The students were from the Aviles School of Art, and the restoration marked the start of a relationship between Flagler and the Spanish school.

Maria Sedano, head of the painting restoration department in Aviles, oversaw the technical work of six students. She said they’ve all had about three years of education and many have recently completed degrees in art restoration.

The dining hall’s murals — which are more than a century old — had minor damage caused by paint peeling away from the plaster beneath. The dining hall is part of the former Ponce de Leon Hotel, which was completed in 1888 by Henry Flagler and is today a National Historic Landmark.

Don Martin, Flagler art and design professor, said the murals haven’t been touched up for almost a decade. The first major restoration was done in the 1980s.

“We thought this was something our art department does not offer, and it would establish a mutually beneficial experience,” Martin said. “The city and the college wanted
to establish cultural exchanges … Next summer we hope to have a relationship with their graphic design program.”

When his team suffered back-to-back losses to open the season, Flagler soccer Coach John Lynch knew some changes were in order, especially after a 6-1 loss in their second game.

“In the second game of the season we played dreadful. We lost 6-1,” Lynch said. “We had to do something dramatic and we did that weekend in trying to wake the group up. We made massive changes in personnel and we made a big change in tactics.”

The changes prompted a new beginning for Flagler, and the Saints went on to reel off wins in 11 of their final 14 regular-season games. Their mid-season surge included six wins in seven conference games, and they secured the Peach Belt Conference regular-season championship on Halloween with a 3-1 win over conference power Francis Marion on Flagler Field.

“Everyone was so excited that we finally made it into a conference and had something to play for. Being able to win it the first year was an amazing feeling,” said junior goaltender Matt Gilman, who finished his first season at Flagler with 14 victories and six shutouts.

Entering the season, Flagler’s coaches and players knew very little about their Peach Belt Conference foes. But when preseason rankings were released and the Saints saw themselves ranked seventh in a nine-team conference, they were both excited and motivated.

For Lynch, the year also brought an important milestone — he notched his 100th win as Flagler’s coach against North Georgia and was named Peach Belt Conference Coach of the Year.

Flagler moved into the NCAA Division II National Tournament ranked fifth in their region, but fell 4-0 to Wingate in the regional quarterfinals.

“We did a lot of good things,” Lynch said about the season. “We faced a lot of unknowns and to come out as champions and do it in the style we did, it was really, really satisfying.”

For years, Flagler College Professor of Education Carl Williams has worked overtime teaching deaf education to his students for one simple reason: There was never a single comprehensive textbook written for instructors in deaf education.

That prompted him to write “No Limits,” a first-of-its-kind instructional textbook on deaf education that correlates with the Council on Educating the Deaf standards and the Educational Content Standards in Deaf Education.

“These standards are important because they ensure that deaf students fully learn the content of subjects such as math, science and social studies,” Williams said.

The textbook was released in 2009 by Butte Publications.

For many years, teaching those standards and how to apply them in an instructional setting has been difficult due to the lack of books with good visual aids, activities and case studies. So, after years of creating his own syllabi using many different journals and books related to special or deaf education, Williams decided to write a textbook that would embody all of this information.

“In the past students have been asked to browse through journals for information and many of these journals were just broad special education issues. Some were even outdated,” he said. “I felt this was a very unwieldy way of approaching this particular issue.”

So Williams came up with a better way to present the course information to his students: He began posting his own tailor-made chapters online a week prior to discussions. “I just followed the guidelines of both sets of standards combined with my research from other sources and created my own teaching material,” he said. “When it came time to present my material to the publishers, I took everything that I had researched and used for my courses and presented it to them. They loved it.”

Williams, a 1977 Flagler College graduate, was inspired to write “No Limits” for other reasons. “It is very difficult, yet important, to be able to teach deaf students a fact, concept or skill,” he said. “At one seminar I attended, I heard other professors lamenting about lack of information in this area, and I made it a point to include it in my book.”

Williams said his 14 years of teaching the deaf and hard of hearing at The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind helped in the writing of his book. “Many of the successes that I had in the classroom at FSDB gave me insight into the types of approaches and practices that would be effective with deaf and hard of hearing students,” he said.

This is not the first book written by Williams for deaf education. In 2006, Butte – a publishing company that specializes in deaf education books – published “It All Depends,” a case study book in deaf education. He will now be using both books together to teach his courses.

