Along with Coach Bobby Bowden, Bob “He Coon”

Sikes,  Gov. Reuben Askew,  Chappie James, Dempsey

Barron,  Tommy Thomas, Bob Hope and more

Altha native J. Earl Bowden

among those featured in book

on notable North Floridians

A new book by former Associated Press reporter Bill Kaczor highlights some of the Florida Panhandle’s most notable (and colorful) residents, including a local man who took the helm to insure that some of Pensacola’s shoreline and the area’s historic forts were preserved.

Chapter 38 of  ‘In the Land of the He-Coon, Blue Angels and Saint Bobby’ focuses on Altha native J. Earl Bowden, who served as editor of the Pensacola News Journal, where his editorials focused the public’s attention on the need to preserve Pensacola’s beaches and military structures – including one fort that goes back to 1797.

     “Better than anyone I ever worked with, Earle understood how to use a newspaper to accomplish things he believed were good for his community,” said former News Journal staffer Carl Wernicke. “And if you knew Earle, you knew that his ‘agenda’ was always to make his community better.”

  –  –  –  –  –

A new book about people, places and events

that have shaped the modern Florida Panhandle.

In the Land of the

He-Coon, Blue Angels

and Saint Bobby

GULF BREEZE, FL  – Why was Bob Sikes called the He-Coon? What is it like to fly a Blue Angels jet? How did Saint Bobby win his halo?

A new book from Palmetto Press answers those and more questions about people, places and events that transformed the Florida Panhandle from a rural backwater into a player on the national and world stages. “In the Land of the He-Coon, Blue Angels and Saint Bobby: Reporting from the Florida Panhandle” was written by retired Associated Press correspondent Bill Kaczor. It is based on reporting by him and other journalists over the past half-century with some flashbacks to earlier times. The once overlooked Panhandle has doubled in that span to 1.7 million residents, more than 11 states and the District of Columbia.

The He-Coon, Congressman Bob Sikes, was instrumental in expanding or creating eight military bases that are pillars of the Panhandle’s economy. They include Pensacola Naval Air Station, which hosts the Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron that thrills millions every year, and Eglin Air Force Base, the nation’s largest. The Panhandle also has made its mark in sports, no one more so than “Saint Bobby” Bowden, who coached Florida State University, a former women’s college, to two of its three national football championships.

The 607 pages feature an array of colorful, famous and infamous personalities such as Nobel laureate Paul Dirac, boxing champ Roy Jones Jr., sports Hall of Famers Don Sutton, Emmitt Smith and Derrick Brooks, talk show host Joe Scarborough and serial killer Ted Bundy. Then there’s the Red Barron and his pal, the Banty Rooster; the Blue Wahoos and Blue Ghost; as well as the original Black Panther, the Black Widow and America’s Black attorney general. Others are Reubin the Good, Florida’s Atticus Finch, Trader Jon, Captain Supreme, Pensacola’s Renaissance Man, the “father” of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and Geronimo. You’ll also meet Bubba, Buck, Bo, two Boos (a golfer and a murderer), Boss Hog and Bozo. There are visits to the Miracle Strip, Redneck Riviera, Gay Riviera, Florida’s Big Bend and the Hamptons of the South as well as the Emerald, Nature and Forgotten coasts. Historic events include the 2000 presidential election recount, multiple hurricanes, a devastating oil spill, anti-abortion bombings and murders plus other sensational crimes, wars and battles of the past and present. There also are archaeological discoveries, racial protests and a Panhandle duo’s legislative sneak attack that gave the state a $13 billion windfall.

The Air Force sent Kaczor from Chicago to Eglin in 1970. He has a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Illinois University and a master’s from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Kaczor (Kay-zor) began reporting from the Panhandle with the Playground (now Northwest Florida) Daily News and then the Pensacola News Journal and Gannett News Service’s Tallahassee bureau. He joined AP at Tallahassee in 1980 and became the news service’s Pensacola correspondent in 1984. He retired in 2013 and lives with wife Judy in Gulf Breeze.

“In the Land of the He-Coon, Blue Angels and Saint Bobby” is available in hardcover, paperback and e-book versions online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Thriftbooks.com, Walmart and Magers & Quinn. Print versions also soon are coming to Panhandle bookstores.

Views: 8