial Items at Off-Site

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After clearing memorial items away from the Pulse Nightclub,we drove to the onePULSE Foundation storage facility. While all the staff and Barbara Poma went upstairs to the air conditioned storage facility, I remained behind with the truck in the entrance bay. Call me paranoid but I didn’t want to leave the truck unattended. In Parkland, Florida where 17 students and faculty were killed in a mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, there was a memorial set up outside the high school with thousands of flowers, banners, teddy bears, and pin wheels. A drunk and disorderly couple were seen by a witness taking items from the memorials of the Parkland shooting victims and putting them in their truck.

A witnesses said they saw 37-year-old Michael Shawn Kennedy and
40-year-old Kara O’Neil taking items from a fence outside the High School. When police arrived they found the items in the couple’s car. A deputy also saw Kennedy placing a box of pinwheels in the vehicle. They claimed they were going to set up their own memorial. One deputy noted that Kennedy said, “I ripped down the anti-gun banner because I am pro-gun.”

According to the incident report, these items from the memorial were
found in their car: a Parkland athletics trophy, a shadowbox with photos
of the 17 victims, 17 white metal angel pennants, dedication plaques
that say “The Mighty Seventeen” and “MSD Parkland Strong”, 3 white teddy
bears, an anti-gun banner, 25 pinwheel lawn ornaments some with the
victims’ names, American flags, and a red stone that says “Never Again.” It is hard to imagine what was going through their drunken heads.

After leaving the onePULSE Foundation facility, the Orange County Regional History Center staff went to the off site facility for their museum collection. After Hurricane Irma, that storage facility suffered damage when an air conditioning hatch blew off and gouged multiple holes in the warehouse roofing. Water soaked drop-ceiling insulation and tile panels, until they were so heavy that they crashed down exploding on the concrete floor like bombs.  All of the inside walls in the warehouse had to be replaced to keep the historic items from being over run with black mold. Dehumidifiers ran for weeks to suck moisture from the air. Pulse memorial items still on the floor were once again subjected to water, but a heroic effort was made to dry and restore everything and not a single item was lost.  The new Pulse memorial items were paced on palettes. With the two year exhibit opening on June 2, some of these memorial items might end up on display, which will be up much longer that the 7 days that the One Year Later exhibit was open last year. That exhibit had to come down to make way for a wedding reception. This year’s exhibition will focus on the new stories the History Center has learned and on what has changed for Orlando since last year.

KNPR Radio Interview in Las Vegas

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Pam Schwartz and I took a trip to Las Vegas where she was attending a National Council on Public History conference. This scheduling coincidence brought memorial experts to Las Vegas as their museums are continuing to collect and catalogued the items of remembrance that people left after the October 1, 2017 shooting that took 58 lives and had over 500 injured treated at area hospitals. With breakout segments like  “Documenting Resilience: Condolence
Collection Projects in the Wake of Violence,” the national gathering of
academics plans to discuss how communities such as Orlando, Newtown, Connecticut, and Isla Vista, California responded to mass casualty trauma.

KNPR Radio interviewed a panel of individuals who have had to collect in the wake of tragedy. Melissa Barthelemy is a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara who worked on efforts there. Pam Schwartz is chief curator of the Orange County Regional
History Center in Orlando, Florida and created and led the effort to manage the collection of items left at the scene of
the Pulse Nightclub Massacre. Cynthia Sanford is the registrar at the Clark County Museum. She is
heading up the effort to collect and catalog many of the items left at some of the
memorials in Las Vegas.

I sketched as the three fielded questions. Producer Doug Puppel set the tone of the interview. Barthelemy said the collection, archiving and exhibition of items from pop-up memorials are a new area of history research. These
kinds of memorials really only started to appear in the last few
decades. She said people point to the many impromptu memorials left
in the wake of Princess Diana’s death as a contributor to the rise of
spontaneous memorials. The fact that these mass memorials are visible on TV and social media contribute to the rise in items left in the wake of tragedy.

Schwartz said not every community is impacted the same way by a mass
casualty event and therefore not every community reacts in the same way. Those differences change what is collected and how it is exhibited. “The
biggest thing for people to understand, especially people who have not
been through a similar sort of situation, is that one size doesn’t fit
all,” she said. The focus of any exhibition should be on what will help the community with its healing process.

