The Johnston family’s painful and transformative journey in 2008 began on the soccer field when Brennan Johnston fell and fractured his left femur.

The 4-year-old son of Flagler alumnus Brian Johnston spent more than two weeks in the hospital where he underwent five surgeries, three blood transfusions and several other treatments in a grueling and agonizing experience for the entire family. Yet, after all of that, doctors were still forced to amputate the boy’s leg.

Little did they know, the loss of Brennan’s leg would soon turn in to the birth of a new endeavor — one to help the Johnstons heal and to help other families do the same.

It started when Brennan was being fitted for his prosthetic leg and his therapist told him about a camp for amputees. Brennan lit up with excitement and told his dad he must go.

“I said, ‘Sure, absolutely tear it up,’ but then the therapist told us we have to wait three years because he has to be 8 to go … Brennan just sat there, deflating,” Johnston said. “I asked, ‘What do you do for younger kids?’ and their response was, ‘We tried it once and it really didn’t work … So bummer.’ ”

But Johnston, who lives in Atlanta, where he founded EVOLUTIONS total wellness center, used this obstacle as a way to transform their struggles into something worthwhile. Johnston’s idea for AMPUCAMP was ignited.

On the way home from the therapist, Johnston thought of something a character said from “Robots,” Brennan’s favorite movie.

“I asked him if he remembered that Bigweld said, ‘See a need, Fill a need,’ ” Johnston recalled. “I don’t care if you’re 2 or 102, we’ll make our own camp, and everyone can come.”

AMPUCAMP’s first event was held in in Atlanta in August 2009. The initial plan was to host four events throughout the year to bring amputees and their loved ones together. The day usually consists of a cookout, sporting events and professional counseling. Johnston said the events are mentor-mentee situations with amputees ranging from 5 to 68 years old.

AMPUCAMP enables amputees to reignite their passion for life and for all of the activities they loved to do before the procedure. Johnston said it helps people to face and relieve themselves of frustration and let go of questions like, “Why me?” or “Why would God let this happen?”

“Hopefully through the environment we provide, people will have the opportunity to explore those feelings,” he said. “You get people pulled back in, they re-engage and they continue to improve and progress from that point forward.”

And now Johnston’s dream is to expand outside of the Atlanta area.

“The goal is to AMPUCAMP the globe — basically to create an opportunity in a box, to duplicate the systems in the program,” he said.
The events also help parents, including Johnston, to establish a sense of peace about their child.

“It gives us chance to cut the umbilical cord from the parent,” Johnston said. “It was a lot tougher for me to let it go… my son was like, ‘I just want to run; I just want to play. Stop asking me about my leg.’ ”

For more, go to http://ampucamp.org.

Photo by Zach Thomas, '00

Abrams lettered in basketball at Flagler from 1976-80. He still holds the college’s record for most free throws attempted in a game with 19 vs. Saint Leo College in 1978. Abrams is currently the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Flagler College Alumni Association.

Sherri Anthony, ‘82 – Women’s Basketball & Softball

Anthony was a four-year starting point guard at Flagler from 1978-82. She helped lead the Saints to an 18-7 record and the AIAW State Title as a freshman. Flagler went on to play in the regional tournament, representing all the schools in Florida. As a senior, Anthony was selected as the team’s most valuable player. She still holds the career record for assists at Flagler with 368 and is 11th on the all-time scoring list with 751 points. Anthony has coached girls’ basketball at Allen D. Nease High School for the past 25 years.

Photo by Zach Thomas, '00

The team won the NAIA National Championship, the first of two titles. Gordon Jones was the singles champion, and he teamed with Jim Twigg to win the doubles title.

Three alumni awarded for achievements and contributions

Photo by Zach Thomas, '00

Stewart began working at Flagler College in 1980 and was the director of Athletics from 1982 to 1993. He helped form the Florida Sun Conference and served as commissioner from 1993 to 2006. In 1993, he was appointed dean of Student Services and has received the Administrator of the Year award four times.

