On Saturday, June 1, 1974, around dark, I found myself sitting in a theater in Tallahassee watching a pre-release screening of “Young Frankenstein,” starring Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman and Teri Garr. Around me were fellow pages, some messengers, Rep. Frank Williams and a handful of other Florida legislators and staff. It was as far away from Ponte Vedra as I had yet been on my own. The 1974 Regular Session of the Florida Legislature had adjourned the day before and the movie wouldn’t open nationwide until December.
Frank Williams launched his political career after his own memorable trip to Tallahassee two years earlier. He had waited three days to appear before a House committee, and when his moment finally arrived, he was given only one minute to speak. Williams later shared the story at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Starke, where my grandfather, J.H. DuPre, a retired Florida Power & Light manager, was a regular attendee.
“I asked them,” Frank told the lunch group, “what does an average citizen have to do to get heard by this committee?” The Rotarians laughed. The chairman’s response changed the course of Williams’ adult life.
“Son, I suggest you become a member of the Legislature.”
The Rotarians again laughed, recognizing the gentle setup for the coming punchline. With the timing of a seasoned public relations man, Frank delivered the words everyone was anticipating: “I told them, ‘Well, fellas, I’ll see you in November.’”
The story drew applause, as expected. The audience of Rotarians already knew the outcome. This story was part of his circuit speech. Frank Williams had won the 1972 election in Florida’s 25th District, which, at the time, included Bradford, Clay and parts of northern St. Johns counties. In Clay County, he received 5,058 votes to his opponent Pat Holliday’s 5,872. The victory came down to strong support in Bradford and northern St. Johns, including many votes in Ponte Vedra Beach.
After his speech, Rep. Williams joined my grandfather and other local utility managers at their table. Frank enjoyed fielding questions about life in the Florida House and describing his daily routine. My grandfather always appreciated stories about everyday life, especially the small, ordinary details that most storytellers overlook entirely.
During their conversation, Williams mentioned the House Page Program, which brought middle school students to the Capitol for one week during the 60-day regular session, a tradition noted in House journals as far back as 1865. My grandfather made a mental note, each of the 120 representatives could sponsor one page and one messenger.
My application required a letter of support from a teacher, so I asked George McLatchey at Ponte Vedra/Palm Valley Elementary. He understood that, if selected, my week in Tallahassee would provide vivid lessons he could incorporate into his civics classes after my return. Neither he nor my parents were fully prepared for my acceptance, and I’m not sure who was more surprised when word came from Tallahassee that I would be joining Rep. Williams for the last week of the General Session.
In 1974, the 25th District spanned three counties as diverse as any contiguous counties in the state. Parts of my family lived in Palatka, Jacksonville, Atlantic Beach and up in Live Oak. Our family reunions taught me a lot about the wide economic and cultural stretches between the beaches and inland. At a very young age, I recognized how different Bradford, Clay and northern St. Johns counties could appear to an outsider, but also how similar they were to residents living within their boundaries.
Serving as a page didn’t mean working solely for Rep. Williams; it meant assisting any member of the House of Representatives on the House floor. The new Capitol building was half-built. The new House and Senate sides were still under construction. The old systems were still in place. The active House Chamber held a fragrance of age similar in many ways to the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. When a representative needed a page, they would press a button at their desk, lighting up the corresponding seat number on an overhead board on the far side of the room from where we were sitting. The next page in the queue would respond.
We all sat along the side of the House Chamber. We slid one by one toward the end-position as our turn approached. When a light appeared on the member board, we’d report to that seat for instructions. Frank Williams sat in seat 66. Behind him and to his left was Tommy Hazouri, representing District 21 in seat 75. The upper-right corner of Rep. Hazouri’s small plastic seat-number plaque had broken off. It had become an issue that was not able to be resolved before the end of the session. Mr. Hazouri’s younger cousin, Donna, would later graduate a year ahead of me at Bishop Kenny. I was in the class of 1980.
Etiquette and procedure dictated page decorum on the floor. (Messengers, who were a bit older, served back and forth between the House and Senate.) We wore blue blazers, dress slacks, dress shoes and were asked to maintain a well-groomed appearance.
Before heading to the Capitol, my mother took me for a last-minute haircut at our favorite spot in Jax Beach, recommended to us by Kuzzi Van Kennen. Hair Liberation. It was the thoroughly contemporary salon that epitomized the 1974 beach culture, complete with shampoo and rinse while lying flat on a waterbed in the shop’s front window. This was a far cry from the traditional barbers in San Marco, Kingsley Lake, Lawtey or Starke, who all wore stiff, collarless white shirts and specialized in crew cuts, flat tops, Clubman Powder and Florida Water.
At Hair Liberation, there were no crew cuts. There were black-light posters and wall fabric. The barber capes featured an abstract design of tiny, illustrated mountain climbers, and it wasn’t until halfway through the cut that many first-time customers realized the “mountains” weren’t what the climbers were conquering.
My mother explained the need for a “page haircut,” which in 1974 was interpreted by Hair Liberation as a Prince Valiant-style cut, popular in the newly re-syndicated comic strip now re-appearing in the Sunday Florida Times-Union. The style was nowhere near the traditional “out of the eyes, off the ears and above the collar.” I would adopt that haircut two years later as a freshman at Bishop Kenny.
On Sunday, May 26, I arrived in Tallahassee and on Monday morning, I discovered I had the longest hair of any page. On May 30, the day before the last day of the General Session, the House of Representatives adopted House Resolution 4070, formally declaring its belief in Dr. Samuel Mudd’s innocence in connection with his 1865 conviction for conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. It was a symbolic gesture, reflecting Dr. Mudd’s heroic medical service during the yellow fever outbreak at Fort Jefferson in the Florida Keys.
For me, it ended a week of wearing plaid slacks, a needlepoint belt, a white shirt and a wildly colorful tie loaned to me by our next-door neighbor on the Boulevard, Jimmy Van Kennen, who lived at 554 with his wife, Kuzzi. He had taken a special interest in my trip to Tallahassee and in helping to make sure I properly represented the style of the mid-’70s that could have only emerged homegrown in this smartly casual place of all places, Ponte Vedra Beach.