The CASE District III Awards encompass the Southeast U.S. and is the second largest district in the CASE family with more than 4,000 members.

Johnson joined scholars from around the world at the conference, “Religiosity and Civilization, Religious Forms of Identity,” which was hosted by the university’s Department of Medieval Studies. He was one of only two Americans invited to attend — the other was from Princeton University.

“It’s very, very important for someone like myself to be able to present the results of my research to an international group of peers to hear from them their critiques,” Johnson said. “For me it was very, very rewarding.”

The conference was about the construction of religious identity in the middle ages, and Johnson was asked to present a paper on the stories of St. Francis composed by St. Bonaventure, who was one of the premier theologians of the Franciscan Order.

“I’ve done a lot of work on the writings about the saints,” said Johnson, who said for the last year he has been focusing his research on how the recounting of those stories over time, by various institutions, helped to form identity.

Johnson, a Fulbright Scholar, is also working to bring a research conference to Flagler in 2011 that will be called, “From La Florida to La California: The Genesis and Realization of Franciscan Evangelization in the Spanish Borderlands.” He said the conference will coincide with celebrations for St. Augustine’s 450th anniversary and should attract several well-known scholars from North American and Europe.

“I have a lot of respect for journalists in Latin America,” he said. “They deal with challenges that a lot of Americans never see in the United States. Their lives are threatened. They’re sometimes shot, killed and tortured.”

Which is why Eaton felt it was so important to help lead a workshop on investigative journalism this past September. Investigative Reporters & Editors, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving the quality of investigative journalism, sponsored the workshop at the Universidad San Francisco Xavier in Sucre, Bolivia.

About 80 journalists and journalism students — who came from TV, radio, and newspapers — participated in the two-and-a-half-day workshop.

Eaton said the workshop was designed to help journalists learn many of the investigative reporting techniques that go on in other countries, including finding documents, using the Internet for information and interviewing techniques.

“Developing countries are in need of investigative reporting to help strengthen their democracies,” he said. “That kind of reporting is really needed to keep the politicians honest and to try and tell the taxpayers what’s going on.

“Bolivia is a country where this is a lot of political and economic turmoil. It’s one of the poorest countries in Latin America. … To me it’s a fertile ground for investigative journalism.”

Eaton is a former correspondent for the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle who has reported extensively from Mexico and Latin America. He served as the Havana bureau chief from 2000 to 2005 for the Morning News.

College President William T. Abare Jr. recently approved the updates after a study of existing logos and visuals used by the college. Abare says the need to redesign was largely driven by confusion over which college logo was the “official” visual identity.

“It became clear to me that we need a single, universal College logo,” Abare said.

The college has chosen a logo that reflects the best of Flagler’s heritage, history and traditions. At the same time, it also attaches itself to the hearts of the Flagler College family by retaining a part of one of Flagler’s previous logos that students, faculty, staff and alumni have embraced over the years: the rampant lion.

“We found that many of our constituents have a deep-seeded attachment to the lion, but we also knew it wasn’t distinctly Flagler,” Abare said.

For that reason, the new logo combines the familiar rampant lion with a new shield element that signifies strength and stability.

“We now have a logo that truly reflects the prestige of Flagler College,” Abare said.

Also, the school colors were updated from the yellow and red of the Spanish flag to a more sophisticated crimson and gold. A warm gray was added as an accent color to provide additional depth and to permit some flexibility for the athletic teams, who were looking to achieve a more consistent color scheme for uniforms and facilities.

The changes will go into effect on March 1. The athletic teams will also roll out a new logo later this year using the new Flagler crimson and gold.

“We started with a staff of 30 students and about 10 community volunteers,” McCook said. The station originally broadcasted 12 hours a day, seven days a week. It went to broadcasting 17 hours a day, six months later. And then, about six years ago, it started broadcasting 24 hours a day.

Flagler College alumna Nancy (Demato) Thompson, ‘95, was an on-air personality for WFCF from 1994 to 1998.

Thompson said the differences between WFCF now and WFCF in the mid to late ‘90s are vast.

“It was much simpler times,” she said. “We started out with a small inventory of CDs. We used vinyl. I don’t even know if the station has a record player anymore.”