Professional Achievement Award – Dr. Thomas Kelleher, ‘93

Kelleher serves as associate professor and chair of the School of Communications at the University of Hawaii. He published “Public Relations Online: Lasting Concepts for Changing Media” in 2006 and has been published in 10 scholarly journals.

Community Service Award – William “Bill” Walter, ‘84

Walter is the owner of St. Augustine Center for Living, a care facility and day treatment program for developmentally disabled adults. Over the past two years, he helped raised thousands of dollars for Relay for Life, and he is funding a bedroom at the Bailey Family Center for Caring for the terminally ill.

• Hugh Shaw Memorial Surf Contest
• Athletics Hall of Fame Ceremony and Dinner
• Alumni Awards Luncheon
• Markland Reception
• Alumni Art Show
• Public Administration Alumni Picnic

After graduating from Flagler in 1984, Dvorak spent more than two decades working corporate jobs in sales and marketing for technology companies. He loved the stability, but it wasn’t his passion.

“It was scary to cut the chord,” Dvorak said of quitting his corporate position at IBM. “But you have to suit up and show up and make it happen.”

Dvorak’s true passion is public speaking and improvisational comedy. He had spent years honing these hobbies – attending the prestigious Second City, a sketch comedy and improv theatre and training center in Chicago – as well as giving hundreds of pro bono motivational speeches at local clubs, organizations and businesses.

While Dvorak was at Second City, he developed an alter ego of sorts named Dr. Earnest Carpediem – a spoof on life coach and motivational speaker Anthony Robbins. The character was a hit among his fellow improv actors and audiences. When Dvorak decided to become a professional motivational speaker, he thought his Carpediem persona was a great way to add a little humor.

Dressed in a blue button-down shirt, black slacks, a bowtie, red suspenders – with plenty of flair – ­and nerdy glasses, Dr. Earnest Carpediem doesn’t seem like the kind of guy a Fortune 500 company would hire to be their keynote speaker. Yet everyone from Marriott Hotels & Resorts to Merrill Lynch to Swissport Cargo Services has extended the invite.

Dvorak has traveled around the globe to places like China, South Africa, Malaysia, Turkey and Russia to deliver his comedic, creative and motivational message. Dvorak’s audience ranges from dozens to thousands, and he’s run the gamut from pest control operators to orthodontists to investment bankers. He even had a recent gig at the World Adult Kickball Association.

Dvorak says the length of keynote speeches can be a challenge.

“You’re up there in front of all of these people and you’ve got to keep them entertained and not lose the vibe,” he said.

Over the past nine years as a professional speaker, Dvorak has offered his clients a list of programs like “Mega Motivation With A Twist,” “Laughter is the Best Medicine,” “The Art of Being Creative” and “Selling Up in Tough Times.” One of his favorite phrases is, “The power of laughter and humor can bring true employee and customer loyalty.”

Dvorak says it was the special attention he received at Flagler that led him to turn his hobby into a career.

“There was always that little extra TLC,” he said.

In fact, when Dvorak came to visit Flagler College in the early 1980s from his native Chicago, there was no such thing as a sales degree. Actually, only a few colleges or universities in the entire country offered one. During Dvorak’s admissions interview, the counselor suggested that he do an independent study and design his own major. The mixture — a hodgepodge of acting classes, public speaking, and sales and marketing — worked.

But he’s quick to recall his favorite professor, Theatre Arts Department Chair Phyllis Gibbs’s sound advice: “She would always tell us this great Shakespeare quote, ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ ”

For more, go to www.dougdvorak.com.

Fueled by nature and tinged by oddity, Brandon Nastanski’s installation art and sculptures provide a glimpse into the mind of this 2000 grad.

Nastanski created his best-known installation art while exploring Boston’s 527-acre Franklin Park. Walking his dog took him to the park several times a day, where he started collecting discarded items. As a refuge for his collection, Nastanski built a lean-to against a rock outcropping, using sticks and twine he found in the park. He hung a picture of nature’s original ombudsman, Henry David Thoreau, at the entrance and dubbed his creation the “Unofficial Franklin Park Research Outpost.”

