Emerald Coast Magazine October/November 2021 by Rowland Publishing, Inc.

2021 B E ST OF T H E E M E R A L D COA ST R E SU LTS A R E I N

THE GULF

Writers reflect on the natural feature that unites us all

KIND SOUL

Lynn Haven man finds joy in giving while battling ALS disease

POP DREAMS living out her

With hooks and looks, Skylar Capri catches on

ARCHITECT: GEOFF CHICK & ASSOCIATES | PHOTOGR APHY: JACK GARDNER

Your Dream Home Is Our Passssiion

THE PRIDE OF A MASTER CR AFTSMAN When old-world craft meets new-world technology, an unprecedented level of quality is birthed. At E. F. San Juan, the quality and long-term function of our woodwork are the keys to creating elements that will transform a house into your dream home.

EFSANJUAN.COM

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December 2020–January 2021 2020

COME FOR THE

view food STAY FOR THE

Named "Best Fine Dining" by Visit South Walton Voters

Since opening their doors in 1971, Vue on 30a showcases one of the most panoramic dining experiences on the Gulf. Vue has claimed its fair share of accolades with its fresh approach to dining with delicious menus thoughtfully designed by a culinary team of experts.

Reservations Recommended vueon30a.com | 850.267.2305

October-November 2021

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October-November 2021

E’S N

EM ER

2021

BEST TH

Thank you

OAST MAG AZ DC I AL

ERALD C O

for voting us BEST OF THE EMERALD COAST SPECIALTY PET SERVICES/PRODUCTS

October-November 2021

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Off Leash K9 Training Dog Obedience Training Results That Last Pro trainers that care with proven results Our training technique works for dogs of all ages, breeds, and sizes Serving Santa Rosa Beach, Okaloosa, Walton and Bay Counties (850) 865-3355 30A@OLK9.COM 30ADOGTRAINERS.COM

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October-November 2021

Paradise has arrived ON THE EMERALD COAST

LIVE THE LIFE YOU’VE DREAMED AT LATITUDE MARGARITAVILLE WATERSOUND! Sunshine and cool breezes. Palm trees and margaritas. Welcome to Latitude Margaritaville, a 55-and-better community inspired by the legendary music and lifestyle of Jimmy Buffett, built on food, fun, music and escapism. Escape to the place where fun and relaxation meet. Escape to island-inspired living as you grow older, but not up. Escape to Latitude Margaritaville Watersound, located on the Emerald Coast on Florida’s Panhandle. New Homes from the mid $200s

Sales center and 13 models open daily

Latitude Margaritaville Watersound (866) 220-1954

9201 Highway 79, Panama City Beach, FL 32413 Mon. - Sat. 9:00am - 5:00pm | Sun. 11:00am - 5:00pm

Visit online for more information LatitudeMargaritaville.com

Obtain the Property Report required by Federal law and read it before signing anything. No Federal agency has judged the merits or value, if any, of this property. WARNING: THE CALIFORNIA BUREAU OF REAL ESTATE HAS NOT INSPECTED, EXAMINED, OR QUALIFIED THE OFFERINGS. Latitude Margaritaville Kentucky Registration Number R-201. For NY Residents: THE COMPLETE OFFERING TERMS FOR THE SALE OF LOTS ARE IN THE CPS-12 APPLICATION AVAILABLE FROM SPONSOR, LMWS, LLC. FILE NO. CP20-0062. Pennsylvania Registration Number OL001182. Latitude Margaritaville Watersound is registered with the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Real Estate Brokers and Salesmen, 1000 Washington Street, Suite 710, Boston, MA 02118 and with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20552. This material shall not constitute a valid offer in any state where prior registration is required and has not been completed. The facilities and amenities described are proposed but not yet constructed. Photographs are for illustrative purposes only and are merely representative of current development plans. Development plans, amenities, facilities, dimensions, specifications, prices and features depicted by artists renderings or otherwise described herein are approximate and subject to change without notice. ©Minto Communities, LLC 2021. All rights reserved. Content may not be reproduced, copied, altered, distributed, stored, or transferred in any form or by any means without express written permission. Latitude Margaritaville and the Latitude Margaritaville logo are trademarks of Margaritaville Enterprises, LLC and are used under license. Minto and the Minto logo are trademarks of Minto Communities, LLC and/or its affiliates. St. Joe and the St. Joe logo are trademarks of The St. Joe Company and are used under license. CGC 1519880/CGC 120919. 2021

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

Contents

OCT/NOV 2021

FEATURES

BEST OF THE EMERALD COAST

There are big developers about, of course, but the Emerald Coast, in the main, is made up of small businesses who get to know their customers and strive to burnish their reputations by delivering outstanding products, experiences and services that exceed expectations. Those who succeed that way take their places among the winners in the Best of the Emerald Coast reader’s poll conducted annually by Emerald Coast Magazine and Rowland Publishing. Finishing atop one of the many categories that make up the competition is no small feat. Northwest Florida attracts chefs, artisans, artists, entertainers, retailers, business professionals and service providers from around the country, effectively making Best of the Emerald Coast much more than a local competition. This year’s winners include artist Brendan Parker, left, who creates many-layered works of mixed media and epoxy resins. How many layers? He stops when a piece looks right.

ONLY ONE GULF

PHOTO BY ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS: THROUGH-MY-LENS

Two anglers lower baits to a proven spot on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Their rigs are identical: 8-ounce sinkers, 5/0 circle hooks and whole cigar minnows. For as long as the bite is on, one angler boats a grouper with every drop. The other can’t tempt so much as a squirrel fish. How come? Bob Jones, the retired longtime executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association, believes the Gulf has a way of rewarding folks with good karma. Temperament may have as much to do with success as technique. Maybe. Despite humankind’s various assaults upon her, the Gulf has retained an unsullied mystique that infects all who leave her shores and stays with them when they return. It’s little wonder that we have assigned to the Gulf magical, medicinal powers. Jones and another couple of essayists recount experiences with a natural wonder that was mother to much of what they’ve become. by STEVE BORNHOFT, ROBERT P. JONES and JOHN S. SLEDGE

photography by MICHAEL BOOINI

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

Contents

OCT/NOV 2021

52 140 GREEN SCENE With a

32 25 EDUCATION Prof.

Jocelyn Evans sees America’s longstanding constitutional republic as a remarkable success threatened by today’s divisiveness.

32 PERSONALITY Dean

Walton had plans to travel the country on his prized Harley when he retired. First a hurricane and then Lou Gehrig’s disease kept him off the road.

56 WHAT’S IN STORE

Treat your locks to a blowout, pause for a playa bowl and pig out on desserts at Sugar Buzzed.

GASTRO & GUSTO

61 LIBATIONS Old World

libations have come to Pensacola’s East Garden District. The Well, handsomely designed and beautifully appointed, offers a stunning blend of sophistication.

PANACHE

47 FASHION Headlines,

68 DINING OUT The Citizen

restaurant seeks to become an integral part of the Alys Beach community while offering specialties including charred Spanish octopus.

76 HOME COOKIN’ From

pond to table: Fresh bream right out of the fryer are so sweet and tasty, no one can eat just one — even if you load up on the hush puppies and slaw.

EXPRESSION

111 MUSIC For a singer-

songwriter with escapist

lyrics who has achieved overnight TikTok stardom, Skylar Capri of Destin has remained remarkably well grounded. Bush’s latest novel, As I Watched You Go, is set in Grayton Beach and explores issues of loss.

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER EDITOR'S LETTER SOCIAL STUDIES DINING GUIDE POSTSCRIPT

2021 B E ST OF T H E E M E R A L D COA ST R E SU LTS A R E I N

118 BOOKS Author Craig

THE GULF

Writers reflect on the natural feature that unites us all

KIND SOUL

Lynn Haven man finds joy in giving while battling ALS disease

POP DREAMS living out her

ABODES

130 EXTERIORS The advent

of high-tech backyards may bring an end to charcoal briquettes, lighter fluid and kitchen matches. Robo-mowers? You bet.

123

popular culture and the horrifying world of politics are all likely to influence Halloween costume selections this year. Many folks find costume components at thrift shops.

20 154 157 162

» DR. JOCELYN EVANS » THE CITIZEN » THE WELL

38 CHAMPION Randy

52 CITIZEN OF STYLE

Savannah Rae St. Jean has won an international award for her work as a stylist and has graced the pages of several highend publications.

18 FROM THE

DEAN PYLES

Pyles, a winner of numerous martial arts championships, is at work on a movie about adult bullying — the victim fights back.

IN EVERY ISSUE

INTERIORS

Japandi, a new home design style, melds Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics.

With hooks and looks, Skylar Capri catches on

ON THE COVER:

As school kids, singersongwriter Skylar Capri and videographer Keno Manuel promised one another that they would make beautiful music videos together someday. That has happened in a big way. Capri’s debut solo, Sway!, and its accompanying video, which was shot in Destin, have attracted hundreds of thousands of hits. Suddenly, social media have become more than a nagging distraction. They are central to her emerging business and vehicles for the dissemination of her luscious and irresistible melodies. PHOTO BY SEAN MURPHY

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

PHOTOS BY MIKE FENDER (52), MICHAEL BOOINI (68), MARI DARR~WELCH (32) AND COURTESY OF DESIGN MUSEUM DENMARK (123)

THE WAVE

little bit of luck and a mild winter, gardeners can hope to harvest an extra crop of veggies.

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

December 2020–January 2021 2020

Contents

OCT/NOV 2021

SPECIAL SECTIONS AND PROMOTIONS

THRIVING AT 75

White-Wilson Medical Center celebrates a monumental 75 years of healing and helping patients throughout Northwest Florida. From its humble beginnings to today’s multiple locations, White-Wilson’s commitment to extraordinary care has been constant.

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US

BEST OF THE EMERALD COAST THREE YEARS iN A ROW!

FOUR THE PEOPLE

Agency Four is North Florida’s only single-agency brokerage specializing in business and real estate transactions. Their are focused exclusively on their clients.

GETTING IN SHAPE Aqua

Medical Spa offers a cool new procedure, CoolSculpting, which transforms and reshapes body fat.

RAISE A GLASS The Destin Charity Wine Auction

BEST GROUPER SANDWICH 2021 BEST OYSTERS 2020 + BEST TUNA DIP 2019, 2020

2019-2021

134

SHADES UP When you’ve had enough of the sun’s rays, McNeill Palm is there to provide the shade. For indoors and outdoors, McNeill Palm specializes in “shady” solutions.

142

CELEBRATIONS

Enliven your holiday season with festivals, concerts, theatrical performances, light shows and more.

WWW.SHUNKGULLEY.COM 12

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

152

BAY ALL DAY

Spend sunrise to sundown at the lovely Village of Baytowne Wharf where you can shop, dine and attend events.

Gift Guide: Something under NEXT ISSUE Holiday the tree for everyone on your list. PROMOTION

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WHITE-WILSON MEDICAL CENTER (36) AND MCNEILL PALM (134)

Foundation’s Harvest Wine & Food Festival features a cornucopia of premier wines and epicurean delights all in the name of philanthropy.

MICHAEL L. YANDEL, MD, FACC, FSCAI Interventional Cardiologist JUAN C. ZARATE, MD, FACC, FSCAI Interventional Cardiologist ANTHONY S. AL-DEHNEH, DO, FACC, FSCAI Interventional Cardiologist GEORGE A. YOUSSEF, MD, FACC, FSCAI Interventional Cardiologist ANGEL D. MORROBEL, MD, FACC Invasive Cardiologist AJIT H. JANARDHAN, MD, PhD, FACC, FHRS Cardiac Electrophysiology IAN L. WEISBERG, MD, FACC, FHRS, Cardiac Electrophysiology

Best Cardiologist

Dr. Ian Weisberg, Board Certified Cardiac Electrophysiologist and your AFIB Specialist Now accepting new patients in our Destin office. Providing Expertise and Patient Tailored Therapy: Catheter Ablation and Medical Management of Atrial Fibrillation Watchman Implantation for Stroke Risk Reduction Pacemakers, Defibrillators and Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Diagnosis and Management of Palpitations and Syncope Catheter Ablation of SVT, PVCs, Flutter and Ventricular Tachycardia

DESTIN 36468 Emerald Coast Parkway Suite 1101 Destin, FL 32541 (850) 424-5638

NICEVILLE 552 Twin Cities Boulevard Suite A Niceville, FL 32578 (850) 279-4426

FORT WALTON BEACH 1032 Mar Walt Drive Suite 110 Fort Walton Beach, FL 32547 (850) 862-1753

OkaloosaHeart.com

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CRESTVIEW 129 Redstone Ave. Suite A Crestview, FL 32539 (850) 682-7212

December 2020–January 2021 2020

EMERALD COAST MAGAZINE

VOL. 22, NO. 5

OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2021

PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER BRIAN E. ROWLAND ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER MCKENZIE BURLEIGH

EDITORIAL

WE ARE NORTH FLORIDA’S ONLY EXCLUSIVE SINGLE AGENCY BROKERAGE AND CONSULTING FIRM SINGLE AGENTS

TRANSACTIONAL AGENTS

CONFIDENTIALITY

OBEDIENCE

LOYALTY

FULL DISCLOSURE

Held to a Higher Standard by Florida Statute for your Real Estate advantage

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Steve Bornhoft SENIOR STAFF WRITER Emma Witmer STAFF WRITER Hannah Burke CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Fred Garth, Les Harrison, Lis King, Robert P. Jones, Thomas J. Monigan, Rebecca Padgett Frett, Wynn Parks, Liesel Schmidt, John S. Sledge

CREATIVE VICE PRESIDENT / PRODUCTION AND TECHNOLOGY Daniel Vitter CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jennifer Ekrut ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Lindsey Masterson SENIOR PUBLICATION DESIGNERS Sarah Burger, Shruti Shah PUBLICATION DESIGNER Jordan Harrison GRAPHIC DESIGNER Sierra Thomas CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Alissa Aryn Photo, Michael Booini, Mari Darr~Welch, Mike Fender, Steven Gray, John Harrington, Lindsey Masterson, Max Impact Photography, Kay Phelan, Sean Murphy, Saige Roberts

SALES, MARKETING AND EVENTS SALES MANAGER, WESTERN DIVISION Rhonda Lynn Murray SALES MANAGER, EASTERN DIVISION Lori Magee Yeaton DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, WESTERN DIVISION Dan Parker DIRECTOR OF NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, EASTERN DIVISION Daniel Parisi ADVERTISING SERVICES SPECIALIST Tracy Mulligan ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Julie Dorr, Darla Harrison DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Zandra Wolfgram SALES AND MARKETING WRITER Rebecca Padgett Frett SENIOR INTEGRATED MARKETING COORDINATOR Javis Ogden ADMINISTRATIVE & CUSTOMER SERVICE SPECIALIST Renee Johnson

OPERATIONS CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER Sara Goldfarb CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE/AD SERVICE COORDINATOR Sarah Coven CUSTOM PUBLISHING EDITOR Jeff Price PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION SPECIALIST Melinda Lanigan ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT Amber Dennard

DIGITAL SERVICES DIGITAL EDITOR Janecia Britt

EMERALD COAST MAGAZINE emeraldcoastmagazine.com facebook.com/emeraldcoast twitter.com/emeraldcoastmag instagram.com/emeraldcoastmag pinterest.com/emeraldcoastmag youtube.com/user/emeraldcoastmag ROWLAND PUBLISHING rowlandpublishing.com

EDITORIAL OFFICE 1932 Miccosukee Road, Tallahassee, FL 32308. (850) 878-0554

CHAD KITTRELL (850) 570-0604 | ck@agency4re.com Equal Housing Opportunity, Agency 4 Real Estate and Consulting, LLC

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SUBSCRIPTIONS One year (6 issues) is $30. Call (850) 878-0554 or go online to emeraldcoastmagazine.com. Single copies are $3.95. Purchase at Barnes and Noble in Destin and Pensacola and Books-A-Million in Destin, Fort Walton Beach, Panama City and Pensacola. Availability may change subject to COVID-19 restrictions. CUSTOMER SERVICE & SUBMISSIONS Emerald Coast Magazine and Rowland Publishing, Inc. are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. Editorial contributions are welcomed and encouraged but will not be returned. Emerald Coast Magazine reserves the right to publish any letters to the editor. Copyright October 2021 Emerald Coast Magazine Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited.

THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING US FOR BEST OF THE EMERALD COAST

DESTIN

FORT WALTON BEACH

GRAYTON BEACH

383 HARBOR BLVD DESTIN, FL 32541 850.460.2250

158 MIRACLE STRIP PKWY SE FORT WALTON BEACH, FL 32548 850.203.0400

32 E COUNTY HIGHWAY 30A SANTA ROSA BEACH, FL 32459 850.344.9286

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December 2020–January 2021 2020

YOU BRING OUT THE IN US!

best

Thank you for voting Proffitt PR Best Public Relations/Advertising Firm on the Emerald Coast Best Public Relations Firm 2018-2021 Best Event Planner 2018-2021 Best New Business 2012

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Best Public Relations/Advertising Firm 2015-2018, 2020, 2021 Best Event Planning Firm 2015-2018, 2020

ProffittPR.com

THANK YOU FOR VOTING BRACKEN LAW BEST LAW FIRM ON THE EMERALD COAST REAL ESTATE CLOSINGS / TITLE INSURANCE REAL ESTATE LITIGATION • GENERAL CIVIL LITIGATION BUSINESS LAW • ESTATE PLANNING • PROBATE

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Bracken Law, PA serves the areas of Destin, 30A, Santa Rosa Beach, Miramar Beach, Panama City Beach, Niceville and Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

October-November 2021

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Schedule today at our new diagnostic and imaging center for women

You can schedule important health screenings now — including mammograms — where it’s even more convenient for you. Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Women’s Diagnostic Center is close

Appointments available now. To schedule, call 850-909-9980

to home, with a care team that takes the time to listen and understand you. Choose imaging, testing and care that’s designed and personalized for women:

Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Women’s Diagnostic Center 179 Mack Bayou Loop, Suite 102 Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459

• 3D mammograms and breast ultrasounds • Bone density testing • Pelvic floor rehabilitation • A nurse navigator who connects the dots for any additional care

A 3D mammogram may require an additional fee if your insurance carrier does not cover the full cost. Please check with your carrier to determine if you will be responsible for any of the costs.

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

from the

associate publisher

LET’S MAKE GIVING A TRADITION Amid celebrations, it’s important to help others in need

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

This year, Best of the Emerald Coast canceled plans for an in-person event but has launched a “Give Your Best” campaign that encourages people to make donations to the Children’s Clothing Project and participate in a virtual silent auction benefitting that initiative. This fall, let’s look for opportunities to serve others and extend help to people who need it while we enjoy traditions old and new. Love you, PHOTO BY SEAN MURPHY

I recently flew to Nashville to see the Black Crowes in concert. As I was leaving town, organizers of the 30A Songwriters Festival, produced annually by the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, announced headliners for the next edition of the event, scheduled for Jan. 14–17, 2022. The lineup, as it happens, includes Brothers of a Feather, a duo made up of brothers Richard and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. I look forward to seeing them again in my own backyard along with Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris, Dawes, Jenny Lewis, Rickie Lee Jones and other outstanding performers. Between now and then, we will relive traditions associated with Halloween and Thanksgiving, enjoy the renewal of great football rivalries and participate — carefully — in community events on the fall calendar. I enjoy both honoring established traditions and creating new ones. Sometimes, they can develop spontaneously as the product of great times spent with people we care about and love. When we experience a memorable happening one year, we are likely to try to recreate it in future years. In a typical fall — and we can all hope that the pandemic will be less of a factor in our lives in coming months — the Emerald Coast is home to numerous events such as the Harvest Wine & Food Festival, ArtsQuest, the Bloody Mary Fest, the Foo Foo Festival, EntreCon, seafood festivals in Destin and Pensacola, the Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam and Emerald Coast Magazine’s own Best of the Emerald Coast celebration. I have fine memories associated with many of those events. While we may immediately associate them with eating, drinking and being merry — well, not EntreCon so much — most also maintain community betterment as a goal. For example, proceeds from Best of the Emerald Coast support the Children’s Clothing Project carried out by the Junior League of the Emerald Coast. Each year, that project helps meet the essential needs of more than 400 local children. While the pandemic has led some events to find alternatives to large gatherings, it’s important to remember that the community needs the help and funding these events address; their needs are still with us and may have grown.

MCKENZIE BURLEIGH, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER mburleigh@rowlandpublishing.com

We’re the

CENTER

of attention! Bealls Outlet • Dick’s Sporting Goods Ross • The Fresh Market

EATERIES Chili’s • Wayback Burgers • Craft Bar: a Florida Gastropub Texas Roadhouse • IHOP • Jersey Mike’s Subs • Zoë’s Kitchen Sweet Frog Frozen Yogurt

SPECIALTY STORES

Atlanta

PetSmart • Kirkland’s • Verizon • Bed, Bath and Beyond Michael’s • Chan’s Wine World • World Market Furniture • Rugs • and Accessories • Lighting • Art • Interiors Shoe Carnival more!

Birmingham

Destin

Nashville Spanish 15750 Panama CityFort Beach Pkwy

PierParkNorth.com To-the-Trade Services • In-Home Design Consultation www.stockandtrade.com pierparknorth EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

castoinfo.com October-November 2021

editor’s letter

A CONSCIENTIOUS COMPANION The angel on my shoulder shares his perspective

October-November 2021

We reached the point in conversation where I was comfortable asking him, a man with a progressive and terminal disease, where he continues to find joy. Already, he had described to me the operation of his power toilet seat and bidet. He had described nightly muscle spasms so excruciating that before he found a medication to relieve them he did not think that he could go on. He had described his career as a civilian Department of Defense employee whose specialty, micro-circuitry, required the hands of a surgeon. Today, he lacks the dexterity needed to retrieve a pill from a bottle. He delivers voice commands, mostly, to his phone. Keystroking is possible but difficult for much of the day and becomes impossible in the evening when he tires and his hands begin to shake. When I met him, he was in the process of trying out several seat cushions to see if one might be slightly more comfortable than the rest. Prior to his ALS diagnosis, Randy said, he never had stopped to consider his relative good fortune. Now, he does. He has met, via an ALS support group, others with Lou Gehrig’s disease who are worse off than he — people without savings, people whose only insurance plan is Medicare. Randy’s home and truck are paid off. He has a Blue Cross supplement. He has qualified for $2,500 monthly payments from the Social Security Administration. His parents are with him as round-the-clock caregivers. He is surrounded by supportive neighbors. He has bluefish when others have none. And so he gives back in any way that he can, sending bedding and candy and even a microwave oven to support group members, delivering treats to a

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

neighbor’s dog, rolling down the street to show a woman how to operate the mirrors on her new Lincoln. Randy has come to be for me a better angel who sits on my shoulder. The other day during my morning run, I encountered a red carry-on bag on a sidewalk. Maybe, I thought, it had bounced out of a pickup truck. Randy told me to inspect the bag, see if I might find a tag with an address on it. But in my other ear came that airport publicaddress system voice that warns you not to touch unattended luggage. I was inclined to bring the bag to the attention of police who report to the school crossing not far from where the bag was. Suspicion trumped trust. Perspectives change. Serve somebody,

STEVE BORNHOFT EXECUTIVE EDITOR sbornhoft@rowlandpublishing.com

PHOTO BY SAIGE ROBERTS

I watched him as he stubbed out a filterless cigarette on the top of a fence post at a kayak landing near the mouth of Bay County’s Grand Lagoon. Moments later, he retrieved from his Jeep a canister that I took to be portable oxygen. He had it in hand as I approached, coming off the water following an early morning wadefishing session. “I don’t see a stringerful,” he greeted me. “I caught a big bluefish,” I honestly replied. “Fight like sisters, but you can’t much eat ’em.” I was close enough now to see the nicotine stains on the man’s mustache, one large enough to put John Bolton to shame, even Craig Stadler back in the days when he was full-on walrus. The man next dragged from his vehicle a length of rope, neatly coiled, and a large, amorphous piece of plastic or nylon or some such. “You know, if you’re hungry enough, a bluefish will do all right,” he offered. The canister proved to be a pump, not an air supply, and the relaxed material soon took shape as a kiteboarding wing. Smoking had not incapacitated the man, not yet. Those kiteboarding foils, you know, they really go. I thought back to the Man With the Yellow Mustache — and his comment suggesting that outlooks on bluefish may vary with perspectives — after spending time at the Lynn Haven home of Randy Walton. Randy was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) in July 2019 and lost the ability to walk two years later. Confined now to a custom-made, motorized wheelchair and relying on demi Dixie cups of meds taken in the morning and at night, his perspective has changed dramatically — and in a way that I never would have expected.

P R I M E

S T E A K S

S E A F O O D

SAVOR THE CLASSIC & SOPHISTICATED One of the finest dining destinations along Florida’s Gulf Coast, Seagar’s Prime Steaks & Seafood features an award-winning 600-label wine list, hand selected prime steaks and Gulf-to-table seafood dishes. With fresh, seasonally inspired ingredients, Seagar’s prides itself on providing the most decadent and indulgent meals.

SANDESTIN BEACH GOLF RESORT & SPA

The Emerald Coast’s only AAA Four-Diamond Steakhouse RESERVATIONS 888-519-1405 | 4000 Sandestin Blvd. South, Miramar Beach, FL 32550 | SEAGARS.com

Since 2000

PROMOTION

CELEBRATION OF THE ARTS This year’s Festival of the Arts in Destin promises even more visual art, food, live music and family fun. Plus, for the first time, the 26th annual Mattie Kelly Arts Foundation event is free for all ages!

GIVEAWAY

Win Two Tickets to the Harvest Wine & Food Festival

Learn more by reading our digital exclusive at EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/ news-culture.

Cheers to an event that celebrates the season with food, wine and giving back to local children’s charities. Enter to win at EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/giveaways.

GRAND OPENING Fort Walton Beach just got a bit more beautiful. Dermatology Specialists has relocated its offices to Racetrack Road where it now features a second Aqua Medical Spa that will offer medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology to include Mohs micrographic surgery, laser treatments and cosmetic injectables such as Botox and fillers.

2021 of

OAST MAG AZ DC I AL

BEST TH

Though we did not gather together this year for Best of the Emerald Coast, we hope you join us in showing your generous support for our beneficiary, the Junior League of the Emerald Coast by joining our Give Your Best fundraising campaign. We invite you to participate in a Virtual Silent Auction of exciting items donated by Best of Winners and Emerald Coast businesses and to consider “giving back” to the Junior League the value of a Best ticket (or more if you can).

CONNECT WITH US

E’S N

GIVE YOUR BEST

EM ER

Learn more in our digital exclusive at EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/sponsoredcontent/beauty-links.

ERALD C O

To find out how you can Give Your Best, visit EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/best-of-the-emerald-coast.

October-November 2021

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Join the conversation! Follow us on all of your favorite social channels and keep up with all the latest stories in Emerald Coast Magazine, exclusive offers, event invitations and more delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for our free e-newsletter today at EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/ connect-with-us.

PHOTOS BY KAY PHELAN (MATTIE KELLY ARTS FOUNDATION) AND DEAGREEZ / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS (BEAUTY LINKS) AND COURTESY OF DESTIN CHARITY WINE AUCTION AND EMERALD COAST THEATRE COMPANY

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Make a

BANKING SWITCH

that sticks.

We believe a personal relationship with your banker is one of the most important connections you can have in this community. Our bankers offer not only great banking and borrowing solutions, but also individual attention, a ready ear to listen and a desire to help reach your personal and business financial goals. Make the switch today.

Ryan Davis President, Bay County davis.ryan@ccbg.com 850.404.6070

*Subject to credit approval and may be subject to property approval.

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October-November 2021

Furniture • Rugs • Accessories • Lighting • Art • Interiors

Atlanta

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A CONSCIOUS, COOL COMPENDIUM OF COASTAL STUFF

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Dr. Jocelyn Evans of the University of West Florida is a promoter of open lines of genuine communication between elected officials and their constituents.

EDUCATION

Restoring the Public Square Polarization has disrupted trusted processes by STEVE BORNHOFT

PERSONALITY photography by JOHN HARRINGTON

Fight of Fancy

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↖ The United States, because it is home to a longstanding and stable constitutional democracy, has much to be proud of says political science professor Jocelyn Evans.

r. Jocelyn Evans remembers well “I’m Just a Bill,” one in a series of Schoolhouse Rock! educational music videos that were dropped into Saturday morning programming on ABC beginning in the early 1970s. The song’s lyrics described lawmaking of a sort that civics teachers, with the aid of flow charts, used to describe back when there were civics teachers. I’m just a bill. Yes, I’m only a bill. And I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill. Well, it’s a long, long journey To the capital city. It’s a long, long wait While I’m sitting in committee, But I know I’ll be a law some day At least I hope and pray that I will But today I am still just a bill.

Evans is a professor of political science and the associate dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of

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West Florida. She used to teach what were regarded as normal legislative proceedings, but she says, “I stopped teaching them in part because I got tired of teaching a process that wasn’t matching reality.” If it were around today, Schoolhouse Rock! would have to somehow find words that rhyme with executive order or budget reconciliation measure, Evans suggests. “Normal” was around during the George W. Bush presidency, she said. Legislation, including No Child Left Behind and the Patriot Act, went through committees and was subjected to congressional hearings. “But when we arrived at health care reform in the Obama Administration, all of a sudden we started having to use budget reconciliation measures,” Evans said. “Bills weren’t going to conference, and now we’ve seen this with judicial nominations. We are questioning the filibuster. We are questioning the super majority rule.”

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The infrastructure appropriation passed in August bypassed normal. “We have nearly a 50-50 split of extremely polarized camps,” Evans said. “That is the foundation we are operating from, and when you add on top of that major crises like the pandemic that require a really quick federal response, you’ve seen increasing use of executive orders and increasing reliance on budget measures.” Exacerbating matters is the extent to which people keep to their news-andinformation silos these days and the ways in which elected officials keep their distance. It can seem that the public square and the marketplace of ideas are no longer open for business. In 2017, Evans undertook a study of congressional communication and, in particular, how members of Congress use their official websites to facilitate constituent communication. She noticed that it was hard to find a phone number to call. If you wanted to contact your photography by JOHN HARRINGTON

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representative’s office, you had to fill out a form. And, you had to use a drop-down menu and select the issue that you wanted to discuss. Those requirements funneled and shaped communication. “A site might advertise a town hall event, but the issue was already passed,” Evans said. “Or it would be a Tele-Town Hall event with no clear way for you to sign up.” Evans likened a Tele-Town Hall to a large-scale conference call. “Members talk for a while and then they field questions,” she said. “Staff can screen the questions, and it is not really clear whose questions are being answered. You can’t see other people on the call. There is no verbal or non-verbal feedback from the audience.” When libertarians were jumping on Obamacare and its individual mandate, Evans recalled, Democrats avoided physical town halls. “But when that flipped and Republicans were under attack, they retreated,” Evans said. “Elected officials discovered that they could be in the comfort of their offices and not have to deal with lines of protestors or chanting or disruption. Digital forms of public engagement are far more controllable. You can control who joins and somewhat control what is “Digital forms said and how it is said.” of public Evans has closely witengagement nessed the proliferation are far more of broadcast and social controllable. media and what she calls You can control news aggregation. “Individuals curate their who joins and social media so that they somewhat only see what they want control what is to see,” she said. “That has said and how it created significant echo is said.” chambers and has allowed for the circulation of fake — Dr. Jocelyn Evans news, conspiracy theories and other bad stuff. People create individualized curated spaces where they talk with others they ideologically agree with, and they silence anyone they don’t agree with. That makes for some rabid voters.” Evans finds that constituents are aggrieved, and she said, “I think that is warranted to an extent. Members of Congress have changed their offices’ relationship to external stakeholders.” Communication may be a function of brand management.

