T.E.N. wins four Telly awards for historical documentaries

By Michelle Quigley

Two documentaries produced by The Education Network (T.E.N.) of the Palm Beach County School District have been awarded Tellys.

The documentary Laura Woodward: Visionary Artist won in the documentary, cultural and education categories. The 30-minute production tells the story of Laura Woodward, a landscape artist who used her paintings to persuade Henry Flagler to build a resort in Palm Beach in 1894.

The Hurricane of 1928 — documenting the deadly storm that slammed into Palm Beach County and roared inland to lift the water right out of Lake Okeechobee — also won in the education category.

You can watch Laura Woodward: Visionary Artist and The Hurricane of 1928 right here on HistoricPalmBeach.com.

In 2009 T.E.N. won an Emmy award for its Anywhere/Anytime science videos.

The Telly Awards are in their 31st year of honoring the best local, regional, and cable television commercials and programs, video and film productions, and works created for the Web.

Drawing of Laura Woodward, painting under an umbrella amid a tropical landscape. (Palm Beach Post file photo)

Tags: art, Glades, hurricanes, Palm Beach, videos

Late Glade Historian More Than Resource

This column lost a great resource and mentor June 7 with the passing of Joseph Orsenigo at 87.

As my colleague Susan Salisbury noted, Mr. Orsenigo was a noted research scientist who also chaired the Belle Glade Museum Board and the Glades Historical Society.

He also was this writer’s primary source for the history of the Glades.

He knew Bean City was named for Arthur Wells, the first to grow winter string beans in the Glades.

He knew Fleming Drive in Belle Glade was named for Fleming “Slim” Rutledge, the father of Glades benefactor Dolly Hand.

He was one of several local and state historians and scholars who, in 1999, helped in the production of “Our Century,” the Post’s special section which later was published as a book. He also was among the group that helped the Post pick the all-time top 10 state and local stories.

His greatest help, of course, was with Black Cloud, my history book on the great 1928 hurricane.

He threw open his files, as well as the collection of “cracker historian” Lawrence Will, housed at the Palm Beach County library system’s Belle Glade branch. (The two of us jointly mourned the fact that many of those files were ransacked over the years and important documents lost to the ages.)

But he was able to provide searing memoirs, important government documents, and telling news articles I never would have found on my own.

Beyond that, he was a constant go-to person, providing insights, correcting misconceptions, and sending me in the right direction for documents, resources and interviews.

And when I challenged, both in Post articles and in my book, the idea that 1,600 victims could possibly fit into the mass grave at the Port Mayaca cemetery, suggesting whoever designed the marker simply picked a nice round number, Mr. Orsenigo opined — in his usual succinct manner — “who kept an accurate tally sheet?”

Lawrence Will Museum: Belle Glade branch, Palm Beach County Public Library: (561) 996-3453.

Tags: agriculture, Glades, hurricanes

Old Pahokee High To Become New City Hall

Readers: Last week, we wrote about the historic Pahokee High complex.

Built in 1928, it survived the great Okeechobee hurricane later that year.

At a time when Pahokee was one of the county’s most important towns, and long after it and the Glades fell into hard times, the school generated great memories for locals –including Pahokee businessman, amateur historian and booster Larry Wright.

Closed in 1988 — not 1998 as we said in last week’s column — the school stood shuttered for two decades.

Enter Emilia Fanjul.

In 2001, the sugar baroness founded Everglades Preparatory Academy.

Operated from a former furniture store, it struggled to keep up test scores, and the district threatened in 2007 to shut it down.

But in July 2008, it moved its 88 students into Pahokee High, no longer a sad shell but again a place of life and learning.

Well, some of it.

The academy operates a cafeteria and in an annex to the old elementary school, Wright reports. He said the gymnasium is a recreational center, and the annex houses a multipurpose classroom building and the city’s programs for seniors.

Now, an old idea is getting new breath.

Last summer, Tropical Storm Fay’s drenching of South Florida left Pahokee’s city hall complex severely damaged.