“Unofficial” because there was no map to find your way — at first, visitors just happened upon it accidentally — and he didn’t seek permission from the Boston Parks and Recreation Department to build the structure. Spurning the officials landed Nastanski and his outpost on the pages of The Boston Globe and local alt weekly The Boston Phoenix. In an editorial, The Globe celebrated the project, while wagging a finger at Nastanski’s bypass of the permits process.

Permit squabbles aside, Nastanski used the structure to house the growing collection of artifacts he’d found wandering Franklin Park: a rusted shopping cart, old bottles, tea tins, candles, a raccoon skull, religious statues and a keyboard, among other items. Nastanski has almost created an altar to the park itself — a form he’s familiar with — as he admits to a history of “almost obsessively” collecting things.

“I’ve always displayed these things around my home, toeing a fine line between a natural-history-type display slash altar-type display,” he said.

As part of his MFA work from the prestigious Parsons Fine Arts in New York City, Nastanski created a miniature speakeasy that was featured in the 2008 Pulse Contemporary Art Fair in New York City. Visitors entered the tiny wood cabin through a trick bookshelf. Inside, Nastanski served drinks amid found furniture and other curiosities.

“Brandon Nastanski’s speakeasy … reminds us of the at-first cozy, then-frankly-spooky cabin in which Jeffery Euginides’s hermaphrodite protagonist realized she was more than just a little girl in Middlesex,” New York Magazine remarked in its write-up of the work, before celebrating the artist’s eccentric sense of humor by adding, “Or is that just us?”

“Getting the public in is a big part of my installations, [especially in] a public piece like that,” Nastanski said.

An assignment from a Parsons professor to create an art piece involving a shelf, liquid and a jar helped him realize the connection between his collecting past and his artistic future.

“A friend pointed out that this should be the easiest project for me,” he said. “I had these things all over my house. Duh.” From there, Natanski began to marry his personal life with his art life, embracing things he’d previously considered outside the realm of his artistic practice.

During his stay in Boston, Nastanski also helped form Esprit de Corps, an art collective dedicated to providing open access to the art world. The group has exhibited many shows in its own basement residence in Jamaica Plains, along with hosting or curating shows at other galleries.

Now living in Richmond, Va., Nastanski has returned to some of the pieces he began at Flagler, working with plaster to create body casts, which he’s now melding with his love of natural history by attempting to create sculptures of “sort of animal-human hybrids.” Whatever work is yet to come, you can be assured it will be equals parts nature, spook and art.

Natanski says his art in and of the Boston woods is still standing more than two years later. The “Unofficial Franklin Park Research Outpost” has withstood the brunt of two northeast winters in its attempt to reach out to the public and bring them more into the world of art.

“I didn’t have permission to do this, but the area was very underused,” Nastanski said. “I like to think that I bettered the space — I cleaned up tons of trash and made a safer place and a destination in the park.”

He recently visited it and said community has helped to maintain the piece.)

In Richmond, e is also working on a project similar to Franklin Park called, “The Unofficial Chimborazo Museum of Curiosities.” You can view his work at: www.brandonnastanski.com.

Of all the news coming out of predominantly Muslim countries, many of the women living there wish the Western media spoke more about women who are fighting against repression and less about the abuses they endure.

Alumna Cassandra Schaffa, ’05, found herself helping spread that very message after she answered an ad on Craigslist last year. Schaffa was in her last year of her master’s degree in cinema studies at New York University when she stumbled upon an ad for an internship at a unique film festival.

Women’s Voices Now was conceived as a way to empower women in the Muslim world by putting cameras in their hand. It evolved to include stories of Muslim women living as minorities around the world and women of all faiths living in predominantly Muslim countries.

Schaffa, a communication and Spanish major, says the idea was simple: “If you give somebody who is facing an issue a camera, then they can highlight their own circumstance. They are being given a voice and being empowered.”

Over the course of 14 months, Schaffa, along with the other staff members, reviewed submissions, secured judges and promoted the fledgling film festival. But there was another aspect that needed special attention.

Because she had literally no personal experience with Islam, and none of the other women working at Women’s Voices Now were Muslim, Schaffa relied heavily on Muslim women to give them advice for the festival. What she heard intrigued her. These women didn’t want sympathy or pity. In fact, they wanted to stay away from a lot of what Western media had been reporting; they simply wanted to tell the world what great things they were doing to help themselves. They wanted a voice.