Thompson hasn’t been to the station in over a year and half but can still recall the look of the old station. “It’s much fancier now than it was then,” she said. “It looks more professional, but I think it always sounded professional.”

Some things will never change. Thompson still recalls how professional the radio station was from the very beginning. “I thought, ‘Wow this guy [McCook] is for real. He’s going to run this like it’s a radio station and not a bunch of kids playing whatever they want,’ ” she said. “We always knew it expanded past the college campus. So we always treated it as so.”

Flagler College radio station, WFCF 88.5FM has acquired a hefty fan base. One of those fans is actor Bill Murray, pictured here recording a station identification spot for WFCF.

Today, WFCF: Radio With A Reason, is on air 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. “It does not stop,” McCook said. “Students stay over the holidays. Students stay over the summer – for no credit hours at all – to get broadcast experience.”

That dedication has pulled off for WFCF, people are listening.

“[WFCF is] huge for a college radio station,” McCook said. “We are 10,000 watts, reaching a potential listening audience of a half million people. Our latest ARBITRON ratings put WFCF’s listenership at 42,000 listeners a week. This is real over here.”

Tyler Grimes is one of WFCF’s music directors. He is in charge of the music department. Grimes is a senior communication major and advertising and history minor. He has been working for WFCF since Spring 2008.

“We run the music library,” Grimes said. “When we get music into the station from record labels and bands, we review the music and then we decide whether or not we’re going to play it on air.”

Grimes said there are many different factors in choosing a song to go on air. “If it’s right for our station, if it’s cohesive to our sound,” Grimes said. “If we feel it’s going to be popular for our audience. If it’s clean, no profanity, no excessive violence.”

WFCF will not play songs with excessive violence or profanity. They have the technology to edit the songs, but they try not to do that too often.

Since starting at WFCF, Grimes has seen a few changes in their sound. “We have tried to make the station a little bit more contemporary, more of a mainstream sound,” Grimes said. “Before, we played a lot more independent music. A lot of it is good, but we changed in order to stay competitive. This is what they want. We are a lot more selective.”

McCook credits two main reasons to the creation of WFCF: “We’re an aide to the communication department – education; secondly, public relations for the institution.”

The radio station allows students to fine tune their radio presence. Several skills are needed for radio and the station’s students are some of the most skillful.

McCook said, “organization is paramount” in the music department. There is also a promotions department where students promote the radio station.

For on-air presence there is one must-needed skill: “The gift of gab – being able to communicate with that listener,” McCook said. “Learning to talk to the listener and not at the listener.”

“Production – the art of recording,” McCook continued. “Creativity is what radio is all about, boring don’t sell. How do you communicate to a listener in 30- to 60-second time increments a message? Do it in a way they’re going to pay attention to it.” Students that are working in production gain a wealth of knowledge from the radio station.

Students who are interested in sports broadcasting in particular, need to know the sport. “They paint a word picture for the listener of what’s happening at the game,” McCook said. “You got to have enthusiasm and action. You got to get in there and tell them what’s happening so they actually think they’re at the game.”

According to McCook, Flagler College President William T. Abare Jr., has always wanted the college to have a radio station. “Dr. Abare has very adeptly put that a radio station for a COM department is like a gymnasium for an athletic department,” McCook said. “You put into practical application what you learn in the classroom.”

As for the future, McCook is not worried. “Fortunately, we have the support of the administration so it’s not like we can’t pay the light bill so we have to shut down,” McCook said, “My prognostication is that AM Radio will stay what AM Radio is. FM Radio – which traditionally, because of a clearer signal, is music – will go mostly talk. And that’s already happening.”

WFCF Exclusive: Celebrity Liners

“It was my first step into photography,” Eaton said.  “After I got the Fulbright grant, I knew it was time for me to get a camera.”

So he purchased a Canon AE-1 and set out to document his experiences.  He traveled throughout the country on foot or by canoe, sleeping on the dirt floors of huts belonging to the various tribe members he was studying.

“I was there to study their culture and beliefs before they die out and people forget them,” he said.  “Through photography, I could capture that moment in time.”