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wave “That is purposeful,” Evans said. “There are consultants to both Democrats and Republicans who teach PR. Constituents detect PR tactics, and they don’t feel heard and that translates into hostility.” Is there an antidote to all of this invective and tribalism and resentment and polarizing rhetoric and hatred and such? “The transition in power on Jan. 6 was not the most peaceful, but it did happen,” Evans said. “It was a short-lived contestation if you compare it to other regimes where you have contestation for multiple, multiple years. We have a longstanding and stable constitutional democracy, and that is something to be proud of.” But, said Evans, the government right now may not be as healthy as we would like to see it. What to do? “What I yearn for is a commonly shared and trusted source of news,” Evans said. “It blows my mind that I can read the news, my father can read the news and my husband can read the news, and none of us has shared in the same world. Not only do we hear different news, we don’t accept anything that doesn’t fit with the news that we just heard.” Evans noted the large investment made by Germany in public media, which she said has brought about moderate polity. “You don’t see as much polarization there in part because people are sharing news in common,” she said. And the literal public square, Evans said, needs to be restored. “We are going to have to make our way back to physical encounters,” she said. “We all hear the call. We recognize it’s a need. It has to be part of the way forward. We need to get people back meeting in community centers in districts and back in the House and Senate office buildings in Washington.” EC

Dr. Jocelyn Evans is the author of several books on Congress, including Women, Partisanship, and the Congress (Palgrave); Congressional Communication in the Digital Age (Routledge) and One Nation under Siege: Congress, Terrorism, and the Fate of American Democracy (University Press of Kentucky). Her current research focuses on the social meaning of civic spaces. She is a native of the Florida Panhandle who earned her bachelor’s degree from Berry College and her doctorate from the University of Oklahoma.

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wave Highly decorated martial arts instructor Dean Pyles is pursuing his long-held dream of writing and producing a movie.

PERSONALITY

Fight of Fancy Martial arts master explores bullying in film by HANNAH BURKE

fter winning his 44th world title in martial arts, Dean Pyles found himself at a crossroads. The grandmaster martial arts instructor, stuntman and fight choreographer could either continue to compete or listen to that little voice in his head pining for uncharted territory. Pyles had been floating the idea of a martial arts movie for quite some time, but it wasn’t until he was trapped in a Virginia snowstorm with his daughter and a student that he finally pitched it and gained enough encouragement to take it seriously. “They told me this was a movie they wanted to see and that it needed to be made immediately,” Pyles recalled. “So when we got back home to Fort Walton Beach, I got on my kayak and prayed about it.” Pyles, who has owned and operated Elite Combat Martial Arts in Fort Walton Beach since 2009, often takes to the water to decompress and meditate. Amid waves and dolphins, he prays. “I asked God to send me in a direction where I could use the skills that I and my instructors are blessed with, and everything seemed to tell me to make this movie,” Pyles said. “There was just one problem: I’ve never written a movie before.” Pyles isn’t the best speller. Growing up, his fists were more accustomed to throwing punches than wrapping around pencils and scribbling words. He is technologically challenged, he said, and doesn’t even own a computer. “So, this may be one of the first-ever scripts completely typed out on a smartphone,” Pyles laughed. But Pyles is persistent, a trait stemming from years of martial arts training, self-discipline and

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dedication. At age 4, Pyles began attending martial arts classes in the basement of a neighbor’s home in Mount Airy, North Carolina. Upon receiving a Billy Jack cowboy hat from his uncle, Pyles found himself wanting to be the titular character who gave bullies their comeuppance by way of the foot and the fist. As a teen, he traveled to Charlotte for training under Grandmaster Joe Lewis, a revered karate world champion and father of American kickboxing. Pyles counts Lewis as one of the men who molded him into the grandmaster he is today. Inside

Elite Combat Martial Arts, you’ll find framed photos of Pyles and Lewis (along with snapshots of Pyles with Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and former actor and mixed martial artist Randy Couture) lining the walls. Pyles said it’s a reflection of where he came from. “I always tell my students to not drown the person who taught you how to swim,” he said. “In America, everyone wants to give themselves all the credit. They use the teachers as a vessel and then try to drown them and outdo them. I tell them photography by MARI DARR~WELCH

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if you go about your journey the right way, good things will happen.” Good things are happening for Pyles, whose movie, The Coward, now boasts a properly formatted script and backing from director Ryan Callaway. But even mentor Joe Lewis had something to say about the movie’s concept. The Coward, which began filming in Alexandria, Alabama, this August, centers around Mark Stone, an exSpecial Forces soldier who, upon moving back to his hometown, finds himself targeted by a group of bullies. “Bullying and martial arts,” Lewis said, “hasn’t that been done before?” “Not like this,” replied Pyles, who will gladly provide you with an in-depth analysis on why The Karate Kid isn’t a movie about bullying. Instead, The Coward focuses on the rarely talked about phenomena of the bullying one encounters as an adult, be it from a toxic workplace or a controlling partner or acquaintance. Pyles said the typical victims portrayed in films are “wimps, or people who can’t physically stand up for themselves.” Rarely do we see a target like Stone, played by Pyles, already equipped for retaliation. “I thought it’d be cool if the person being bullied already had the tools to stop the bully but doesn’t — for a certain set of reasons I won’t reveal to you yet,” Pyles said. “People don’t realize bullies cause a ripple effect, so once the bully realizes Stone isn’t going to fight back, he continues to escalate it to a point where it’ll involve Stone’s wife, children, friends and inevitably, the whole community.” You’ll have to watch the film to find out if, after some soul-searching,

Stone will step up and put a stop to it the best way he knows how. “Even Jesus picked up a cat o’ nine tails and went into the temple and kicked some behind,” Pyles said of resolving conflict with violence. “Sometimes you have to braid your own whip.” Pyles said The Coward will also be unique in that it won’t rely on computer graphics for fight scenes or Hollywood actors who can’t really fight. Its cast comprises Pyles’ martial arts-loving daughters, Kirra Barlow, Hylea Pyles and Alex Pyles, the latter of whom was an America’s Got Talent finalist for her choreographed fight routines, as well as 25 to 30 martial arts greats, including Dan Severn, Ernest “The Cat” Miller and Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Martial artists are accustomed to rigorous training, and Pyles told them to hone their acting skills the same way. He’s confident his cast has built up enough natural chemistry to eclipse the need for professional actors “who can’t really fight, anyway,” he said. Indeed, The Coward will showcase some of the defense and tactical combative training Pyles teaches both Northwest Florida military enlistees and civilians at his studio. It is his hope this movie inspires its audience to pick up some form of martial arts for both selfdefense purposes and lessons in tenacity. “I tell my students all the time that the human body has an endless supply of ‘go get it’ if you just tap into it,” he said. “If you want to be the best of anything you’ve got to out-train your competition, and win or lose, you have to keep at it. “You’re only as good as what you’re doing right now. That’s how I wanted to approach this movie and now, finally, it’s happening.” EC

↑ SWORD TRICK Dean Pyles, who has won more than 40 world titles in martial arts, demonstrates the importance of catching a saber by the hilt. He owns and operates Elite Combat Martial Arts in Fort Walton Beach.

THE COWARD

Filming for Dean Pyles’ first film, The Coward, was scheduled to begin in August. Its main character, Mark Stone, is pestered by bullies who find out that they are picking on the wrong man. Indeed, the film will showcase some of the defense and tactical combative training Pyles teaches at his studio to both civilians and clients in the military. Pyles hopes that his movie inspires its audience to learn some form of martial arts for both self-defense and personal improvement purposes. For him, that inspiration came early. He began attending martial arts classes in a neighbor’s basement when he was 4.

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photography by MARI DARR~WELCH

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEAN PYLES (COVER)

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n times of great uncertainty, WhiteWilson Medical Center has remained true to providing unwavering patient care. It’s a testament to the tenants they’ve built themselves upon for 75 years. The practice began in 1946 with Dr. Henry White as the first physician in Fort Walton Beach. At his practice on Brooks Street, he provided family care, did minor surgeries, delivered babies and more. A few years later, he was joined by his friend from Tulane University’s medical school, Dr. Joseph Wilson. From humble beginnings, the medical center has expanded outside of Fort Walton Beach over the decades to include Crestview, Destin, Navarre and Niceville. The most recent opening was in Crestview in November of 2020. This practice enabled the area to provide thousands of COVID-19 tests and raise the level of community care. In a time when many had to close their doors and were unable to serve their communities, WWMC stayed open. Patients can expect that WWMC will adapt and always be their partners in health. Throughout the years, WhiteWilson has maintained a reputation for reliable, exemplary health care. This stems from their providers, doctors and staff, many of whom have

become familiar faces to patients. That includes employees of 40 and 50 years plus second-generation doctors. “We view ourselves as an extension of the families we serve,” said Dr. Doug Rigby, a WWMC pediatrician since 1980. “For 75 years, we have been here for the milestones that come in the good times but also for the not-so-good or the scary times. The pandemic is certainly a time that has challenged us as individuals, community members and as medical professionals. But it’s in challenging times where we see what we are made of and why we have chosen the paths we have taken.” These paths have led to continued patient allegiance reflected in the reward of 2021 Best Family Physician, situating the practice as a household name for quality care. “Fewer and fewer independent physician groups like us exist today,” said Alan Gieseman, CEO of WWMC. “Even fewer are growing and expanding like we are. To me, this is evidence that our community appreciates the relationship they have with our physicians and practitioners and understand the level of care we are able to provide.”

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PRAYING FOR 51 Lynn Haven man helps others while battling ALS by STEVE BORNHOFT

andy Walton uncharacteristically paused. And paused some more. He is usually quick in conversation, making himself heard with a voice that is strong and deep and likely soon to fade. “That’s a tough one,” he said, finally. “I could tell him what he is going to go through and deal with and that he will need a good support system, as good as he can get.” Walton had been asked what he would say to someone newly diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, a progressive and terminal nervous system disorder commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing

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muscles to atrophy and resulting in loss of muscle control. Doctors in Panama City and at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville diagnosed Walton with ALS in October 2019. He consulted them after finding himself unable to twist a plastic nut onto exposed wire ends and struggling to get back to his feet after tending to a carpet tack strip. “Here’s a hypothetical. What if they were already gone?” Walton said, nodding toward his parents, Bill, 82, and Margaret, 79. “As it is, he has had prostate cancer, she’s got two bad knees and he has a bad knee. The only other person I’ve got is my sister and she lives in Jacksonville, so I would have to move there or pay for round-the-clock care.”

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Long retired, Walton’s parents were career civil service Department of Defense employees who worked in research and development at a Navy installation in Silver Springs, Maryland. Walton, whose specialty was microcircuitry, worked there, too, until the base was shuttered pursuant to a federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission’s recommendation. He was transferred to Naval Support Activity Panama City and retired from there in July 2018. Childless and never married, he had plans to travel the country on his 2001 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. But before he could hit the road, Hurricane Michael de-roofed his Lynn photography by MIKE FENDER

↑ Margaret Walton helps her son, Randy, place individual doses of medications in condiment cups. Due to a loss of dexterity resulting from ALS, Randy is unable to accomplish that take without assistance. There are medications he takes in the morning, at night and one that he takes hourly. Some are FDA approved, others not.

Haven home and soaked its interior. The work of drying the house back in, repairing ceilings, replacing drywall and installing new lighting would last until well after Walton received his diagnosis. So, as part of the renovation, doorways were widened, and a shower was converted to zero entry. Doctors at Mayo informed Walton that versus many other ALS cases, his would advance relatively slowly. Gene testing revealed that his disease was not dictated by heredity. Causation remains indeterminate, but Bill Walton has a theory. ALS cases occur among people who have served in the military or worked for the military at twice the

rate at which they occur in the general population, Bill Walton said. “The only difference between me and my son that I can think of is all the injections he received before he went overseas,” he said. Dad did his work stateside. Walton was immunized with batteries of shots before traveling to Japan, Bahrain, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere. “Fast-moving cases may last only two months to two years,” Walton said, noting as an example the death of Sean Healey, the late CEO at AMG, Inc., a Mercedes-Benz subsidiary. “But when you have it and all these things start to happen with your hands and your feet, you say to yourself, ‘This is slow moving?’ To you, it feels like it’s progressing really fast. I pick up my phone and it feels like it weighs 10 pounds.” For a time, Walton moved about his house assisted by a rollator, but he

is confined now to a custom-made, motorized wheelchair. “It got to the point where I just had to get in this chair,” said Walton, who has been unable to walk since late July. “I can stand up, but my legs start shaking. ALS messes with your balance and your equilibrium.” Walton has struggled to cope — especially with his loss of independence. “I always cooked and cleaned and did everything for myself,” he said. “Now I have to have my parents here. It is hard to stay positive, but after you get past all of that initial shock, you just have to accept the hand you’ve been dealt.” Still, Walton clings to hope. “I’m not ready to let go of my motorcycle yet,” he said. Bill Walton, who spends hours online every day looking for anything he can find on Lou Gehrig’s disease, said 50 ALS reversals have been documented. He noted ongoing efforts by a researcher at Duke University

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to collect blood samples from those survivors and to try to identify significant common denominators among them. That researcher, Dr. Richard Bedlack, the director of the Duke ALS Clinic, recommended to Walton a drug, not approved by the FDA, that has served to arrest excruciating muscle spasms that he had been experiencing at night. “They would wake me up, they were so painful,” Walton said. “The medicine is a blessing. I wouldn’t be able to live without it.” Walton takes a number of “supplements” that he has discovered through networking and his own research. His kitchen table looks like a pharmacy when he and his mother go to load condiment cups with morning and evening medications. His out-of-pocket expense for meds runs about $1,000 a month. Bill and Margaret had for years divided their time between their home in Maryland and a place in Vero Beach, Florida. No more. Margaret has not been back to Maryland since November 2019. Her caregiving duties afford her no vacation time. “People ask me how I do it,” she said. “How can I not do it? How can I not take care of my son?” Margaret derives support from an ALS caregivers support group maintained by the Florida chapter of the ALS Association. The group provides a forum for caregivers to share information, experiences and frustrations. “Each meeting presents an educational component and opportunity for participants to learn from each other by asking questions about any challenges they are facing, or offering ideas they have discovered on their own to help make living with ALS easier,” said Judie Benwick, the coordinator of groups for both patients and caregivers in the Florida Panhandle. “Our groups serve as a social resource to help connect people who are all walking in the same shoes.”

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↑ Margaret and Bill Walton, retired after careers as civilian Department of Defense employees, were accustomed to dividing time between their home in Maryland and their winter place in Vero Beach. When their son was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, that pattern was dramatically disrupted. They now live with son Randy at his Lynn Haven home and serve as his round-the-clock caregivers. Both are candidates for knee replacement surgery, but said they cannot think about spending months in recuperation for as long as they are seeing to their son’s needs.

