Tar Heel State has Weeki Wachee mermaid connection

North Carolina’s most celebrated Weeki Wachee Springs, Fla., mermaid is Lydia Byrd of Burnsville in Yancey County. She has been a member of the “splash,” or cast, of performing mermaids since 2018.

 

Lydia graduated in 2017 from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City as an art major, which has begun to serve her well (as one’s career in mermaiding – similar to other athletes – has a fairly limited window).

Lydia has since married, and Lydia Byrd-Singer recently began a journey into motherhood. But Weeki Wachee mermaids form strong bonds, uniting under the credo: “Once a mermaid, always a mermaid.”

Just ask Diane Wyatt McDonald, 94, one of entrepreneur Newton Perry’s original eight mermaids in 1947. She was honored during the observance of the 75-year anniversary of the Weeki Wachee Springs mermaid show.

 

Diane and another performer (Mary Dwight) continue to occupy a place on the pedestal. They created the iconic “Adagio Pose” as part of their underwater routine. 

The acrobatic lift became so popular and famous that Perry had a statue built in 1966 to illustrate the image as a lasting symbol representing the heart and soul of the mermaid attraction.

 

A highlight of the celebratory event was the unveiling of 27 mermaid statues that now form the “Mermaid Tale Trail” in Hernando County, a project orchestrated by a coalition of area tourism-based organizations.

 

The idea is to preserve the legend and lore of the Weeki Wachee underwater mermaid show, which was built by Perry as a “roadside attraction” to lure tourists off U.S. Route 19 along Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Lydia Byrd was among the professional artists selected to paint one of the mermaid pieces. Each 80-pound, free-standing fiberglass mermaid statue stands 6’8” tall. All are identical in size and shape, but the individual artists have given each mermaid her own distinctive personality.

 

Lydia named her statue “The Spring,” which reflects generations of memories of mermaids who preceded her swimming in the show. Lydia’s work is positioned in a prime location, gracing a grassy knoll just outside the entrance to the underwater theatre.

The theatre facility has recently been refurbished and has a capacity to accommodate an audience of 400 people.

 

“‘The Spring’ is really what we’re celebrating with this 75th anniversary. Without the natural beauty and enchantment of the spring, we wouldn’t have the mermaids or the magic that we have come to love all these years,” Lydia said.

“There are several details in my design that I believe only mermaids will recognize or understand. It helps to know how a certain ballet move should be painted, or the types of fish that swim with us every day…or even recognize the small props we use in our shows.”

 

Every now and then, an “aggregation” of portly manatees will enter the spring to swim with a the Weeki Wachee mermaids. “Manatees are calm and peaceful marine mammals that pose no danger to swimmers. In fact, they are curious animals that enjoy human interaction and are quite happy to relate with and be around humans,” noted Justin Strickland of Captain Mike’s, an ecotourism business that offers cruises along the Weeki Wachee River.

“I feel so incredibly honored and humbled to know that my statue will stand at the park for many years to come,” Lydia said. “This place means so much to me, and to be able to leave this mark on it, even after I’ve moved on from being a mermaid one day, is so special. I could not be more thankful.”

“My favorite part of the job is honestly just having the opportunity to swim in the spring,” she continued. “I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I feel really lucky to get to go to work there every day. Seeing the crowd get excited and the kids’ faces light up is always a plus, too!”

Speaking of kids’ faces, in her coverage of the 75th anniversary celebration main event for the Hernando Sun weekly newspaper, Megan Hussey reported that a 9-year-old girl named Riley “took special notice of ‘The Spring’ and declared: “I want one for my bedroom!”

From the Weeki Wachee gallery:

Kristy Lowman, who swam the springs of Weeki Wachee for seven years, is now a registered nurse and employed as a case manager with a home health and hospice care provider. Her smiling face was selected as the “model” for each of the “Mermaid Trail” statues.

Mermaid No. 28 has been positioned inside the Visit Florida Welcome Center, located off I-75 in Jennings, Fla. Her name is Meraki, and she is the new ambassador to invite visitors to come to Weeki Wachee Springs. Meraki is the masterwork of artist Arielle Katarina of Bradenton, Fla.

Florida State led the charge for college sports ‘purity’

One of the milestone accomplishments in college sports history was the formation of a new athletic conference in 1948, made up of nine southern colleges/universities that took a stand and “just said no” to offering scholarships to student-athletes.

The new league was the brainchild of Dr. Howard Danford, athletic director at Florida State University in Tallahassee, which fielded its first intercollegiate sports teams in 1947.

Member institutions agreed to adhere to the principle of “complete amateurism.” These schools bought into the belief “that intercollegiate games, including football, might be played just for fun.”

Imagine that…especially coming from FSU.

“Vires, Artes, Mores” translates from Latin to “Strength, Skill, Character.” The motto expresses the core values of Florida State University.