“What we heard was, ‘Yes, there are problems in these countries. But there are so many women who are empowered, so many women who are making changes within our countries.’ ”

Schaffa said they were able to tell those stories without even trying to steer the submissions in that direction. “We were very happy … that we weren’t getting the same information that was being provided on the traditional news sources, ” she said.

One of the more than 200 stories told through submissions to the festival was a 25-minute documentary of a female prosecutor in Afghanistan who was fighting for the rights of Muslim women. The word “women” is misleading, though.

One of the “women” she helped defend was a 9-year-old girl who had been married off by her father and beaten and burned by her husband for simply trying to sleep. It won first place in the documentary category.

Schaffa says people were shocked – not necessarily over the treatment of the women and girls highlighted in the film, because that was anticipated – but because they didn’t know you could make movies in Afghanistan, let alone that there were female prosecutors who fight for women’s rights.

And it wasn’t just the stories of women told in the films that influenced Schaffa. “What shocked me … was in terms of communication with people in these countries,” she said. “We’ve become more globally connected in the past 10 years or so. I never realized how much.”

Schaffa said she received emails from all over the world thanking her and Women’s Voices Now for their work with the festival. “[I remember thinking] there’s no way we’re going to reach that far into those countries,” she said.

Women’s Voices Now is continuing its work making sure these voices and stories are heard. They embarked on a university tour, booking lectures and screenings at American universities and even in Jordan and Qatar. Their goal is to give the films a longer shelf life.

“It would have been a waste to collect all these films and then not get them out there,” Schaffa said.

Some of the films are having larger impacts than simply story telling. One of the student films, called “Breast Cancer in Qatar – Overcoming Cultural Boundaries,” deals with healthcare in a country where women’s body parts are never talked about. “If a woman talks about a problem with her breasts, it’s taboo,” Schaffa said. “She’s suppose to be covered up.”

And so women stay in the dark about medical conditions, often to their detriment. But the film highlights an effort to raise awareness. Women are gradually becoming more comfortable discussing their health with doctors, and it’s becoming less embarrassing for women to seek treatment.

Schaffa, who has since moved on to look for more permanent work, says that film characterizes her goal for Women’s Voices Now.

“[The women are telling] the world their circumstance, but they’re also being given a voice,” she said.

When Theresa Segal, ‘87, was a little girl, her family would drive down to St. Augustine for a month during the summer to stay at her grandparent’s house on Davis Shores, a historic, waterfront neighborhood just over the Bridge of Lions.

“When we drove over the grating of the bridge, I would wake up and I knew that we were almost there,” Segal remembers.

It’s fitting that Segal’s earliest memories of St. Augustine, the town where she was born, is of the Bridge of Lions, a Mediterranean-style bascule drawbridge opened in 1927. In October 2010, Segal was one of just a few people presented with an Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for advocacy to rehabilitate the bridge. When people were pushing to replace the bridge with a new, larger structure, Segal became instrumental in preserving the quarter-mile span.

In 1996, Segal read a headline in the local paper that the Florida Department of Transportation and the U.S. Coast Guard were lobbying to do away with the iconic bridge and its tile-roofed towers, graceful arches, decorative lampposts, ornate metalwork and two large, marble lions.

“Everyone was just swinging the pendulum back and forth,” she said of a battle that had actually started a few decades earlier. “I knew I needed to get involved.”

So Segal approached a grassroots group already formed that was in dire need of some new blood. They reformed, called themselves the “Save Our Bridge Committee” and named Segal president. “I wasn’t even at the meeting when they appointed me to the position,” she said with a laugh.

Throughout the late ‘90s, Segal and the rest of the Save Our Bridge crew fought to save one of the most distinctive architectural elements of St. Augustine. They petitioned the National Trust for Historic Preservation to include the bridge on their list of the “11 Most Endangered Historic Sites” – giving it federal protection – and won. The group also made multiple trips to Tallahassee to meet with state officials, circulated fact sheets, had residents and supporters sign petitions and held fundraisers at the local St. Augustine Art Association.

