A name you can count on – A reputation you can trust
Dorothy knew that even on the Kansas plains, you don’t need to look any further than your own backyard if you want to connect with something special that links you to your past.
Florida historian Charlton Tebeau would certainly have concurred. He believed that history is where you find it, and that it begins close to home.
Speed S. Menefee, Naples’ first mayor, did not get his name because of the length of his time in office, as some thought. Speed served as mayor for less than an hour, so I reckon he could also be considered one of the most beloved because he wasn’t in office long enough for anyone to get mad at him — least of all his “Grandma.”
“Thank God! Now there will always be Our Keewaydin!”
Those were the parting words of John “Speedy” Rush in 1945, as he handed over the keys to the fondly remembered “Angels of Keewaydin,” Lester and Dellora Norris. Mr. Rush, the former director of all the Keewaydin Camps across America, had taken over Keewaydin Florida when it came upon financial difficulties in 1935.
Never mind the stereotype of singleminded profiteering and greed in American business, with its crippling economic consequences.
The do-gooders remain strikingly in evidence, fortunately for the rest of us.
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