Here is a bit of FSU history: The university originated in 1851 as the West Florida Seminary, a state-supported school for men. It  began admitting women in 1858. 

The name was changed to Florida Military and Collegiate Institute in 1863 to reflect the school’s changing mission; in 1901 it was renamed Florida State College. 

When Florida’s institutions of higher education were reorganized in 1905, the school became the Florida Female College, open to women only; the male students were moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville. 

The name was changed to Florida State College for Women in 1909. It became Florida State University in 1947 and at that time reinstituted a coeducational policy. The university was racially integrated in 1962.

The other eight members of the newly formed Dixie Conference in 1948 were: Howard College of Homewood, Ala. (now Samford University); Lambuth University of Jackson, Tenn. (now part of the University of Memphis); Mercer University of Macon, Ga.; Millsaps College of Jackson, Miss.; Mississippi College of Clinton, Miss.; Oglethorpe University of Brookhaven, Ga.; Stetson University of DeLand, Fla.; and Tampa (Fla.) University (now the University of Tampa).

Read a bit of Dr. Danford’s philosophy about college sports, attained largely from the archives of the Tallahassee Democrat:

“The boy who makes the varsity volleyball team at Florida State University gets just as big a letter to wear on his sweater as the football star. So does the golfer, the tennis player and the swimmer,” Danford said.

It’s part of the university’s plan to prevent over-emphasis of football and other so-called major sports, the Democrat reported.

“We don’t have any major or minor sports here,” Danford asserted. “In most colleges, a major sport is simply one that brings in the most gate receipts. We feel we have no business going into the field of commercial amusement.”

The Democrat stated: “The ticket price for home games of the Seminole football team this fall (1948) will range from 90 cents to $2.40, including tax. Danford says that won’t meet expenses, but he would prefer to have the university budget carry the sport as a function of education.”

He said he believes the “athletic program exists primarily as a means of developing health, teaching fair play and other characteristics of good citizenship, and developing skills for use in later life.”

“Who plays football or engages in track events after he graduates?” Danford asks.

“As an educational proposition, he feels golf, tennis, volleyball and such sports are better for later life,” the Democrat continued.

The 1947 FSU football team official portrait...with most of the players in the picture.

Dr. Danford didn’t fret over FSU’s 0-5 record on the gridiron in 1947, and he was supported in his efforts by Florida’s Gov. Millard Fillmore Caldwell (shown below), who offered this endorsement: “Florida State University proved that (college) football can be played on a non-commercial basis. And their amateur schedule was a breath of fresh air in the commercialized football situation.”

 

For FSU’s second year of football, Dr. Danford hired Don Veller (shown below) as coach. Veller had just one year of head coaching experience under his belt – at Hanover (Ind.) College. He stayed at FSU through the 1952 season.

 

Coach Veller wanted football to be fun as well, but in his mind, football wasn’t much fun unless his teams won. And win they did. Veller registered a stellar 16-2 in 1948-49, which stoked the town’s appetite for FSU football.

Dr. Danford scolded Veller, saying: “You incite these people!”

“Boosters” entered the picture and got the ear of FSU President Doak Campbell (shown below), expressing their vision for FSU to do “whatever was necessary” to rise to football supremacy.

 

A first step required FSU to exit the Dixie Conference in 1950, becoming “independent,” free of the shackles of a league alignment.

 

Florida State opted for ‘sports independence’ in 1950

In December 1950, after winning the first three Dixie Conference football titles without losing a single conference game, Florida State University announced it would exit the league to become “independent”…and begin to offer football players scholarships and other nebulous “grants-in-aid.”

This news was a very bitter pill to swallow for Dr. Howard Danford, who was FSU’s athletic director. Since his arrival on campus in 1947, he had preached that all college sports are equally subordinate to education, and none of the players on FSU’s athletic teams would receive financial assistance of any description.

In Dr. Danford’s view, college sports should be played strictly by amateurs and just for fun.

However, by 1950, Dr. Danford was clearly outnumbered within his own academic institution. As FSU’s football team began to dominate its opponents, faculty and fans alike were feeling their oats, exerting pressure on university President Doak Campbell to “move up” and schedule more challenging foes.

Local businessmen and other professional people in the community organized a “boosters’ organization” to raise funds that could be invested in “university development.” (That was a code term for “football program.”)

 

The first name mentioned in the list of contributors compiled by Bill Bunker, FSU’s venerable sports information director, was Tallahassee businessman Rainey Cawthon (shown below), a former University of Florida football running back. Many U-F alumni in the Tallahassee area supported FSU’s fledgling program because they felt it was in the best interest of the local community.

 

Another booster was G. Harrold Carswell (shown below), a prominent local attorney. He went on to hold a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals and was nominated by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1970 to become a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately, that didn’t go so well for Judge Carswell.