On Sept. 2, 1999, the FDOT announced its decision to support rehabilitation.

“It seemed like such a huge mountain to climb,” she said. “And now the real work was going to begin.”

In early 2005, construction started on building a temporary bridge next to the Bridge of Lions, and a year-and-a-half later the real work began on what was a five-year project.

With much fanfare, the newly rehabilitated Bridge of Lions opened to traffic on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2010 – a remarkable coincidence for a bridge that’s been painted green for more than 80 years.

Segal remembers the day of the opening with few words: “Oh, I smiled,” she said. “I smiled a lot.”

Nearly a year later, the marble lions named “Firm” and “Faithful” returned to their home on the foot of the bridge. They had been in storage for more than six years, restored by none other than Segal’s husband, Joe Segal, ‘88, and former Flagler College art professor Enzo Torcoletti.

The only thing that Segal misses about the original bridge is that the new one doesn’t have metal grating. “I really miss hearing that noise when I drive over it.”

It’s a neighborhood often labeled as “the city of hopelessness,” and it’s not the kind of place that lends itself to big dreams.

But Phil Pradere, ‘10, beat the odds, first graduating from Flagler College’s Tallahassee campus and now going on to get a master’s in finance from Harvard University. Pradere was born in Brownsville, Miami — a community with a sky-high crime rate that had been labeled the “City of Hopelessness.”

He likens his success to going from “pre-determined defeat to pre-destined triumph.”

“If there’s anyone who can get away from that community and do something great, then it’s a big achievement,” Pradere said. “It’s almost like you’re bound there, and I’ve seen a lot of people get stuck … a lot of people give up.”

When he thinks about his accomplishment, he says he is proud to have exceeded everyone’s expectations. Pradere said his faith plays a huge part in his accomplishment. He says if he could go back to his community, he would tell others to have faith.

“It’s a powerful thing, when you know it’s a bad situation you’re in, but that somehow you’re going to get out of it,” Pradere said. “A lot of people don’t have hope, and they hear they’re labeled ‘hopeless,’ and they settle.”

But not Pradere. “He had this grasp of the big picture and understood what he wanted to do,” remembers Assistant Professor Robert Garner, who had Pradere in an Intro to Management class at Flagler’s Tallahassee campus. “I don’t think he saw limitations. I think he just sees a big world out there and wants to get as big a piece of it as he can.”

“I don’t care about making loads of money or acquiring an executive title … I just want to be able to go home after a hard day of work and say to myself that what I do for a living has helped many people.”

Pradere graduated in May 2010 from the Tallahassee campus and then moved to St. Augustine to work at the main campus as a data analyst in the Information Technology office. He applied for admission to Harvard’s extension school to pursue a master’s of liberal arts with a concentration in finance. He will take online courses as well as classes on campus.

One of his reasons for choosing Harvard was the students — those who tackle the impossible, Pradere said. “I can’t help but to feel charged and motivated to do great things when I hear success stories of hard-working people,” he said.

He plans to take at least six online courses this spring and then move to Boston to finish his degree on campus.

When thinking of going to Harvard, Pradere has a mix of emotions. He said he ranges from proud and eager to challenged and anxious.

Even though Pradere is planning to take his time, he is looking toward the future and one day solving some of the issues he faced in Brownsville.

Deborah Spear Castillo, ’83, certainly knows what it’s like to climb the corporate ladder, not to mention the world of five-star travel.

In the summer of 2010, she was named vice president of hotel sales for Loews Hotels, one of the country’s top luxury lodging companies with 19 hotels located in the United States and Canada.

Castillo, who joined Loews in 1999 and has more than 24 years of industry experience, will now focus her efforts on sales, advertising, public relations and revenue management for hotels on the East Coast and Canada.

That will be a big task, especially as the recession continues to affect hotel companies like Loews.

“Managing through this economic downturn has been the most difficult time of my career,” she said. “The travel and tourism industry has been impacted by the recession, with some of our hotels having been hit harder than others, depending on the destination, but all have been affected one way or another.”