In February, the city asked Palm Beach County commissioners for $3 million to rebuild the complex.

The county, in turn, said it would ask Washington, D.C., for $3.5 million as part of the local infrastructure money included in that big federal
stimulus package.

The city’s two options: Build an entirely new complex, not a cheap proposition in today’s economy; or renovate the old Pahokee High.

“The old high-school building itself was to become our city hall after the renovation, and now that our city hall has been condemned, we just might get to finally finish the project,” Wright reports.

Tags: buildings, Glades, school

Historic Pahokee Hit Hard Times

Larry Wright, who is active in the local history of the Glades, writes to ask about his alma mater.

The historic 11-building Pahokee High School complex — built in 1928 and which stood in the great hurricane later that year — officially opened for the 1930-31 school year at 360 E. Main St.

At the time, Pahokee, which shipped produce down canals to the coast,was one of South Florida’s most important cities and the third most populous in Palm Beach County.

Until Belle Glade High was built in 1941, Pahokee High served the Glades from Port Mayaca, in western Martin County, all the way around Lake Okeechobee and nearly to Clewiston.

Pahokee was the first school in the county to be integrated.

At a huge black walnut tree, generations of friends met after class.

Out back, on a second-floor balcony, boys gathered to watch the girls go by.

And out front, a flagpole was the site of many a marriage proposal.

Workers and former students have found decades-old handwritten love notes and failed tests wadded and jammed into crevices behind chalkboards.

In 1998, the Palm Beach County School Board closed the complex, to make way for a new Pahokee High, and turned it over to the city.

Residents said it needed either to undergo a multimillion-dollar renovation, and then become a new city hall complex, a mall, an adult living center, an RV park, a museum, even a bed-and-breakfast — or be razed.
Leaving a shuttered eyesore wasn’t an option.

But that’s just what happened for two decades.

Even after its rich history and Mediterranean Revival architecture earned it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996, it continued to stand rotting, fouled by squatters, litterbugs, the elements, wildlife and the march of time.

Next Week: New life.

Palm Beach Post file photo: This photo was taken during a peaceful demonstration on April 24, 1969 at Pahokee High School. Students are (from left) George H. Tucker III, president of the student body; Eugene Reed, Jimmie Wilson and Norman Seabrook. The students demonstrated for 10 minutes during lunchtime, then there were speeches, the pledge to the flag and the school song. They then returned to their classrooms. The school was the first in the county to be integrated.

Tags: Glades

Historic Battle Fought Near Lake O

Last week marked the 150th anniversary of the end of the Third Seminole War, the last Indian war east of the Mississippi. In telling you the history of the three conflicts, and their legacy, we mentioned important sites you can see.
The most important: the battlefield at the north end of Lake Okeechobee.
On Christmas Day, 1837, the bloodiest fight of the Second Seminole War erupted in sawgrass, chest-high water and muck.
Gen. Zachary Taylor - later president - led about 1,000 U.S. soldiers and Missouri volunteers against several hundred Seminoles. The soldiers killed 14 and lost 26.
After the battle, 103 soldiers and sailors fought some 200 Seminoles on the headwaters of the Loxahatchee on Jan. 15, 1838.
Nine days later, 200 to 300 Seminoles and their black allies and 1,500 to 1,600 soldiers and Tennessee volunteers fought fiercely along the banks of the river. That event marks the end of organized resistance in the Second Seminole War.
The Seminoles were scattered, with about 600 shipped west as part of the “Trail of Tears” and the rest melting into the Everglades.
In 2006, the state agreed to buy 145 acres of the 211-acre Okeechobee tract, listed as one of America’s 11 most endangered historic sites.
But preservationists don’t always win. In 1990, after a battle site was found in the Shores of Jupiter development, archaeologists begged developer Guy DiVosta to let them buy the tract or at least excavate it before he built. Instead, DiVosta’s workers bulldozed the earthen fortifications and artifacts.

Tags: Glades