Jessica Collins is the director of care services for the ALS Association of Florida Chapter. She spoke to the inspiration supplied by ALS patients. “When I started my career in health care, my goal was to work closely with families who needed assistance to ensure they were provided the resources, tools and care needed to help them live and maintain a quality of life,” she said. “The work we do at the

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ALS Association allows me to do that. When used together, A, L and S are the worst three letters of the alphabet, but those who are diagnosed with the disease and their families are among the bravest people I have had the pleasure of working alongside.” Brave. And generous. “Having ALS had made me a lot more giving,” Walton said. “If I have it to give, I give it.” photography by MIKE FENDER

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↑ Bill Walton stands behind his son Randy’s 2001 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Randy had planned to tour the country on his bike after his retirement, but first Hurricane Michael and then an ALS diagnosis prevented him from hitting the road. He consulted a doctor when he found himself unable to twist a plastic nut onto wires.

He has, for example, had mattress pads and a microwave oven sent to an ALS patient who has lost his sight, is poor and has only Medicare as insurance. To another patient, he sends candy. He finds joy in visiting his neighbors and delivering treats to their dogs. He has grown close to a nephew, also named Randy, with Down syndrome. His mother lends financial support to a housekeeper who visits Walton’s home by “giving her a little extra.” Margaret chooses to emphasize what her son can do. “He has me load up his lap with grocery bags and he brings them in,” she said. “He takes clothes out of the washer and puts them in the dryer. He takes the trash out after I put it on his footrest. He figures out how to stretch bags and put them in the trash can. “He really doesn’t complain,” Margaret added. “Sometimes, he puts me in a red timeout chair to make me rest.” There are times, too, when Walton tries to do too much. So it was that he once dumped himself out of his wheelchair into the yard. And Mom once caught him trying to slide onto the riding mower in the garage. Once a rider, always a rider. “The word can’t really isn’t part of my vocabulary,” Bill Walton said. “I have a hard time recognizing that I can’t heal my son. But I pray that he will become the 51st survivor, and I don’t believe ALS will kill him. “I really don’t.” EC

PHOTO BY MIKE FENDER

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(850) 502-2895 | WWW.NWFSC.EDU Northwest Florida State College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award associate and baccalaureate degrees. Contact the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of Northwest Florida State College. Northwest Florida State College is committed to equal access/equal opportunity in its programs, activities, and employment. For additional information, visit www.nwfsc.edu. Materiales de la Universidad son disponibles en Española llamando a la Oficina de Admisiones de Northwest Florida State College al 850-678-5111. EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

CUSTOM CONTENT

AGENCY FOUR IS FOR THE PEOPLE As single agency brokers, Kittrell and Grant work for their clients only

ou will not see the faces of Chad Kittrell and Janet Grant, partners of Agency Four, plastered on signs in the front yards of homes. The reason for that is, as a single agency brokerage, their interest lies in representing their clients rather than themselves. Agency Four is a consulting firm specializing in business and real estate transactions. They are North Florida’s only exclusive single agency brokerage. As a single agency brokerage, they only sit on one side of the transaction — the client’s side, with a fiduciary obligation to the client. With more than 50 years of experience between Kittrell and Grant, they have witnessed the peaks and declivities of real estate. They are aware of the weaknesses and strengths of the industry, which inspired them to form a firm with an emphasis on the client. A huge issue within the industry is the ease of obtaining a license, all one has to do is attend a week-long class and pass exam of only 100 questions. “This can be problematic when trusting someone to represent the biggest asset you own,” said Kittrell. “If a real estate agent hasn’t personally completed a deal as big as yours or bigger, don’t hire them. Our level of expertise and experience sets us apart,

having done $60 to $70 million in our own portfolio deals, we’ve been the client and understand the needs.” Another aspect that most Floridians are unaware of when entering a real estate transaction, is they are represented by a transactional brokerage agreement not a single agency brokerage arrangement. According to Florida statutes, it should always be presumed that licensees are operating transactionally unless hired as a single agent. The statute explains that a transactional broker provides limited representation to the transaction and no fiduciary representation to either side, they work for the deal not the client. Single-agency brokerages are held to a higher standard that revolves around four tenants — loyalty, confidentiality, obedience and full disclosure. With this level of commitment and intensity, Agency Four only takes five clients, typically of high net worth, with complex cases. “As a single-agency brokerage, when we enter into an agreement with a client, we become business partners — and we treat them as such,” said Kittrell. “We provide a more complex and professional atmosphere to our clients, ensuring that whatever objectives they present us with, we meet them and exceed them.”

Chad Kittrell and Janet Grant, Agency Four partners

AG E N C Y F O U R ( 8 5 0 ) 5 7 0 - 0 6 04 | C K @ A G E N C Y 4 R E .C O M

October-November 2021

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October-November 2021

MODELS NOW OPEN

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© 2021. Prices, homesites, amenities, home designs, square footage and other information subject to errors, changes, omissions, deletions, availability, prior sales and withdrawal at any time without notice. Square footage numbers are approximate and may vary depending on the standard measurement used. Photos and/or drawings of homes may show upgraded landscaping and may not represent the lowest priced homes in the community. All renderings and ﬂoorplans in these materials are an artist’s conceptual drawings and will vary from the actual plans and homes as built. CGC1509406

October-November 2021

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panache OCT/NOV 2021

ELEMENTS OF STYLE RANGING FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE MORE SUBLIME

FASHION

HALLOWEEN 2021 Ghosts and Fauci’s dancing all around by REBECCA PADGETT FRETT

CITIZEN OF STYLE photography by LINDSEY MASTERSON

Back to the Basics

|| WHAT’S IN STORE

Retail Round-up

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October-November 2021

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esides sorting through the irresponsible mounds of candy bars that you allow yourself in the spirit of Halloween, many look forward to dressing in costume. Adults unleash their inner child as they dress up and adopt a new persona for a night. “We still love Halloween as adults because it’s one night a year we allow ourselves to pretend and have fun like we did as children,” said Barry Reed, vice president of donated goods retail at Goodwill Gulf Coast. “The fact that we are all doing it together allows everyone to drop their guard and have some fun.” Halloween costumes account for more than $8 billion in sales each year, according to the National Retail Federation. Many are purchased from seasonal shops that pop up in malls in August and disappear in November. Other consumers favor thrift, used clothing and vintage shops in the spirit of supporting local merchants. There, shopping for costumes becomes an enjoyable excursion at a savings. The average costume at big-box stores costs $50–$100 or more. Reed said you can assemble an entire costume at Goodwill, complete with top, bottoms, shoes and accessories, for under $20. Families and couples often make an event of thrift shopping by competing to see who can come up with the most unusual costume. Thrift store employees are excited to help shoppers piece together the perfect costume. By shopping local, you can guarantee that your costume will

October-November 2021

BACK FROM THE DEAD

It’s always possible to buy Halloween costumes that are ready to wear right off the hanger or out of the box. But there are savings and fun to be had in buying costume components from local thrift and vintage shops and putting together your own look while giving abandoned clothing a chance to live again.

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photography by LINDSEY MASTERSON

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October-November 2021

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receive plenty of admiring looks for its authenticity, but also, it’s a sustainable choice for the environment as opposed to mass-produced, single-use costumes. “We sell the new makeup and accessories you need to make our donated items into the perfect costume,” Reed said. “We have retro Popular movies clothes, scrubs, wedand stage productions such ding dresses, sheets as, from top, for togas, suit jackWandaVision, ets, scarves, pursHamilton and Cruella influence es, costume jewelry Halloween and clothes cheap costuming each enough you won’t year. So, too, do news headlines mind ripping them and the hellish up for a good zombie world of politics. costume.” Dr. Fauci is sure to be Sellers of pre-loved seen making clothing typically have rounds this year pieces on hand to crecollecting candy, and Donald ate beloved favorTrump likely isn’t ites and timeless clasdead yet. sic costumes. Certain costumes will always remain popular, but each Halloween sees surges in certain trends. Reed predicted pop culture will have its biggest year yet in 2021, noting the popularity of WandaVision, Cruella de Vil and the remake of Space Jam. Trapped indoors, many of us became saturated in media. I expect to see couples dressed as Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin with their children in tiger costumes. Characters from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musicals will visit doorsteps given the sensational Hamilton and In the Heights. A lab coat, spectacles and a mask will make for a quick and affordable Dr. Fauci getup. There will be no shortage of TikTok star recreations. Halloween 2021 is sure to be a spectacle. We’ve had a long year to come up with our costume ideas. EC

October-November 2021

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS / ©MARVEL STUDIOS 2021 (WANDAVISION), DISNEY / 2021 DISNEY ENTERPRISES INC. (CRUELLA) AND DISNEY MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION

STAGE & SCREEN

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October-November 2021

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CITIZEN OF STYLE

Back to the Basics Savannah Rae St. Jean embraces simplicity by HANNAH BURKE

he pandemic may have shut her salon down for six weeks, but for Savannah Rae St. Jean, there was a silver lining. Makeup trends over the past several years have emphasized perfection: a flawlessly contoured and chiseled face, heavy-handed highlights and overdrawn, matte lips popularized by influencers and the likes of Kylie Jenner. Wearing a mask over the bottom half of your face for well over a year, said St. Jean, may have reinforced the “less is more” mentality. “I’m finding a lot more women are wanting to scale back how much makeup they’re caking on their face,” she said. “I think they realized how freeing it was not to have to cover and carve each feature, and I’m so grateful for that. I truly feel the ‘look’ was unnatural and dampening everyone’s self-esteem because people were so focused on what they needed to change.” Now at St. Jean’s Miramar Beach salon, Savannah Rae Beauty, clients request “fluffy lashes and neutral, glowing tones for the face and eyes,” she said, noting the same applies to hair treatments. After going so long without trips to the salon, women are embracing their natural grays and opting for a more low-maintenance, “lived-in” look. “I’m a huge fan of this because I’ve always said not to fight what you’ve got,” she said. “It’s a difficult place to be if you’re constantly battling what you have naturally. Our focus at the salon is

October-November 2021

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→ Savannah St. Jean, the owner of a beauty salon in Miramar Beach, strolls along the shore of a pond in a one-piece jumpsuit from Saint Lucille Fashions, an online boutique.

photography by MIKE FENDER

↑ St. Jean reports that fluffy lashes and muted tones for the face and eyes are currently popular. She favors, photos at right, FACEatelier concealer; face powders from Hourglass (palette of six colors); and eyeshadow from Viseart. Below, St. Jean’s “Before and After Makeup” award from the International Beauty Awards program.

more on embracing and enhancing than changing and correcting.” It’s an attitude St. Jean has carried with her since enrolling in beauty school in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, a career path to which she was always drawn. Focusing on makeup artistry in Canada, St. Jean dabbled in special events, bridal makeup and editorial work appearing in Vogue Italia, Weddingbells and Wedluxe Magazine. Her exodus to Destin was fueled by a simple desire for a change of scenery. Her father had become an Emerald Coast resident, and St. Jean and family figured, wherever they ended up, it would be nice to at least know someone. “We love the sun and wanted to get away from all the cold, dreary weather, but moving here was definitely a huge adjustment,” she said. “This is a small town, and I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to attract clients here because I came from so far away.” But upon opening her salon in 2018, St. Jean said she was “pleasantly

surprised” with the local reception. St. Jean rebranded her business to accommodate hairstyling services and soon gained a following. It’s that support, she said, that helped carry her business through last year’s uncertainty. “The pandemic was very, very scary,” she said. “Day by day, it was a struggle to figure out what was to come. But everyone rallied to support small businesses throughout the area, making sure they take care of their own. We made it through and are here to stay.” Perhaps it was that support, too, that encouraged St. Jean to compete in the 2019 International Beauty Industry Awards, a program recognizing the talents of “global beauty artisans.” Among applicants from over 20 countries across the world, St. Jean received first place for her bridal makeup in “Best Before and After Makeup” and was runner-up for her entry in “Best Culturally Inspired Makeup.” On her victory, St. Jean said, “It was really nice to feel acknowledged in

my industry and know what I’m doing is valued.” Her award-winning look featured bride Bailey Michelle in a vintage updo and au naturel cosmetics using FACE atelier, Aveda, NARS and Hourglass Cosmetics products, many of which St. Jean incorporates into her own daily makeup routine. “I’m quite minimal with my own makeup despite being into makeup

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October-November 2021

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↑ St. Jean chills in a capri bodysuit from Forever 21. Belt and sandals are from Target. She says about herself that she favors solid, never-off-trend colors.

artistry,” she said. “Since I have lash extensions, I can focus on concealer, foundation and blush and be out the door in less than 10 minutes.” She’s really loving FACEatelier, particularly its Ultra Pro foundation, which claims a “highly pigmented, long-lasting innovative foundation that provides buildable coverage with a natural-looking, dewy finish.” Hourglass Cosmetics’ Ambient Lighting Blush is another of St. Jean’s staples. Its hybrid palette of vibrant rouge and delicate lighting powder combine to create a subtle, yet multi-dimensional glow. That same delicacy translates to St. Jean’s fashion. “I’m very minimalist,” St. Jean said of her wardrobe. “I don’t gravitate to anything too flashy. I tend to invest more in classic pieces

October-November 2021

that I don’t think will be off-trend anytime soon and lots of solid colors.” Outside of the salon, she’ll get a bit more adventurous with two-piece bodysuits, but you’re most likely to find St. Jean in a tried and true pair of American Eagle Jeans, a simple shirt and Vans or Puma running shoes. “I’ve never been a high-heel kinda girl,” St. Jean laughed. “I have three small kids I have to be able to run after at a moment’s notice, and I’m usually on my feet all day at the salon.” Of course, there’s no place else she’d rather be. “Pretty much everyone who sits in my chair ends up becoming a friend of mine,” she said. “You’re sometimes with someone upwards of six hours, so you end up talking about deep things and connecting with someone. “I’m so grateful I chose this area to redevelop my business and grow a life for my family and me. Being able to know this community more intimately and building lifelong friendships here means a lot.” EC

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St. Jean Staples ➺H ourglass

Cosmetics’ Ambient Lighting Blush

➺ F ACE atelier

Ultra Pro foundation

➺S olid colors ➺C lassic pieces ➺A merican

Eagle jeans

➺A simple shirt ➺ Vans or Puma

running shoes

photography by MIKE FENDER

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October-November 2021

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Quick Bites ➸ For a refreshing pick-me-up, swing by PLAYA BOWLS 30A in Rosemary Beach. Wet your whistle with cold-pressed juice, smoothies and iced coffee, or make a meal of it with customizable poke and protein power bowls. ↓

classically chic French tip designs, and don’t forget to treat your feet to a signature scrub pedicure. ➸ No bad hair day is a match for the BOMBSHELL BLOWOUT BAR, one of Pensacola’s latest hair styling and makeup salons. Get flowing locks with a blowout and extension services, or opt for an updo and freshly made-up face for your special outing. ➸ Now open in Destin,

BEACHSIDE BEAUTY is

➸ Kids aren’t the only ones who can overindulge in sugar this time of year. Splurge at SUGAR BUZZED, Panama City Beach’s newest emporium of cakes, chocolate-covered sweets and treats. No costume required.

veteran-owned salon specializing in skincare, nails, waxing, makeup and hair. De-stress with a facial and massage therapy, or spruce up for your big event with a formal makeover and manicure.