Sanford explained that her museum already has between 15,000 and 20,000 artifacts from the memorials. “Our
role as a museum is to preserve the history of Southern Nevada,” she
said, “Unfortunately, this event is now part of our history.” She
said the museum is planning an exhibit for the one year anniversary of
the shooting, but there is not a plan for a permanent home for the
items. 5,000 items have been catalogued so far. 50 years from now, 100 years from now those items will be in storage. Every item you work on is someone’s story. Sometimes when you get home, that is when it hits you. The three interviewees all explained that they are honored to be able to collect these events for their communities. You have to find a way to get through it.

History in a Glass: The Grand Finale.

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The Orange County Regional History Center (65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL 32801) hosted three previous History in a Glass competitions.  At the final installment of the 2017 History in a Glass series, the winners from the previous competitions competed for bragging rights by creating one-of-a-kind libations. The drink recipes were inspired by the theme of “The City Beautiful.” Guests learned how Orlando chose our nickname as they enjoy great food and music, plus three hand-crafted cocktails.

Pom Poms Teahouse and Sandwicheria (67 N Bumby Ave, Orlando, FL 32803) catered the event and the food disappeared in an instant. The caterer returned to their restaurant and made a second batch of sandwiches to the sold out crowd. A hand crafted trophy was created by the History Center art department. The trophy consisted of a model of the lake Eola Fountain with a swan perched on top. Above the swan, was a pig and a bottle of whisky. The entire tower was painted gold. Each item referred to the stories told in past History in a glass competitions. The swan was based on Billy the swan who murdered his mate. The pig was from “Hog Wild” which told the story of how Winter Park had to pass an ordinance banning wild hogs from it’s streets. A similar ordinance was passed last year banning artists from the streets of Winter Park. The whisky bottle referenced the story of the murder in the San Juan Hotel in which a man a man was given a bottle of whisky which was then offered to the woman he was trying to impress that evening. She died after one sip.

The History Center Chief Curator, Pam Schwartz entertained the crowd by explaining how Orlando became “The City Beautiful. Once referred to as Mosquito County, the Central Florida region was considered a nightmarish place my many of the early explorers who couldn’t stand the bugs and insane heat. They denouncing the region as a “hideous,” “loathsome,” “diabolical,” “God-abandoned” mosquito refuge.

In 1908, an Orlando beautification drive inspired city leaders to find a
more suitable name than “The Phenomenal City.” Residents planted trees
and shrubs, and a contest was announced to find a new nickname. A number
of candidates were submitted, including “the Queen City,” “the Magic
City,” “the Picturesque City,” and “the Health City.” But Jessie Johnson Branch, formerly from South Dakota, won the prize
with “the City Beautiful.” The new name sparked a wave of interest in
beautification that soon made the Orlando an even more fitting setting
for its name.

With an event like this I always hope to sketch the winner. I sketched Dan Lynch in his baseball cap and bib overalls, and he did indeed win the coveted trophy for his delicious “City Beautiful” cocktail. 

10 X 10 Urban Sketch Workshop at the Orange County Regional History Center.

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One of the Orlando
Urban Sketching Workshops was held at the Orange County Regional History
Center. The lesson of this workshop was to focus on value and color without
much use of line. It was the same evening as another large event in town, so
turnout was down, but we made the best of it. There was also a wedding on the
ground floor, so we stayed in the exhibits on the top floors.

The Citrus Industry exhibition was where we started. The first sketch
was of a lifecast on a ladder picking oranges from a tree. There is a clear
advantage sketching a mannequin as opposed to a live model since it never
moves. I gave pointers on composition and then we all got to work. The goal of
the class was to finish two sketches with an emphasis on color and value.

Pam Schwartz, the History Center’s Chief Curator joined
us. She has done plenty of art in her past, so she fit right in. As we sat working, she noticed one of the
text panels in the Citrus Exhibit was missing a letter, so she touched it up.
The entire museum is going to be renovated with new exhibits in the upcoming year or two, so the museum as it looks today is a bit of an antique. New interactive
exhibits are on the horizon.

After sketching the citrus trees, we moved over to the pioneer cabin where two lifecast children were on the porch pulling taffy. This porch set up
was a good exercise in one point perspective and bold blocks of color. I
explained that the open window created a pool of light in which the main action
took place. The mural on the wall next to the cabin had a painting of a chicken
that was larger that the cows in the field. It is a strange touch that most
visitors probably don’t notice. When you take the time to sketch, however, such
strange size relationships become obvious.