Glass-Bottom Goals 26
For years, Paula Russo has been on a mission to provide a handicapped-accessible glass-bottom boat to Silver Springs. This summer, her long-awaited dream finally came true. BY RICHARD ANGUIANO • PHOTOS BY JOHN JERNIGAN
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or decades, Paula Russo took visiting family members and friends to Silver Springs and enjoyed the park’s natural beauty with them—up to a point. Russo, who contracted polio as a baby in the early 1950s, could only watch as others boarded glass-bottom boats, the signature attraction at Silver Springs. The boats were built decades before the Americans with Disabilities Act and are inaccessible to patrons in wheelchairs. A longtime environmental advocate and an employee of the Florida State Parks Foundation, Russo says she has never experienced
OCALA’S GOOD LIFE retirement redefined