Household Effects

All the Rage

↑ WHAT’S IN STORE? A roundup of retail happenings throughout the Emerald Coast by HANNAH BURKE

As the name implies, AUBREY AND OLIVER UNIQUE GIFTS & DÉCOR isn’t your typical clothing store. The beloved boutique’s brick-and-mortar location is now open in Panama City Beach, offering on-trend fashion and jewelry, as well as equally chic home furnishings, candles and personal care products. 56

October-November 2021

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➸ SECRET SCIENTIST, a Mobile, Alabama-based urban streetwear brand, has opened a new location in Pensacola. Stand out with signature graphic tees, printed pants and stylish outerwear for both men and women. ➸ CAN I GET A LULU!

Destinites, rejoice! Just in time for your fall fitness goals, a lululemon has opened in Grand Boulevard at Sandestin, offering your favorite brand of leggings, performance shirts, loungewear and fitness accessories.

Because You’re Worth It ➸ Nails looking a little dull? Visit NAILS LABELLE at Destin Commons for eye-catching acrylics, powder dips or

fine leather furniture store, is now open in Fort Walton Beach. With the assistance of “Stressless Specialists,” shop hundreds of Ekornes Nordic recliners, cutting-edge massage chairs, ottomans, mattresses and more.

➸ PANHANDLE PATIO is Panama City’s newly opened and family-owned and operated patio furniture factory showroom. Optimize your outdoor living space with designer-brand wicker, aluminum, or PVC-pipe furnishings for cozy nights around the fire pit.

↓

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AUBREY AND OLIVER UNIQUE GIFTS & DECOR, PANHANDLE PATIO AND PLAYA BOWL 30A

➸ UNWIND FURNITURE CO., a full-service European

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US BEST OF THE EMERALD COAST!

Best Women's Boutique - Barefoot Princess | Best Men's Apparel/Shoes - Island Clothiers | Best Children's Clothing Retailer - Coconut Kidz

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August–September 2021

Calm, Cool and Sculpted Aqua Medical Spa transforms body fat through CoolSculpting ®

any aspects of medical technology are labeled as “cool” for the ingenuity they possess. CoolSculpting® is not only groundbreaking, but it’s also literally cool. CoolSculpting®, medically known as cryolipolysis, uses a device to cool your fat to a temperature that destroys fat cells without harming skin or other tissues. CoolSculpting® freezes fat cells in your body allowing them to metabolize, resulting in fat reduction of up to 30 percent.

The procedure is not surgical and does not involve needles. Instead, applicators hold the skin in place cooling it to below zero for 35 to 60 minutes, targeting fat in specified areas of the body. For all patients considering CoolSculpting®, a complimentary consultation is offered, in which the desired results are discussed, an applicator customized to the targeted body area is selected and all questions are answered. Meredith Murphy, aesthetician at Aqua Medical Spa in Panama City, states that CoolSculpting® is most suited for those who have tried a strict routine of diet, exercise and water intake, but they still have fat cells that are difficult to remove. “If you can squeeze it, we can freeze it,” says Murphy. “That being said, you should listen to the licensed medical professional in order to determine what options are best for your body.” The FDA approved areas for CoolSculpting® are the upper arms, thighs, buttocks, bra fat, upper and lower abdomen, flanks, knees and under the chin. It cannot be performed on the chest and lower arms.

Once the area is decided upon, photos are taken before the patient is made comfortable for the procedure. It begins with slight discomfort, but within minutes, the skin becomes numb to the cold for the remainder of the treatment time. It is common to experience some discomfort, bruising and numbness in the weeks following the procedure. Within four to six weeks, most patients begin to see results. Results could begin sooner based on the speed of your metabolism. At the six-week mark, a check-in is required, photos are taken to document progress and any questions are addressed. The most noticeable results occur between six to 12 weeks. It is during this time that a patient decides if they are satisfied with the results or would like to have a second round. “Our main goal with each client is to ensure they feel better about what was bothering them,” said Murphy. “We can’t a lways promise a one-and-done, but we can promise a treatment MEREDITH MURPHY to transformation result.”

AQUA MEDICAL SPA & DERMATOLOGY SPECIALISTS OF FLORIDA | 30A PLASTIC SURGERY | (850) 252-4450

CUSTOM CONTENT

October-November 2021

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August–September 2021

H E Y

E M E R A L D

C OAS T,

T H A N K S !

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US

B EST ON TH E E M E R A L D C OAST! We're honored to be voted The Best in the following categories: Golf Course - Raven | Residential Real Estate - Sandestin Real Estate | Women's Boutique - Barefoot Princess | Men's Apparel - Island Clothiers Outdoor Bar - Ara Rooftop Pool and Lounge | New Restaurant - Ovide

SA N D E S T I N . C O M | 8 7 7.7 8 3 . 3 3 1 2

October-November 2021

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DINING OUT Comfortable and Refined || HOME COOKIN’

Bream Dandy

gastro&gusto OCT/NOV 2021

DINING, IMBIBING AND LIVING LIFE TO THE FULLEST

LIBATIONS

A Floridian Lounge The Well raises the bar in Pensacola’s East Garden district by THOMAS J. MONIGAN

←

VIA DE LUNA

A creation made up of Caravedo Pisco, Chinola passion fruit liqueur, Amontillado Sherry and coconut cacao foam.

photography by STEVEN GRAY

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October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

ongtime friends Reed Odeneal and D.C. took their time in bringing The Well, a vintage Florida-style taproom and cocktail lounge, to Pensacola’s East Garden district. “For more than five years, since the idea of Perfect Plain Brewing Co. was born, we have always tried to put our heart and passion into our projects with the hope of making Pensacola proud,” Reeves said. “The Well Floridian Lounge has been more than two years in the making so we could get it exactly right.” He said of the lounge, located next to Perfect Plain Brewing Co. and Garden & Grain on East Garden Street, “It’s a place that honors our home state, provides the hideaway vibe we love, with a nationalcaliber cocktail and funky beer program, and most important of all, provides an incredible bar experience.” “We’ve always had the idea in the back of our minds to create a venue to highlight and express a more creative menu and experience,” Odeneal said. “The concept of a Floridian Lounge grew out of our love for Florida’s rich culture and long history, especially with this being in America’s first settlement.” Dalrymple Sallis Architecture and H+H Building Group did the planning and construction of the $700,000 project. “We’re proud to say that something we have imagined and built has inspired more development within a block that had no foot traffic four years ago,” Reeves said. The Well, 2,500 square feet in size, has seating for up to 100 people in areas surrounding an expansive white oakpaneled bar. The interior, designed by Nicholas Pica of Studio Pica Design, features a dusty jade green leather banquette installed along the length of an exposed brick wall and houses colorful terrazzo-topped bistro tables and bentwood chairs. Three lounge seating areas run along the center of the space lighted by oversized, rattan pendant light fixtures. They are rich in tropical plants supplied by Zachariah Richards of The Green Gardener.

October-November 2021

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→

NOT SO DRY RUN

Invited guests gathered for the soft opening of The Well, now in business in Pensacola’s East Garden district.

photography by STEVEN GRAY

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

↓ PANHANDLE PIE (LEFT) Stoli vanilla vodka, citron honey tea, lemon, egg white TIKI INTERMISSION Fortaleza Blanco Tequila, Nixta corn liqueur, red bell pepper, honey, fresh pineapple FANS ONLY Tequila Ocho, Banhez Mexcal Artesenal, Salers gentian aperitif, mango oleo saccharum IN THE REEDS Piggy Back six-year rye whiskey, fresh grapefruit, basil and Holy Spin IPA beer

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

photography by STEVEN GRAY

↑ The Well’s interior, designed by Nicholas Pica of Studio Pica Design, features a jade green leather banquette that runs the length of a brick wall. Restrooms exhibit a tropical motif.

The lounge space features brown leather-tufted couches, wicker-accented furniture, and lamps and vintage trunks that serve as tables. Vaulted industrial ceilings with “salty dog blue” accents and patterned concrete floors stenciled by Richard Ingram Painting add to aesthetics that Odeneal said “turned out incredible.” “We owe a lot of that to Nicholas Pica and his amazing team, but getting the chance to flex our creative

muscle, expand our staff and organization and show off a new unique experience to Pensacola is what makes me most excited,” he added. “We wanted to be the first to bring the big city brewery vibe that has been popping up all over the country,” Reeves said. “We offer refined yet unstuffy beer and cocktail programs that provide the expectation of a topquality experience.” Odeneal, who is director of brewing operations for R&R of Pensacola, and Gui Jaroschy,

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October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

a world-renowned mixologist and co-owner of Unfiltered Hospitality, combined to come up with The Well’s beverage program. Jaroschy was twice a semi-finalist for a James Beard Award for best bar. His drink menu here offers 10 signature cocktails with names such as “Panhandle Pie” and “Via de Luna.” All are served in unique glassware with festive garnishes. One drink appropriately named “In the Reeds” incorporates Perfect Plain’s awardwinning Holy Spin IPA, rye whiskey and a fresh grapefruit blend. “One of my favorites,” Reed said. But the signature cocktails are not the only mixed drinks available. “We can definitely accommodate whatever a guest asks for,” Odeneal said. “And everything is fresh,” Reeves said. “There’s no store-bought lime

October-November 2021

juice. We put a lot of time and energy into delivering the best cocktail program, and we’re proud of how it turned out.” Odeneal developed a “funky beer program” after years of fermenting beers in oak barrels and “foeders,” which are made from wine, whiskey, rum and tequila barrels. “Because we make our own beer, we can add our own dedicated beer program to The Well,” Reeves said, “and that’s going to be a concept that’s going to be hard to replicate. That’s part of how we can continue to elevate the downtown experience for locals and tourists.” And in case you were wondering, there’s food available, too. “We started a food program this summer that features raw oysters,” Reeves said. “And a small bar menu is in the works as we speak.” EC

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↑ The Well has launched its own tropical beer program. The brews seen here were two years in the making. From left: Strange Terrain, Golden Embers, Red Embers and Grove Jewels. photography by STEVEN GRAY

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October-November 2021

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October-November 2021

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→

The Citizen restaurant in Alys Beach features an 18-seat bar, 12-seat raw bar and a spacious 120-seat dining room and patio.

DINING OUT

Comfortable and Refined

The Citizen takes up residence in Alys Beach by LIESEL SCHMIDT

hen Jeremy Walton opened The Citizen in Alys Beach in January, the 25-year veteran of the hospitality industry had confidence that the reward would be worth the risk. His conviction has paid off. “Having spent the last five years working with Alys Beach on the development of the town as the vice president of resort operations, I was very excited about the future and growth of the community,” said Walton, who earned photography by MICHAEL BOOINI

his chops working with Auberge Resorts, Montage International and Sea Island before joining the Alys Beach team in 2014. He has also served as a consulting partner for James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Hastings since 2005. “Seeing the growth of Walton County and 30A overall, I came very easily to the decision to do a project like The Citizen,” Walton said. “Because of COVID, the influx of people moving here and the amount of new people discovering 30A was an unexpected bonus. Reception in the

CHARRED AVOCADO

SIX DAYS A WEEK

The Citizen is located at 20 Mark Twain Lane #101, Alys Beach. Open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. for lunch and 5–9 p.m. for dinner. Bar opens at 3:30 p.m. For more information, call (850) 909-0702 or visit citizenalys.com.

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October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

↑ The BLACKENED GULF FISH SANDWICH, top, is stuffed with cabbage slaw, slathered with kimchi aioli and served on a brioche bun. MURDER POINT OYSTERS, above, are good when unadorned, or doctor them up as you please.

community has been positive since the beginning, and despite the pandemic, the community welcomed The Citizen with open arms.” Walton intends that his business reflect “a love for the community and a commitment to defining what it means to be a good citizen.” The restaurant, located across Highway 30A from the Gulf of Mexico, features coastal cuisine born of international inspirations and resulting in global flavor with a serious nod to Southern fare. Driven by locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, the food and beverage menus are indicative of a desire to provide the highest flavor with quality that speaks to a dedication to excellence.

October-November 2021

Featuring seating at an 18-seat bar, 12-seat raw bar, and a spacious 120-seat dining room and patio, The Citizen was designed by local architecture and design firm Khoury-Vogt Architects — the architects for the town of Alys Beach. Naturally, the tavern follows Alys Beach’s cleanly minimalist aesthetic, with an interior influenced by Scandinavian modern design and a focus on simple and refined elements: coffered ceilings, marble and gold accents and a vibrant splash of peacock blue that makes a bold statement in an otherwise white space. Reflecting the fresh and vibrant vibe of the restaurant itself, the menu of The Citizen includes a selection of freshly caught seafood as well as dishes

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

sourced from the “land” and “garden.” Having created what he terms “more of a tavern,” Walton offers dishes consistent with the casual atmosphere of such an enterprise. Entrees, sandwiches, salads and appetizers, while expertly prepared and conceived with a flair for flavor pairings, seem to blur the line between the comfortable and the refined. In homage to coastal Southern fare, many of the dishes are cooked over a wood fire. There are, of course, a few dishes that rise above the rest. “Some of our best sellers are the Calabrian Shrimp, Whipped Feta, Roasted Avocado Salad and the Wood Fired Carrot Hummus Platter,” Walton noted his most popular appetizers. “For photography by MICHAEL BOOINI

Thanks for voting for us for Best Martini two years in a row!

3899 E. County Highway 30A, Seagrove ∙ 850.231.2166 ∙ Open Daily At 4:30 ∙ cafethirtya.com EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

FRESH SEAFOOD FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

DEWEY DESTIN’S SEAFOOD RESTAURANT 9 Calhoun Ave., Destin, FL • (850) 837-7575

DEWEY DESTIN’S HARBORSIDE RESTAURANT 202 Harbor Blvd., Destin, FL • (850) 837-7525

DEWEY DESTIN’S SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

2021 of

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8673 Navarre Pkwy., Navarre, FL • (850)710-7070

DESTINSEAFOOD.COM BEST E

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main courses, the Roasted Grouper and the Charred Broccoli have been very well-received; and Murder Point Oysters with the selection of four sauces and hot-buttered saltines is always a star offering that everyone enjoys.” Walton assembled a team of masters to man the kitchen — and it shows. Executive Chef Drew Dzejak first developed his skills as a professional chef at the age of 15, then went on to graduate from Johnson & Wales with a degree in culinary arts. He worked at Belmond Charleston Place Hotel, Windsor Court Hotel and Palmetto Bluff, where fate seemed to put him in Walton’s path. Much like Dzejak, Chef de Cuisine Coleman Jernigan began his culinary journey at an early age. The New Orleans native has several areas of expertise, including bread baking, pastry arts, fine dining, casual dining and wholesale production. The beverage side of the menu demonstrates a careful exploration of mixology that is both innovative and unique to The Citizen, created in collaboration with Christine Tarpey of Better Together Beverage. “The cocktail menu offers a selection of creative libations organized by flavor profile — Bright & Fresh, Bold & Boozy and Classically Trained — that changes seasonally,” Walton said. The menu also includes a “Zero Proof” section for elevated mocktail creations utilizing distilled, nonalcoholic spirits. A curated wine and beer list is also available and features local craft beers. EC

PHOTO BY MICHAEL BOOINI

↑ BURRATA TOAST is loaded with English peas, radishes, heirloom tomatoes and Georgia olive oil.

Enjoy award-winning cuisine and spectacular views at Destin’s only fine-dining restaurant located directly on the stunning beaches of the Emerald Coast.

For reservations, please call 850-650-7100. THANK YOU FOR VOTING US THE BEST RESTAURANT IN OKALOOSA COUNTY!