 

Albert Yates, a building contractor, was credited with introducing alcohol as “the booster club’s beverage of choice,” citing a poem by American humorist Ogden Nash that specified: “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

Bringing in booze was a bit of an obstacle for social events like barbecues, fish fries and oyster roasts held in and around Tallahassee in Leon County, which was a “dry county.” (The solution, according to Bunker, was for the boosters to import cases of liquor on a Greyhound bus from Taylor County, the nearest “wet county.”)

The boosters’ primary goal was to build a stadium worthy of a football program “on the rise.”

They kept building...and building. Today, Doak Campbell Stadium has a capacity of 79,560 and is the 17th largest in the NCAA.

One of the first prized recruits to sign with FSU was Lee Corso, who came to campus in 1953 to play quarterback on offense and cornerback on defense. Corso wore jersey No. 20. His roommate was a running back named Burt Reynolds, No 37. (Early in his sophomore year, Reynolds was sidelined with a serious knee injury that cut short a promising football career. He moved on to Hollywood.)

Reynolds (above) starred in the 1972 film “Deliverance,” while Corso (below) became a television sports analyst with the cast of the popular ESPN program “College Gameday,” making predictions about who would win the game of the week.

During the early years, the Seminoles’ football team cashed in on a relationship that began in 1947 with the “FSU Flying High Circus,” an extracurricular program that engaged both male and female student amateur performers.

The circus provided several acrobats known as the “Flying Seminoles” to perform “electrifying acts during pregame and halftime shows, combining baton twirling, gymnastics, juggling and dancing.”

 

“Seminole Sammy” was the FSU mascot for a short period, before being thankfully retired. (He is shown below.)

In 1978, the Seminole-authentic Osceola made his debut. Osceola, representing the historical Seminole leader Osceola, rides bareback on his trusty Appaloosa horse named Renegade. Today, the duo “introduces” home football games by planting a burning, feathered spear on the 50-yard line.

 

Osceola wears Native American-themed regalia that is designed and approved by the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

 

FSU joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1991, and the football team entered league play in 1992. 

From the FSU photo gallery over the years:

FSU football benefits from link to campus circus group

Since 1947, Florida State University’s student circus organization and the Seminole varsity football team have practically grown up together.

The two programs were established after the Florida state legislature voted in 1947 to make the Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee coeducational. The purpose was to accommodate a large influx of World War II male veterans who were returning to civilian life and wanted to attend college under the GI Bill.

Hence, the academic campus in Tallahassee was transformed into Florida State University. Doak Sheridan Campbell, president of the women’s college since 1941, was asked to continue in that role at FSU. President Campbell was quick to endorse the formation of a men’s football team in 1947.

 

He tapped faculty member Ed Williamson to head the search for a football coach. Williamson played on the University of Florida varsity football team in the early 1930s, and he also coached high school football in northern Florida before joining the Navy in 1942 during World War II as an officer.

Following his discharge in 1946, Williamson was hired by the women’s college as a physical education professor and director of the intramural program.

The hiring of the FSU football coach grew frantic, though, when the top three candidates presented by Williamson were rejected by university administrators, supposedly on the grounds that “none held a doctorate degree.”

In desperation, President Campbell asked Williamson to take the coaching job. He reluctantly accepted, with the stipulation that he would be “one and done,” agreeing to a one-year deal. A brand-new FSU faculty member, Jack Haskin, a former high school physical education teacher from Illinois, was drafted as Williamson’s lone assistant.

 

A local Tallahassee historian said: “Williamson and Haskin assembled a program almost out of thin air. There were no players, no equipment, no schedule, no practice field…nothing.” But they pulled it together “in the space of three months.”

“The two coaches were responsible for every aspect of the program’s operation that first season. As ‘trainers,’ Haskin took up to three hours a day to tape half of the team’s 60 players. Williamson did the other half.”

The FSU team went winless in five games during the first season, but Haskin said he felt “the boys did very well that year.” And so did Dr. Howard Danford, the university’s first athletic director, who was brought in from Madison, Wis.

 

Dr. Danford’s perspective was that college athletics should be “purely amateur.” He stated emphatically: “The only justification for intercollegiate athletics in an educational institution is the contribution they make to the purposes of education.”

After the football season, Haskin was able to devote full attention to his original assignment at the university, and that was to create an extracurricular activity to bring together male and female students. His bright idea was to start the “FSU Flying High Circus” on campus. And it flew.

That endeavor proved highly successful and has brought international acclaim to the university over the years.

Looking back on that inaugural football season, Haskin used the FSU gridiron as a canvas for previewing circus routines.

“We weren’t much of a football team,” said Wyatt “Red” Parrish, who was the star running back at FSU from 1947-49, “but when we lined up in three rings for those pregame warm-ups, we were the best in the world.”

 

The late Steve Ellis, former sports editor at the Tallahassee Democrat, once wrote: “Halftime performances by the Flying High Circus stole the show at least twice during the 1949 (FSU football) season.”

This story’s just getting started.