While Eaton’s passion for photojournalism is surely diverse, not all of the moments he’s captured have been pleasant.  While working for The Tampa Tribune after studying in Ecuador, Eaton volunteered to cover a story on the 1985 volcanic eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Armero, Colombia.  The eruption and preceding mudslide killed more than 20,000 people and buried nearly the entire town. 

“That is the biggest, most memorable thing I’ve covered,” Eaton said.

While Eaton’s photographs of the incident have faded over time, the memories still remain clear.

“It was horrific.  I remember dogs running around fighting over human skulls,” he said.  “It definitely left an impression.  I can still see it in my mind.”

As Eaton’s career began to develop, his love of photojournalism merged with his love of travel.  While working as a reporter for The Orange County Register, he spent four months in Mexico investigating underage drinking, which led to increased enforcement and several public awareness campaigns.  Police chased him sneaking across the California-Mexico border while covering illegal immigrant communities.  As a foreign correspondent for The Dallas Morning News, he covered breaking news stories on organized crime, drugs and political issues in Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica.  But after leading/co-authoring five Pulitzer Prize contest entries and working as the metropolitan editor for the Houston Chronicle, Eaton decided it was time for a change. 

Eaton began his employment at Flagler College in 2007, teaching several classes in the communication department, including photojournalism.  Teaching provided him with an opportunity to expand his career, as well as inspire future journalism and photography students. 

“It doesn’t mean that I’ve lost my passion, ” Eaton said of his transition from investigative photojournalism to teaching.  “Its important that I keep doing it so I can be a better help to students- I don’t want to be telling stories about what happened 20 years ago.”

Since his first encounter with photojournalism in 1981, more then 4,000 of his photos have been published in print or online.  Some of the stories he’s told through his photographs may be dated, but they haven’t lost their brilliance.  Eaton has told the stories of outlaws, rebels, criminals and outcasts.  He has documented the lives of people living on the edge of society and given voices to those who have been silenced.  His colorful, honest and often emotional photos have a sense of depth that transcends the written word.

“If someone looks at a picture and wants to know more–if you can provoke thought–then you are making a difference,” Eaton said. 

In addition to teaching at Flagler, Eaton works as a freelance writer and photojournalist for several different print and Internet publications.  His blog, Along the Malecon, which has been online since 2008, features stories and photos from Cuba and has received 127,873 hits from visitors in 169 countries. Eaton is also currently working on a photo book about Cuban Harley-Davidson riders, and is planning a trip to Cuba in the near future. 

“I spend a good amount of time figuring out ways to get out in the field, because I love reporting and taking pictures” he said.  “It nourishes my soul and my mind, and that’s really what matters.”

PHOTO: Lauren Belcher (left) looks on as Cal Colgan jails Victoria Van Arnam for breaking the rules at Flagler College’s Society of Professional Journalists chapter’s First Amendment Free Food Festival. Flagler’s SPJ chapter held the event to show students what life would be like without the First Amendment.
Photo by Brenna Antram

Under Young’s leadership, Flagler SPJ members turned a section of the college campus into a “communist” nation, “The People’s Republic of St. Augustine.” SPJ fed event-goers free food but they had to sign away their First Amendment rights first.

The event’s main goal was to demonstrate for students the importance of the First Amendment.

“This is what life would be like without the First Amendment,” Young said.

The communist regime, led by Young and fellow SPJ officers, dictated all activities inside the People’s Republic of St. Augustine’s bright yellow caution tape borders.

“Citizens” who disobeyed were jailed. Those who behaved were rewarded.

“It was bizarre, what was going on,” Young said. “It was just a normal day on campus. People were walking around and they were like, ‘What the heck?’ ”

The regime marched throughout the republic in full-fledged camouflage with batons and shields. The dictators even lit up cigars.

“The cigars made us look more hardcore,” Young said.

Flagler SPJ adviser Dr. Helena Sarkio said the FAFF impressed her and that she saw it as a way to get more student involvement in the organization.

“I hope it made a lot of people realize how lucky they are,” Young said.

Young said nearly 100 students gave their rights away at the FAFF, which almost doubled her goal of getting 50 students to participate.

“A lot of students were scared or a little bit hesitant to enter our republic,” Young said. “People were a lot more hesitant than I thought they were going to be.”

Sarkio said future Flagler SPJ events include showing local Boys and Girls Club chapter children the journalism facilities at Flagler and the regional SPJ conference in March.