850.650.7100 | WWW.BEACHWALKCAFE.COM 2700 SCENIC HIGHWAY 98, DESTIN, FLORIDA

Let Mama Handle the Holidays Private Event Space • Off-Premise Catering Private Chef Services 12271 US-98, Miramar Beach, FL 32550 850-424-3157 | mamaclemenzaseuropeanbreakfast.com 8:00 AM - 2:00 PM | Tuesday - Sunday

Call 850-424-3157 to plan your holiday party with Mama!

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

CUSTOM CONTENT

A BOUNTIFUL HARVEST

Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation’s Harvest Food & Wine Festival will be more plentiful than ever

hroughout time, wine has been a great unifier. It has long gathered together individuals and communities who join to sip and savor it in social settings. The Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation (DCWAF) values and recognizes the communal nature of wine, happily presenting the Harvest Wine & Food Festival, now in its fifth year. As one of the premier wine and food festivals of the Southeast, epicureans looking to tantalize their palates with the finest local food offerings and national and international award-winning wines, gather in South Walton during the region’s most beautiful time of the year. From Thursday, Nov. 4 through Sunday, Nov. 7, attendees can take part in wine dinners, the Grand Tasting, auctions and more at scenic Cerulean Park and surrounding restaurants. “On a nice sunny day, the festival feels like a Hollywood movie set,” said John Russell, president of DCWAF. “We look forward to once again welcoming wine lovers from around the region to a weekend of excellent food and wine while promoting the area and the industries that so greatly support the foundation.” The anticipation is high for this year’s event as the 2020 event only featured intimate dinners and an online auction. From the 2020 event, some valuable aspects arose that will be present in 2021, such as more wine dinners and a Sunday brunch.

October-November 2021

The weekend will begin with four signature dinners on Thursday night — Purlieu Wines at Seagar’s Prime Steaks & Seafood presented by Stephen and Joan Carter, Roy Estate at Cuvee 30A presented by Chuck and Glenda Palmore, Cast Wines at Café Thirty-A presented by Emerald Coast Association of Realtors, and Stonestreet Estate with celebrity chef Adam Evans of Automatic Seafood presented by 360 Blue and Good Grit. Friday will continue with four more dinners featuring Corazon del Sol at Vin’tij Food + Wine presented by Cory and Hillary Fosdyck, and Black Sheep Tequila with celebrity chef Maricela Vega in a private WaterColor residence presented by 360 Blue and Setco Services. These meals grant attendees access to wine pairings customized to the chef’s culinary creations and one-on-one interactions with the winemakers. The main event, the Grand Tasting, occurs on Saturday, where you can fill your cup from hundreds of wine options and sample provisional stations cooked up by the finest Gulf Coast chefs. Sunday concludes with the Better Together Brunch by 360 Blue and Good Grit with scrumptious brunch fare by Kristen Hall and Victor King of Essential Birmingham and craft cocktails mixed by Better Together Beverage and Distillery 98. Whether attending or not, the silent auction is available for virtual bidding all

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weekend long. Money raised from tickets and the silent auction goes directly to 16 local children’s charities, addressing issues such as homelessness, hunger, abuse, mental health, after school funding and more. DCWAF hopes that each attendee enjoys the beauty of eating and drinking their way through South Walton — all while making a special connection with the organizations and charities involved. “It will be a wonderful weekend of food with celebrated chefs, wine from notable vintners and philanthropy support, which is the reason behind why we all gather and make lasting memories,” said Karah Fridley-Young, director of DCWAF.

5th Annual Harvest Wine & Food Festival NOVEMBER 4–7, 2021 Boasting a series of epicurean events throughout South Walton, Harvest Wine & Food Festival offers something for every wine, spirit and food lover to enjoy. Visit HarvestWineandFood.com for the most up to date schedule of events. Tickets on sale now.

Thank you for voting us

MEMBER FDIC

Best Bank!

trustmark.com

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US BEST OF THE EMERALD COAST!

NOLA Boiling Co. | 850-672-2847 | nolaboil.com

4629 Opa-Locka Lane, Destin | 850-353-2464 | dixielandchicken.com EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

HOME COOKIN’

BREAM DANDY

If you bring beans to a fish fry, they’d better be baked by STEVE BORNHOFT

he bream bit on wigglers and grasshoppers with equal amounts of enthusiasm, and before long, I had a nice mess harvested from ponds dug and maintained by Jack Finch, who lives not far from Bear Creek in northern Bay County. Jack and his wife Linda are people whose generosity is so extraordinary that it is hard to know how to answer it, not that they expect anything in return. Jack granted me access to his ponds — “Take as many fish as you want,” he said — and also insisted upon cleaning the catch for me. He led me on a tour of his property, including outbuildings containing tractors, all manner of tools, projects in progress and a Gulfgoing boat equipped with the biggest outboard motor I ever have seen. Linda had much to show me, too, starting with a length of cypress tree, upright in her family room, that is festooned with dozens of fishing lures, all removed from snags in the creek. “Take one,” she said, and I selected an old-timey, wooden plug, a Devil’s Horse, that has fooled speckled trout in salt water and largemouth bass in fresh water for generations.

She directed my attention to shelves filled with ceramic angels and then explained that she has survived both cancer and a stroke and has a shunt that runs from her brain to her chest cavity. Medical intervention notwithstanding, she is convinced that she is looked over by a guardian angel, whom she acknowledges with her collection of figurines. I would leave the Finch property with the lure, venison sausage and a carpenter bee trap fashioned by Jack, along with the bluegills, which were destined for a fish fry at the home of a friend. I come from a place where Friday suppers of walleyed pike are a tradition, but especially in the South, fish fries are a special type of communion that brings together within a man his youth and his latter years; requires beer; invites storytelling; and is laced throughout with an appreciation among participants for nature’s bounty. There is, thankfully, no talk of the one that got away, and if a big fried bream is placed on a platter, it is likely to be ignored. They flat don’t taste as sweet or as good as the smaller ones.

FISH LINGO

Bream is an umbrella term that may be applied to panfish including bluegills, stumpknockers, shellcrackers, warmouths, red-breasts and paints, but not to crappie, which are sometimes called speckled perch. Bluegills are the most common of the bunch and occur throughout the country. Up North, folks call them sunfish.

October-November 2021

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photography by MIKE FENDER

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

gastro & gusto

Bites By Night

3375 W County Highway 30A, Santa Rosa Beach | (850) 660-1594

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

↑ Fresh from the fryer, these bream were caught not far from “grease.” Hush puppies make for a traditional complement.

Once, I attended a fish fry at a neighborhood Cheersstyle bar called Low Places. Spanky, who sold Budweiser beer, was there with a plate in front of him when a dustup developed outside the tavern. He neither wished to miss out on the fight, nor leave his fried bream behind. He placed the whole (beheaded and breaded) fish in his mouth and, seconds later, withdrew nothing but bones. Damnedest thing, like something a cartoon cat might pull off. Used to be, I’d fry fish with a cooker fashioned from a tire rim by an old fishing buddy, Ike Holmes. I gave that cooker away when moving one time, and I wish I had it still. To the home of host Clyde Anderson, I brought the bream furnished by Jack, lemons, canola oil, the requisite Zatarain’s seasoned Fish Fri coating, tartar sauce and fresh green beans. Man, folks were just not having the green beans. Shakin’ their heads. Asking me if that was the way we did things up North. And, finally, sending me to the store to retrieve coleslaw and hushpuppy mix. It all went down pretty good. Clyde’s outdoor kitchen, overlooking a bright blue bayou, provided the perfect setting. We tossed fish bones into the water down the hill from the kitchen and watched as blue crabs finished off what little sustenance remained on them. For now, I am called by some “Mr. Green Beans.” That’s OK. At four syllables, it is too long to last. And, besides, I’ve been called a lot worse. I am not likely to share the green beans story with Jack Finch when I next see him, but I am sure to send his wife one more angel. In such a way, I may redeem myself. EC

PHOTO BY MIKE FENDER

Brunch By Day

All of us here at Grayton Seafood Company are humbled and honored to have been voted Best Restaurant in Walton County. We also voted our locals and guests best customers in Walton county!

50 Uptown Grayton Circle • Grayton Beach • (850) 714-2155 • graytonseafood.com

BEST TH

HOURS: TUESDAY-SATURDAY, 5-9pm • For reservations, text Tabitha at (850) 714-2155

2021

Support your local fishermen and economy. Our seafood is locally sourced.

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We love our community and where we live, and look forward to serving our regulars and new friends we’ve yet to meet!

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Thank you for voting us the Best Romantic/Special Occasion Restaurant on the Emerald Coast Rosemary Beach, FL | (850) 534-0400 | restaurantparadis.com EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

takeaway

30A Grub 2 Go

YOU’VE SPENT A LONG, LUXURIOUS DAY AT THE BEACH, and as the sunset nears, the last thing you want to do is battle traffic and the dinnertime wave. 30A Grub 2 Go provides the best-case scenario by allowing you to experience local cuisine from the comfort of home. Shanda Williams, co-owner of 30A Grub 2 Go and a long-time vacationer on 30A, saw a need for a delivery service that was not only fast, efficient and friendly but also specialized in offering locally owned options. Alongside her business partners Jeff O’Rear and Scott Hancock, they set out to form a company that centers around the experience of everyone involved — from the delivery drivers to the restaurant staff to the customers. Through the 30A Grub 2 Go app or website, customers can select from a variety of restaurants. The restaurant receives an alert to prepare the order as the driver is on their way for the food pickup. The app allows customers to track their driver’s progress. There are many ways that 30A Grub 2 Go sets itself apart from other food delivery services. They ensure your delivery is never canceled by always having available drivers. They do not take a percentage off the price of food from the restaurant; they only charge a delivery fee to customers based on distance. The company is actively seeking restaurants that pride themselves on service and efficiency to join in on the partnership. “We want everyone to experience the same quality that they would from visiting a restaurant — fresh, hot food and exceptional service,” said Williams. “We are a family-oriented company, and (850) 460-4766 we want everyone involved to feel that 30AGrub2Go.com and to know that we will always go the extra mile.”

↓

Thank you from

We can do fundraising, festivals, schools, athletic events, corporate events, resort and park amenity, & so much more! Locally owned and operated by Wayne and Tami Scott.

October-November 2021

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

p. 850.567.5057 e. wscott@kona-ice.com www.kona-ice.com

PHARMACEUTICALS BUILT FOR YOU because you are unique ...

REGINA JAQUESS Your Physician’s Compounding Pharmacist Regina Jaquess, Pharm D, a resident of Santa Rosa Beach since 1998, founded and opened Emerald Coast Compounding Pharmacy in 2010. She is recognized locally as a physician’s compounding pharmacist and works closely to meet the individual needs of each patient by recognizing the importance of their specific medical history. By creating a relationship between the patient, provider, and pharmacist, Regina is able to customize a solution to positively impact ideal therapeutic outcomes. You can also follow Regina’s international water skiing career at her website www.reginajaquess.com.

Anti-Aging Bio-Identical Hormones Replacement Therapy Thyroid Replacement Therapy Dental

Regina Jaquess, PharmD; USA Water Ski Team member, Ten time World Champion; World Records in both slalom and overall; member of Daughters of the American Revolution, West Florida Chapter.

Dermatology

Pediatric

Gastroenterology

Podiatry

Infertility

Sports Medicine

Men’s & Women’s Health

Veterinary

Pain Management

And More!

Thank you to our Physicians and Patients on the Emerald Coast for voting us Best Pharmacy 2016–2020

850-622-5800 Fax: 850-622-5802

Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. 1719 S Co. Highway 393, Santa Rosa Beach, FL 32459 www.eccpharmacy.com • info@eccpharmacy.com EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

BEST E

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PHOTO BY MICHAEL BOOINI

2021

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Best ARtist Brendan Parker

BEST O F

T H E

EMERALD COAST

Life on the Emerald Coast is an exercise in small-town living. The pace of development is accelerating, and impressive visitation numbers seem at times to be multiplying, but the region’s economy is one dominated by assorted small businesses, each working to achieve what we might call “besthood.” The winners in our 2021 Best of the Emerald Coast readers’ poll know full well that good reputations are far more easily lost than won. These are businesses that cultivate the respect and admiration of their customers by reliably and professionally providing products, services and experiences that meet and exceed expectations. They groom their employees to be outstanding representatives of their brands and, by extension, the region as a whole. Together, they account for a special brand of Emerald Coast hospitality. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rattle local, national and global economies, the best businesses on the Emerald Coast persevere, adapt, survive and even thrive. We encourage you, our readers, to patronize and congratulate them.

THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR SPONSORS! BENEFITTING: Junior League of the Emerald Coast SPONSORED BY: Grand Boulevard Sandestin, Silver Sands Premium Outlets, Proffitt PR, Agency Four, Land•Air•Sea Productions, Distillery 98, Trulieve and Idyll Houncs Brewing Company Rowland Publishing’s Best of the Emerald Coast event has long been a sustaining contributor to the Child Clothing Project of the Junior League of the Emerald Coast. While “Emerald Coast” conjures up images of frolicking vacationers and magnificent Gulf-front homes and towers, our area is home to thousands of people who struggle to afford essentials. Many are folks who work to enhance the quality of the Emerald Coast experience for others. While circumstances prevent us from gathering together in a Best of the Emerald Coast event this year, we encourage everyone to give generously to the Child Clothing Project by participating in what we are calling our “Give Your Best” campaign. Your contribution will help provide clothing and meet other basic needs for hundreds of local children. For details on how you can Give Your Best, please visit EmeraldCoastMagazine.com/best-of-the-emerald-coast.

ENTERTAINMENT ARTIST/ART GALLERY

PLACE FOR A DATE

Contemporary, mixedmedia works and ethereal epoxy resins.

Love stays afloat with a tiki boat sunset, sandbar and harbor cruises.

Brendan Parker Art Miramar Beach (850) 803-3677 brendanparkerart.com

Destin (850) 200-0573 cruisintikisdestin.com

PLACE FOR KIDS BIRTHDAY PARTY

DJ30A

Hypnotic beats for happy feet at your wedding, party or private event. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 225-1149 dj30a.com EVENT

The Village of Baytowne Wharf – Sandestin Wine Festival

Celebrating spring with grand wine tastings, gourmet food pairings and bottomless brunches. The Village of Baytowne Wharf, Miramar Beach (850) 267-8180 sandestinwinefestival.com

Urban Air Destin

Stress-free, indoor bashes with trampolines, obstacle courses, climbing walls and more. Destin (850) 687-4178 urbanairdestin.com PLACE TO TAKE THE KIDS

Emerald Coast Science Center

Entertaining education through interactive exhibits, exotic animal encounters and outdoor fun. Fort Walton Beach (850) 664-1261 ecscience.org PLACE TO WATCH A SUNSET

GOLF COURSE

Raven Golf Course

A 6,900-yard, par 71 marvel among the pines of Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. Miramar Beach (850) 267-8155 sandestin.com/golf/ raven-golf-club

The Village of Baytowne Wharf – Sandestin Wine Festival

Barefoot’s Beachside Bar & Grill

Over more than 30 years, the Sandestin Wine Festival, held annually at The Village of Baytowne Wharf, has earned its standing as a highly anticipated event in South Walton and as a perennial favorite among “Best of the Emerald Coast” readers’ poll participants. In four days that include dinners with celebrity chefs in addition to wine tastings, novices learn about winemaking and identify favorites among the tremendous variety of wines available, ranging from Acrobat to Zivo. Wine aficionados enjoy meeting winemakers and asking questions about the fine points of their craft while securing hard-to-find selections. Festival proceeds benefit multiple charities.

