FNP 51 Page 26 P: What year was this? G: 1974-1975. I bought a thirty-six foot Pace Arrow motor home. My wife only taught the balance of the year that first year [1964], and then she came with me full-time in the newspaper business. She's been with me all this time. So we took our three children, Harvey, William and Emerald, and we toured the state of Florida in that motor home. We went to every single solitary newspaper in this state. We didn't miss a one. P: How many were there? G: I don't know. It seemed like we [were] looking at somewhere around 300 weeklies and sixty dailies, and that may or may not be true. I don't know why those two figures stick in my mind. P: What would the number be today? G: I have no idea. I would think it would be a lot less. I do know I put a Florida map on my wall and took some thumbtacks and painted these thumbtacks different colors. Then, I took some of these straight pins-I had a little old pin cushion-and I put paper, instead of buying these things, I just cut me out some different colored paper and made some flags after because the pins were too broad. They didn't work right. So I made me some flag pins, and I had them coded for the members and non-members. When I'd visit one, I'd put in a green flag, and I kept on till we had the entire...I think the blues ones [were] members and the white ones were non-members, and we had more white ones up there than we had blue ones. So we put on a campaign, and we went to every single newspaper in this state that year. We got it up, and we found out what people [were] wanting [to join]. A lot of them didn't even know about the Florida Press Association. You know, they're out there. Then the first order of business, and perhaps one of the hardest jobs I've ever done, was that I handed the gavel to Hoop Teabault, [who] was vice president, and I made a recommendation that we fire our manager. He was sitting in that room, and it caught him as cold--it caught the whole room cold. I didn't really want him fired. I was hoping that what we could do is bring him back around, and that's, as it turned out, that's what happened. So, we agreed, and I looked over at him and I said, Jim, I hate to do this, but you're going into those meetings with liquor on your breath, our reputation is a disaster over there [in Tallahassee], we're going to need a lobbyist [who is] a strong lobbyist. That's what the head of a press association has got to be. He's got to be as good a lobbyist as money can buy. I [said], we don't need somebody showing up late in the morning and going into a meeting with a brand-new beer on his breath so he can operate. So we agreed to give him, I think it was a thirty-day grace period to see if he could straighten up, or sixty days, and he straightened up and flew as good as we've ever had. As soon as that grace period was over, he went right back into that same slump, and it was just such a shame, because he had such a talent. So we put out a search for another