At first, Castillo thought the current recession would be similar to the one after 9/11, and the industry would rebound within a year or so. But as time went on, it became clear that the road to full economic recovery would be longer than expected.

“We do see positive change (in the past quarter of 2010), and we are optimistic for 2011,” Castillo said.

She’s excited about the challenges of the new position and considers it the highlight of her career.

“Besides getting to stay in some great hotels, I enjoy going to work every day and getting to work with some terrific people,” she said. “Also, I have an opportunity to meet interesting people.”

In fact, from the very start of Castillo’s career, she’s been bumping elbows with celebrities, including Shaquille O’Neal, Billy Joel, Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse and George Harrison, to name a few.

Another perk of the job includes the travel from one luxury hotel to the next. “While I am based out of the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in South Beach, I travel to our home office in New York on a regular basis,” she said.

Castillo graduated from Flagler College uncertain about her plans. But after holding a customer service position in Palm Coast, Fla., she moved on into the hotel industry, first with Sheraton and later to Loews in Miami, where the company credits her with the successful relaunch the Loews Miami Beach Hotel after a $50 million renovation.

“Debbie has done a tremendous job for Loews Hotels throughout the years, guiding the marketing efforts of her regional hotels, as well as leading Loews Hotels International effort,” said Felicia Fisher, senior vice president sales and strategic planning at Loews Hotels. “As Vice President of Hotel Sales her expertise will be a vital part of developing and executing our company’s sales and marketing initiatives.”

When Troy Blevins took a job with St. Johns County Recreation and Parks, he never thought it would lead to hobnobbing with big time celebrities like Ringo Starr, Aretha Franklin and Toby Keith. Blevins, ‘89, just wanted to help the county by creating youth sports programs.

“I figured I’d be in the gym and be ‘Coach Troy’ for the rest of my life,” the 43-year-old admits. “I didn’t think I’d be the guy in charge of 43 miles of beaches, 4,500 acres of parks and all of the boat ramps. And I definitely didn’t think I’d be running a concert venue.”

A few years ago, Blevins was named Director of St. Johns County Recreation and Parks, putting him in charge of nine departments including the Cultural Events Division, which oversees the St. Augustine Amphitheatre — one of the top outdoor venues in the country.

But it wasn’t always celebs and accolades. Blevins spent years getting to that point. He got his start at Flagler College. Born and bred an hour south in DeLand, he came to the Oldest City in 1987 to play baseball for the Saints and pursue a degree in recreation management.

Just before graduation, a man named Leon Shimer came to speak in one of his classes. He was so impressed by the senior that he asked him to interview for a county position. “I gave him my resume and I pretty much had the job that day,” Blevins remembers. “I started working with the county just a few weeks after graduation.”

Over the past three decades, Blevins has worn numerous hats. He’s hosted national softball tournaments, created successful after-school and summer programs, constructed parks and coached thousands of kids throughout St. Johns County.

He was named director in 2006, just a few months before the county started looking at how to manage the newly revamped outdoor amphitheatre. “When they decided to keep it in-house,” Blevins said, “no one else had really done any major events.”

Blevins’ experience with national softball tournaments and other sporting events helped prepare him for the new gig. But hosting big name musical acts and cultural events quickly proved itself a horse of a different color. So the county hired General Manager Ryan Dettra, himself a 2000 alumnus, and nearly a half-dozen other Flagler alumni to run the 4,100-seat venue.

In October of 2007, Little Richard was the first big show promoted by the amphitheatre staff. People were excited, but apprehensive that the venue would have a shelf life. Blevins and crew didn’t disappoint.

Over the past three years, they’ve brought legends like James Taylor and the Steve Miller Band, indie acts like The Decemberists and My Morning Jacket, and family-friendly events like the Golden Dragon Acrobats, the Saturday Farmers Market and Winter Wonderland — complete with an ice skating rink and nightly snow.

The amphitheatre has surpassed every expectation. It’s consistently ranked in the top five for best outdoor venue by Pollstar Magazine with more than 70,000 tickets sold and a total industry impact of $8.1 million. Blevins and his crew are working to make it No. 1.