Seafood, handhelds and happy hour on the sugarwhite sands of Sandestin. Miramar Beach (850) 267-9500 hiltonsandestinbeach.com

MUSICIAN/VOCALIST/BAND

Will Thompson Band

A melodic mix of rockcountry-funk by a fifthgeneration musician.

RADIO PERSONALITY

Gilligan, Z96.5 Cumulus Media Fort Walton Beach (850) 243-2323 z96.com

TENNIS FACILITY

Hidden Dunes Tennis and Pickleball Center

NIGHTLIFE/ LIVE MUSIC VENUE

RESORT

Raw oysters, libations and live music right on the Destin Harbor.

Epitomizing luxury with fine dining, spa services and rooms with a seaside view.

Six championship Rubico clay courts for seasonal events, tournaments and USPTA-led instruction.

Destin (855) 741-2777 hendersonbeachresort.com

Miramar Beach (850) 269-2590 hiddendunestennis.com

AJ’s Seafood & Oyster Bar Destin (850) 837-1913 ajsgulfcoast.com

October-November 2021

The Henderson

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

ART by Brendan Parker “I never really know how it’s going to turn out or how many layers it will take until it finally just happens and it’s finished … that’s what keeps it interesting for me.” — Brendan Parker

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL BOOINI (ART AND WILL THOMPSON BAND) AND COURTESY OF SANDESTIN GOLF AND BEACH RESORT

Enthralling the Emerald Coast with music and mirth since 1999.

Lynn Haven (850) 896-3584 willthompsonmusic.com

Cruisin’ Tikis Destin

Will Thompson Band Will Thompson is a fifth-generation musician who grew up with family members eager to teach him how to play. At 18, he sold everything he owned and took out a loan to buy equipment for recording music he had been writing on his guitar. He would step away from music making for a time after winning a recording contract and losing some of his creative license. That separation didn’t last long. Today, he is working on new music, a mix of rock, country and funk, that is soulful at every turn.

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

Osaka Japanese Hibachi Steakhouse & Sushi Bar Osaka has been Northwest Florida’s go-to hibachi source for more than 20 years. It’s perfect for special occasions, date night or any time you want to treat yourself to flying shrimp or a flaming onion volcano. The family-owned restaurant was born in Tallahassee and has two locations along the Emerald Coast in Destin and Panama City. Each offers the Chou family’s close attention to detail and organic local produce, fresh Gulf seafood and high-quality beef.

October-November 2021

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FOOD & BEVERAGE APPETIZER

Bijoux

New Orleans-style fine dining with duck confit, blackened brie and crab beignets. Miramar Beach (850) 622-0760 bijouxdestin.com ASIAN FUSION

Domo Café

Chinese cuisine meets Japanese fare with signature sushi rolls, nigiri and takeout favorites. Fort Walton Beach (850) 374-8799 facebook.com/domocafe850 ATMOSPHERE

Old Florida Fish House Coastal fare al fresco on Santa Rosa Beach’s Eastern Lake. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 534-3045 oldfloridafishhouse.com BAKERY

Black Bear Bread Co.

Fueling your day with freshly baked tartines, biscuits and breakfast sandwiches.

PHOTOS BY ALISSA ARYN PHOTO (OSAKA) AND COURTESY OF BLUE MABEL AND SKUNK GULLEY OYSTER BAR

Grayton Beach*, Miramar Beach (850) 213-4528* blackbearbreadco.com BAR/TAVERN

The Red Bar

A local favorite with famous bloody marys, ice-cold draft beer and your go-to wine.

BLOODY MARY

CAJUN/CREOLE

CRAWFISH

Enhanced by home-stewed tomatoes, signature seafood seasoning and a pickled okra and green bean garnish.

Barbecue jumbo shrimp, baked oysters and fresh Gulf grouper done bayou-style.

From Louisiana to your front door, NOLA native Chef Jason serves ’em “steaming hot.”

Stinky’s Fish Camp

The Louisiana Lagniappe

NOLA Boiling Co

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 267-3053 stinkysfishcamp.com

Destin (850) 837-0881 thelouisianalagniappe.com

Mobile Catering/Delivery (850) 672-2847 nolaboil.com

BREAKFAST

CHEF

DESSERT

Plate-sized pancakes, crabmeat benedicts and custom omelettes for the ultimate Southern breakfast.

Bringing 20 years of experience to his “coastal meets modern” culinary creations.

End on a sweet note with after-dinner drink flights, toffee-topped chocolate mousse and deep-dish cheesecake.

Donut Hole Bakery Cafe

Destin*, Inlet Beach, Santa Rosa Beach (850) 837-8824* BREWERY

Idyll Hounds Brewing Company

Thirst-quenching pale ales, pilsners and porters are always on tap. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 231-1138 idyllhoundsbrewingcompany.com

Nikhil Abuvala, Roux 30a Santa Rosa Beach (850) 213-0899 roux30a.com CHINESE

Dynasty Chinese Cuisine

Street-style starters, everyday Chinese and signature chef plates for an indulgent night in or out. Miramar Beach (850) 837-6675 dynastydestin.com

Jackson’s Steakhouse

Pensacola (850) 469-9898 jacksonsrestaurant.com DISTILLERY

Distillery 98

Smooth, signature vodka made from locally sourced, wild ingredients and corn. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 919-2400 distillery98.com FINE DINING

Blue Mabel

Sarah K’s Gourmet

Seagar’s Prime Steaks & Seafood

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 744-0040 bluemabel.com

Destin (850) 269-0044 sarahks.com

Miramar Beach (850) 622-1500 seagars.com

BRUNCH

Praline caramel-drizzled beignets, shrimp and grits and bottomless mimosas are a must.

CRAB CAKES

Freshly made with “100% jumbo lump crab and no filler,” these babies are an international hit.

A New York-style steakhouse featuring fresh seafood and gourmet, seasonal dishes.

Shunk Gulley Oyster Bar Shunk Gulley Oyster Bar, a seafood and casual fare restaurant on Highway 30A, is named after a legendary fishing reef. It offers classic coastal cuisine and genuine Southern hospitality and features live music daily in its panoramic bar area with views of sugar white sand beaches. Shunk Gulley received a 2021 Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice award, an honor reserved for businesses that consistently deliver outstanding experiences to diners around the globe and earn great traveler reviews. As challenging as the past year was, Shunk Gulley stood out by continuously delighting diners.

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 231-1008 theredbar.com BARBECUE

98 BBQ

Pulled pork, beef brisket and sausage platters smoked to perfection. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 622-0679 98BBQ.com BEER SELECTION/ CRAFT BEER

The Craft Bar A casual atmosphere boasting seasonal drafts and draughts you can take home in a crowler. Destin*, Fort Walton Beach, Miramar Beach, Panama City Beach (850) 460-7907* thecraftbarfl.com

Blue Mabel Mabel Strickland was a star cowgirl on the grueling rodeo circuit for 25 years beginning in 1916. Known to be as gentle as a dove to friends and family, she was also tough enough to wrangle a stout calf to the ground. The Blue Mabel honors her memory, but its palettepleasing offerings are anything but tough. Executive Chef David Cunningham exercises his passion for cooking seafood and game over open flames in a style unique to the Gulf coast.

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

Great Southern CafÉ Concocted as a medicinal cocktail to ward off disease in Cuba, an authentic mojito relies on four crucial components: alcohol, mint, lime and simple syrup. However, history doesn’t bar creativity. What distinguishes the Great Southern Café’s mojito is the imbiber’s freedom to pick his poison. Refresh yourself with the popular Titojito, made with Tito’s Vodka and fresh oranges, or opt for a classic — white rum muddled with your choice of nine tropical flavors, including watermelon, guava-pineapple and mango.

Destin with authentic pasta, pizza and meat dishes.

your choice of nine signature flavors.

Destin (850) 460-7353 eatmimmos.com

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 231-7327 thegreatsoutherncafe.com

MARGARITA

NACHOS

A perfect mix of Agave Blanco Tequila, Cointreau Orange Liqueur and fresh squeezes of lemon and lime.

Baja, Southwest, chipotle or barbecue-style with melty cheese and your choice of protein.

Cantina Laredo Miramar Beach (850) 654-5649 cantinalaredo.com

Fort Walton Beach*, Destin (850) 226-8016* burritodelsol.com

MARTINI

NEW RESTAURANT (6-12 MONTHS)

Cafe Thirty-A FRENCH

gourmet groceries, craft libations and seasonal lunch specials.

Bay Cafe French Restaurant

A taste of Paris with escargot, steak au poivre and flaky, buttery croissants. Fort Walton Beach (850) 244-3550 FROZEN TREAT (ICE CREAM, YOGURT, GELATO, SNOW CONES)

Kona Ice of South Walton County Creating the snowcone of your dreams with “Flavorwave” technology.

Boasting an all-keto inventory of pizza crust, sandwich bread and lowcarb confections.

TIE

October-November 2021

GUMBO

Chicken, sausage and all the fixings with a side of crusty French bread or crackers.

Gluten-free and vegan-friendly, try the cinnamon crumb cake and keto power bowl.

GUMBO

Sports to Geaux

GLUTEN- FREE-FRIENDLY TIE

A mom-and-pop shop of

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 622-2733 shunkgulley.com

Destin (850) 353-2464 dixielandchicken.com

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 598-7438 wegotbaked.com

Modica Market

Fresh grouper, tartar sauce, heirloom tomato and coastal slaw come together on a toasted challah bun.

Authentic and hearty, it’s the choice side for your Cajun-fried chicken combo.

Got Baked

GOURMET/FOOD SHOP/ SPECIALTY FOOD STORE

Shunk Gulley Oyster Bar

Dixieland Chicken Co

TIE GLUTEN- FREE-FRIENDLY

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 267-0400 bluemountainbakery.com

GROUPER SANDWICH

TIE

(850) 567-5057 Freeport kona-ice.com

Blue Mountain Bakery

Seaside (850) 231-1214 modicamarket.com

Freeport (850) 520-0429 facebook.com/sportstogeaux HAMBURGER

McGuire’s Irish Pub

Custom ground from angus steak trimmings with over 25 ways to try it. Destin*, Pensacola (850) 650-0000* mcguiresirishpub.com

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TIE

HAPPY HOUR

Angelena’s Ristorante Italiano

Italian birra and wine by the glass, signature cocktails and curated samplers of salumi and formaggi. Pensacola (850) 542-8398 angelenaspensacola.com TIE

HAPPY HOUR

Marina Cafe

Half-priced wine, domestic beers and the chef’s choice of sushi rolls from 5–7 p.m. Destin (850) 837-7960 marinacafe.com HEALTHY MENU OPTIONS

Clean Eatz

Smart meal plans, nutrituous catering options and an extensive cafe menu. Shalimar (850) 613-6880 cleaneatz.com/locations/ shalimar-fl HIBACHI

Osaka Japanese Hibachi Steakhouse & Sushi Bar Family-friendly, teppanyaki dinner experiences with complimentary soup, salad, fried rice and veggies. Destin*, Panama City Beach, Tallahassee (850) 650-4688* osakahibachiandsushi.com ITALIAN

Mimmo’s Ristorante Italiano

Bringing the Old Country to

Burrito del Sol

Only $6 every Tuesday and Thursday night. Choose from over 14 variations on the rocks or straight up. Seagrove Beach (850) 231-2166 cafethirtya.com MEDITERRANEAN

Aegean Restaurant

Ambrosial dolmades, gyros, souvlaki and daily dessert specials. Miramar Beach*, Mary Esther, Shalimar (850) 460-2728* aegeanfl.com

Ovide

Elegant, fine dining marries Gulf Coast ingredients with classic French techniques. Miramar Beach (850) 351-3030 hoteleffie.com/dining/ovide ON-SITE CATERING

Townsend Catering Company

Decadent hors d’oeuvres, entrees and buffet options for an unforgettable event. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 622-0663 townsendcatering.com OUTDOOR BAR

MEXICAN/LATIN AMERICAN

Pepito’s Mexican Restaurant

Authentic Mexican classics, Gulf ceviche and premium cervezas. Destin*, Miramar Beach, Niceville, Fort Walton Beach (850) 650-7734* mypepitos.com

Ara Rooftop Pool & Lounge Artisanal cocktails, fine wine and sweeping views atop Hotel Effie. Miramar Beach (850) 351-3033 hoteleffie.com/dining/ara OUTDOOR DINING

MOJITO

The Bay

Fizzy refreshment from

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 622-2291 baysouthwalton.com

Great Southern Café

Seafood, sushi and craft cocktails right on the Choctawhatchee.

Bud & Alley’s Waterfront Restaurant Bud & Alley’s, founded in 1987, has grown with the community of Seaside. Newly expanded, it maintains its commitment to serving fresh takes on coastal classics, including its very fresh tuna dip.

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria Stand outside Grimaldi’s, and you’re at the Grand Boulevard Town Center in South Walton. Inside, you’re in Brooklyn. Fold it, cut it or wolf it down, and you’ll see that Grimaldi’s knows its way around a New York slice. Brick-oven pizza with fresh mozzarella and house-made dough — it’s no wonder Grimaldi’s has won more awards than any other pizzeria in the U.S. Pizza never goes out of style, but with Grimaldi’s seasonal creations, you’ll never run out of new things to try.

STEAKHOUSE

wine-marinated smoked tuna and fresh herbs served with crispy, homemade lavash.

An upscale eatery renowned for its customaged USDA prime beef and signature side dishes.

Seaside (850) 231-5900 budandalleys.com

Destin (850) 837-7884 ruthschris.com/ restaurant-locations/destin

WATERFRONT RESTAURANT

Ruth’s Chris Steak House

OYSTERS

Boathouse Oyster Bar

Chargrilled, baked, steamed or raw, build your own dozen for the ultimate combination. Destin (850) 837-3645 boathouseoysterbardestin.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GRIMALDI’S PIZZERIA, BUD & ALLEY’S WATERFRONT RESTAURANY AND GREAT SOUTHERN CAFÉ

PIZZA

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria

New York-style, made-toorder pies in a coal-fired brick oven. Miramar Beach (850) 837-3095 grimaldispizzeria.com/locations/ grand-boulevard RESTAURANT IN BAY COUNTY

Firefly

Casual fine dining with a romantic atmosphere and inspired cuisine. Panama City Beach (850) 249-3359 fireflypcb.com RESTAURANT IN ESCAMBIA COUNTY

The Fish House

A harborside haven with daily local catches, steak and the world-famous Grits à Ya Ya. Pensacola (850) 470-0003 fishhousepensacola.com

RESTAURANT IN OKALOOSA COUNTY

Beach Walk Cafe

Fine, deckside dining with an upscale menu of surf, turf and gourmet desserts. Destin (850) 650-7100 beachwalkcafe.com RESTAURANT IN WALTON COUNTY

Grayton Seafood

Locally sourced, seafoodcentric recipes make for “Grayt Food & Tall Tales.” Santa Rosa Beach (850) 714-2155 graytonseafood.com ROMANTIC/SPECIAL OCCASION RESTAURANT

Restaurant Paradis

Coastal cuisine with a twist and a fine wine list served in an intimate dining room, lounge or patio. Rosemary Beach (850) 534-0400 restaurantparadis.com SEAFOOD MARKET

Destin Ice House

The premier source for seasonal catches, offering crabs, oysters, shrimp and ready-to-bake seafood pie. Destin (850) 837-8333 destinice.com

SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

Dewey Destin’s Harborside

Hot crab dip, daily specials and fish served grilled, blackened or fried right by the Destin Harbor. Destin (850) 837-7525 destinseafood.com SEAFOOD STEAMER

Old Bay Steamer

Family-style shrimp, crab and shellfish steamers in a casual setting. Fort Walton Beach (850) 664-2795 oldbaysteamerfwb.com SHRIMP SALAD

Stewby’s Market

Local ingredients combine with shrimp from Bon Secour for a light, zesty appetizer. Fort Walton Beach (850) 226-8448 stewbys.com SPORTS BAR

Shades Bar & Grill Cold beer, pub fare, 17 HD TVs and a projector set the scene for game day. Inlet Beach (850) 231-9410 shades30a.com

SUSHI

Bamboo Sushi & Hibachi Restaurant

Classic and regionally inspired rolls, fresh sashimi, nigiri and housemade poke. Crestview, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville* (850) 678-0771* bamboo-sushi.com TACOS

Red Fish Taco Savory meat, fresh salsa and queso in soft flour, grilled corn or crispy streetstyle tortillas. Blue Mountain Beach (850) 994-7443 redfishtaco.com THAI

Thai Elephant Authentic Thai Cuisine Saucy noodles, aromatic curries and stir-fried entrees in a low-key atmoshpere. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 660-6711 thaielephantsrb.com TUNA DIP

Bud & Alley’s Waterfront Restaurant A creamy blend of white

Boshamps Seafood & Oyster House

Gulf-to-table, Southern fare and custom cocktails on the Destin Harbor. Destin (850) 424-7406 boshamps.com WEDDING CATERER

SunQuest Beach Weddings, LLC

All-inclusive catering packages offering a sample of local seafood, prime steaks and regional delicacies. Miramar Beach (850) 830-9359 sunquestbeachweddings.com WINE LIST/WINE BAR

The Wine Bar A comprehensive selection of international and domestic wines from the big and bold to the soft and fruity. Destin, Santa Rosa Beach, Watercolor* (850) 231-1323* thewinebarfl.com WINGS

Buffalo’s Reef

Crispy, deep-fried traditional and boneless delights tossed in your favorite sauce. Fort Walton Beach (850) 243-9464 buffalosreef.com

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October-November 2021

SERVICE PROVIDERS ACUPUNCTURE CLINIC

AUDIO/VISUAL PROVIDER

Five-Star Audio Visual, Inc.

