Shared interests and a chance contact with award-winning author John Bowe have led Diana Briggs, ‘07, down a promising editorial career path with a job working on his upcoming book.

“If someone had told me two months ago that I’d be in Hayes, Kan., I would not have believed them,” she said.

Small-town Kansas is exactly where Diana Briggs found herself this past spring. She spent most of February and March passing through towns in the American West, stopping in each long enough to gather love stories. That’s right, she’s talking to people about love.

Briggs was recruited by Bowe to interview people for his upcoming book, “Mine: Americans Talk About Love.” The book is due out in time for Valentine’s Day 2010.

Bowe is the co-editor of “Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs” and author of “Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy.” It might seem like a leap from slave labor to love, but it was Bowe’s book on that subject that brought him and Briggs together.

After seeing his appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Briggs Googled Bowe and found an interview with him. She e-mailed the interviewer, and a few days later, received an e-mail from Bowe himself. He became a mentor for Briggs, who at the time was working with the Ritz Carlton in an effort to get fair-trade products into the hotel.

“I got a hold of him to see what he was into,” Briggs recalled. “He wanted me to help him with this book he was starting.”

She flew to New York to meet up with Bowe, who promised to make it worth her time if she stuck with him. Next thing she knew, Briggs was on a plane to Colorado, set to return a month or so later. After the Rocky Mountain state, she followed roads to Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

In each town she’d hit up coffee shops, post fliers about the book with her phone number, and wait.

“For the most part it’s a feeling,” Briggs said. “I’d strike up a conversation with someone, tell them what I’m doing, and it turns into the best interview — conversation, really.”

When she ran into trouble in Kansas, where no one seemed to be biting on the love-story line, she just walked into a thrift store and shouted, “Does anyone have any love stories?”

“When you’re yourself with someone, they’ll do anything for you,” Briggs said. “I still talk to a lot of people that I’ve interviewed. I can’t tear myself away to find out what’s happening next in their love lives.”

After a few short weeks at home in Venice, Fla., she was back out on the road again to New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee in a search for more love stories.

Leaving St. Augustine after his time at Flagler College was hard for Scott Nickerson.

“After all the places I lived in my life, St. Augustine was one of the only places where I felt completely at home,” the 1982 communication graduate said. Nickerson missed St. Augustine so much that, after moving he found solace in a Jimmy Buffett song, “Wonder Why We Ever Go Home.” The song took on a special meaning to him, and he went on to found the first official Jimmy Buffett Parrot Head club in 1989.

As the club grew, it morphed into Parrot Heads in Paradise Inc. The organization allowed for the start-up of other clubs under its charter. PHiP gathers Buffett fans for fun and charitable purposes.

“I was bored with my social life, and I wanted to create opportunities to get involved in various charities,” Nickerson said. The first club formed around him in Atlanta and attracted well over 100 initial members. Chapters of the non-profit corporation operate in most states, Canada and Australia. Although not officially affiliated with Jimmy Buffett, the clubs got the go-ahead from his lawyers.

Nickerson, as founder, has been able to meet Buffett a few times. “I got roasted by the Pleasure Island Parrot Head Club a few years ago. A big screen came down and a video of Buffett with a personal message to me was shown. It’s the nicest thing he’s ever done for me personally,” Nickerson recalled.

But this Buffett fan does more than just listen to the music. He used his own musical talents to jam in a tribute band, A1A. After receiving a call from fellow Parrot Head Jeff Pike, they formed a duo in 1992.

“I started playing drums when I was five or so,” Nickerson said. “[Now] I make most of my living playing music.” His music career started in St. Augustine with some Flagler friends, playing with The Bridge Street Kings from 1980-82. Nickerson added, “That’s another story in itself.”

A1A became successful enough to bill itself as The Original Jimmy Buffett Tribute Show. “A1A was the only Jimmy Buffett tribute band at that time, so we ended up having such good luck, business-wise, that we were able to do it full time for a living,” he said. He continued to play with A1A full time until October 2006 and he still plays on request.

For more on his organization, visit http://www.phip.com
Scott Nickerson’s personal site: www.ScottNickerson.com