Tortoise Clinic of Chinese Medicine

Providing premium, in-house audiovisual solutions for your property or event venue.

Time-tested techniques for stress relief, hormone regulation and fertility treatment.

Fort Walton Beach (850) 275-4242 five-starav.com

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 267-5611 thetortoiseclinic.com

AUTOMOBILE DEALERSHIP

AESTHETICIAN

Melissa St. John – Anti Aging Skincare Clinic Revitalizing your skin with physician-grade skincare products and medical spa treatments.

Lee Auto Holdings, Inc. Premier customer service, maintenance and parts specials, this dealership carries the latest Nissan models and an ample preowned inventory. Fort Walton Beach leenissanfwb.com crestviewbuickgmc.com BANK

Destin (850) 654-1194 theplasticdoc.com

Trustmark

A dedicated, trustworthy staff offers financial services and solutions across 180 locations in the South.

Healing Hoof Steps

Improving lives with equine assisted activities, therapy and team-building workshops.

Panama City,* Lynn Haven, Destin, Santa Rosa Beach, Freeport, DeFuniak Springs, Niceville, Pensacola (850) 769-3333* trustmark.com BUILDER/CONTRACTOR

Crestview (850) 764-1005 healinghoofsteps.org ARCHITECTURE FIRM

DAG Architects Inc.

Luke & Blue’s LLC – Custom Homes

Dedicated designs with a lifelong community impact.

Deron Strickman custom builds dream homes along 30A and beyond.

Destin (850) 837-8152 dagarchitects.com

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 246-2583 lukeandblues.com

Luke & Blue’s LLC – Custom Homes Luke & Blue’s custom homes lives by a simple mantra that permeates every project the company takes on: “Good Enough Never Is.” When you entrust your dream home to Luke & Blue’s, they aren’t satisfied until you are. No shortcuts. This team doesn’t simply build homes; they manifest dreams. A tried-and-true staff, enterprising mentality and keen eye for design come together as Luke & Blue’s creates some of the most stunning homes along the Emerald Coast. This custom homebuilder serves communities from Dune Allen to Seagrove Beach and as far north as Point Washington.

Kitchen Designs of the Emerald Coast It’s long been said that the kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s where you make the bread you break with friends and family. Kitchen Designs of the Emerald Coast ensures that an element of style figures in those memories. For the beachy keen, there’s the “Panama” cabinet line, a collection of subtly accented, alabaster birch panels. With a reversed, raised center panel, the “Shaker” embodies understated elegance in a multitude of wooden finishes. Or, for a kitchen that seems to have leapt from a Better Homes & Gardens page, there’s “Providence,” a five-piece, fully overlaid cabinet for the modern sophisticate. Too, Kitchen Designs of the Emerald Coast will help realize your kitchen goals with an extensive inventory of custom countertops. Go bold with onyx, “Bala Blue” marble and “Angel Jasper” semi-precious stone countertops, or strive for simplicity with ever-trending collections of granite and white quartz.

October-November 2021

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF HOTEL EFFIE, LUKE & BLUE’S LLC - CUSTOM HOMES AND KITCHEN DESIGNS OF THE EMERALD COAST

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE FACILITY

Hotel Effie At Hotel Effie Sandestin, guests are entranced by decor so elegant that it distracts them from the spectacular setting beyond their room’s windows — if only for a minute. Staff and management pride themselves on the attention to detail, level of care and personal touches they give to all who stay with them. The hotel presents a fresh take on a coastal Florida hotel with the contemporary traveler in mind while respecting and reflecting its surroundings. Celebrity Chef Hugh Acheson creates meals nightly that impress and delight. Here, the water is always fine and so is the wine.

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

CABINETS & COUNTERTOPS

Kitchen Designs of the Emerald Coast

CHARTER BOAT SERVICE (FISHING, DIVING, ETC.)

SunVenture Cruises

Giving your kitchen a facelift with custom cabinetry, appliance packages and granite and marble designs.

Dolphin, firework, Crab Island and private cruise excursions offer adventure and unparalleled views of Destin.

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 974-3185 kitchendesignsgroup.com

Destin (850) 424-6465 sunventurecruises.com

CAR/LIMO/ SHUTTLE SERVICE

CHEERLEADING/ GYMNASTICS FACILITY

Luxe Limos of Destin

Limo fleets, hourly services and private airport transportation will have you riding in style. Destin (850) 865-2216 luxelimosdestin.com

Owned by an NCAA National Champion in Gymnastics, this institution offers curriculum-based lessons and competitive teams.

CARDIOLOGIST

Okaloosa Heart & Vascular Center

Miramar Beach*, Santa Rosa Beach (850) 654-3124* usgoldgymnastics.com

Cardiovascular diagnosis and treatment from an experienced team of interventional cardiologists. Crestview*, Destin, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville (850) 682-7212* okaloosaheart.com CHARITY/NONPROFIT

Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation

Wine enthusiasts rally annually to support 17 Northwest Florida children’s charities. Miramar Beach (850) 650-3732 dcwaf.org

U.S. Gold Gymnastics and Cheerleading Academy

CHIROPRACTIC PRACTICE

Freeport Family Chiropractic Clinic

Supporting spinal health with acupuncture, massage, cupping and chiropractic techniques. Freeport (850) 835-9867 freeportfamilychiropractic.com COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE GROUP

Mims Real Estate Advisors, LLC Single agency brokerage

furnishing Northwest Florida with “principled advice, always.” Freeport (850) 835-4444 mimsre.com COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE GROUP

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty Northwest Florida’s top beach property listings, area resources and community experts all in one place. Multiple Locations (850) 650-7293 penfedrealty.com TIE COMPUTER SERVICES/ TECH SUPPORT

Bit-Wizards

Successfully supporting your business with application development, digital marketing solutions, cloud infrastructure and IT support. Fort Walton Beach (850) 226-4200 bitwizards.com TIE COMPUTER SERVICES/ TECH SUPPORT

CRC Data Technologies Providing professional, reliable IT support, virtualization, data protection and network security services from Destin to Pensacola. Destin (850) 654-7262 crcdatatech.com

COSMETIC/PLASTIC SURGERY PRACTICE

Destin Plastic Surgery by William R. Burden, MD, FACS World-class cosmetic services and augmentative surgeries from

board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. William Burden. Destin (850) 654-1194 theplasticdoc.com CREDIT UNION

Eglin Federal Credit Union Offering first-class financial products and services in Okaloosa County since 1954. Fort Walton Beach (850) 862-0111 eglinfcu.org

Meraki Solutions Meraki Solutions is building the future with each of its installations. The company has fully embraced the technology behind solar energy, and they make it simple for their customers, guiding them through the process with a friendly, dedicated staff who know their stuff. Meraki’s fully in-house staff offers free consultations, quotes and installation. Once you’re all set up, Meraki commits to 24/7 monitoring, a 25-year warranty and 25 years of maintenance and servicing to keep your energy bill and carbon footprint low.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Meraki Solutions

Free quotes, custom system designs and guided walkthroughs for a seamless conversion to solar power. Destin (850) 739-2519 merakisolutions.com DENTAL PRACTICE

Smileology

Dr. Broutin, Dr. Wiebe and

October-November 2021

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Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa From company conferences and family reunions to private meetings and receptions, planning an event can be as stressful as the occasion itself. Luckily, event venues at Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa are a cut above the rest. An on-site meetings staff will help determine whether your event is best suited to one of the resort’s spacious ballrooms and theater, or one of three beachside decks. And, with four award-winning, championship golf courses, a world-class spa and fine dining amenities, your event will be one that you will fondly remember forever.

FINANCIAL PLANNING/ INVESTMENT FIRM

Krueger, Fosdyck & Associates of Merrill Lynch Meeting your financial needs and goals with personalized advice from a dedicated team of professionals.

PHOTOS BY SL-F / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS AND COURTESY OF HILTON SANDESTIN BEACH GOLF RESORT & SPA

Niceville, Miramar Beach*, Santa Rosa Beach (850) 424-7887* smileology.com DERMATOLOGY PRACTICE

Coastal Skin Surgery & Dermatology Offering state-of-theart techniques for dermatalogical treatment services and skin surgery.

Miramar Beach*, Fort Walton Beach, Niceville, Panama City Beach (850) 654-3376 coastalskinsurgery.com ELECTRIC CART/ GOLF CART DEALERSHIP

Ecco Motors Supplying new and preowned street-legal golf carts with professional financing, parts and services departments. Miramar Beach (850) 837-2600 eccomotors.com

EVENT PLANNING FIRM

Fishers Flowers and Events

comprehensive eye exams and more than 20 years of experience from a boardcertified and residencytrained optometrist.

Beautifying spaces with fresh blooms, dreamy lighting, and chic lounge and reception fixtures.

Miramar Beach (850) 269-3937 mollegaeyecare.com

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 622-0056 fishersflowersandevents.com

Eye Center South

EVENT VENUE

Hilton Sandestin Beach Golf Resort & Spa

A luxurious, seaside space for the ultimate beach wedding, business meeting or private event. Miramar Beach (850) 267-9500 hiltonsandestinbeach.com EYE DOCTOR PRACTICE

Mollega Eye Care & Optique

Over 700 designer frames,

EYE SURGEON PRACTICE

Premium service and visionenhancing treatments from a team of surgical specialists and specialty eyecare doctors. Destin*, Panama City (850) 650-6550* eyecentersouth.net FAMILY PHYSICIAN/ PRACTICE

White-Wilson Medical Center

Bluewater Fitness

Achieving your fitness goals with personal training, highintensity group workouts, strength training and cardio. Niceville (850) 279-6767 bluewater.fitness

Destin (850) 269-7000 fa.ml.com/florida/destin/kfa/

HAIR SALON

FLOORING

A creatively driven staff who cut, color and style to contemporary beauty standards.

Infinity Flooring their team create brighter smiles with implant, cosmetic and family dentistry as well as facial aesthetics.

GYM/HEALTH CLUB/ FITNESS CENTER/STUDIO

Quality hardwood, carpet, stone and tile flooring to give your abode a distinguished look. Miramar Beach (850) 650-1039 infinityfloors.com FLORIST

Katie’s House of Flowers & Gifts

Gourmet gift baskets, seasonal flower subscriptions and breathtaking bouquets for any occasion. Niceville (850) 678-7811 nicevilleflowers.com FULL SERVICE SPA

Serenity by the sea Spa

Multi-specialty, outpatient physicians treating Emerald Coast families for more than 70 years.

Your passport to rejuvenation with spa and salon services, special treatment packages and premier cosmetic products and gifts.

Fort Walton Beach (850) 863-8100 white-wilson.com

Miramar Beach (850) 622-9595 serenitybytheseaspa.com

Avantgarde Salon Spa Destin*, Niceville (850) 654-5057* avantgardeaveda.com

HEATING AND AIR SERVICE

Gulfshore Air Conditioning & Heating, Inc. Factory-trained technicians helping you survive the seasons with furnace, heating and AC repair and installation. Niceville (850) 897-6540 gulfshoreair.com HOTEL

Hotel Effie

Gourmet dining, a fullservice spa, rooftop pool and elegant suites make for one of the finest new luxury hotels in Sandestin. Miramar Beach (850) 351-3040 hoteleffie.com INSURANCE AGENCY

Affordable Home Insurance

An independent insurance

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

Off Leash K9 Training You may see Spot run, but can he sit, stay and roll over? Founded by celebrity dog trainer Nick White, Off Leash K9 Training has over 140 locations across the country that excel in basic and advanced obedience, detection and personal protection training for your pooch. Emerald Coast trainers work with both you and your pet in processes proven to “unleash” your bond. They provide officially licensed OLK9 AnimAlarms, cots and Ecollar products for smooth sailing.

firm providing high-quality coverage for your home, vehicle, commercial property and life. Miramar Beach (850) 654-1567 ahifl.com INTERIOR DESIGN FIRM

Lovelace Interiors

A licensed interior design firm bringing your visions to life with impeccable home and outdoor space design. Miramar Beach (850) 837-5563 lovelaceinteriors.com

LIGHTING STORE

LANDSCAPING/ LAWN SERVICE

Illuminating your space with statement chandeliers, wall sconces and designer lamps.

Beautiful Lights

Father and Son Pest and Lawn Solutions

Destin (850) 650-9417 beautifullights.com

Owner Skip Orth “solves lawn problems” with pest and weed control, free lawn consultations and maintenance packages.

LOCKSMITH

A to Z Lock & Safe

The key to solving all your problems with 24/7 emergency lockout service, residential locks, safe installations and personal protection products.

Navarre (850) 939-9868 fatherandsonlandscape.com LAW FIRM

Bracken Law, P.A.

A full-service law firm covering real estate, business law, estate planning, probate and civil litigation. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 792-2677 brackenlawpa.com

October-November 2021

Mary Esther*, Destin (850) 664-7557 atozlockandsafe.com MARINE SALES AND SERVICE

Legendary Marine Choice new and used

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boats and yachts, a comprehensive marine service department, specially ordered parts and secure storage rentals. Destin*, Panama City Beach, Fort Walton Beach, Pensacola, Gulf Shores, Ala. (850) 337-8300* legendarymarine.com MARTIAL ARTS/KARATE

Resolute Martial Arts

Helping students reach their full potential through a blended martial arts system and lessons in honesty, respect and perseverance. Destin (850) 797-4434 resolutemartialarts.com MEDICAL CENTER/HOSPITAL

Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast A full-service, 76-bed

hospital specializing in your critical, everyday and specialty care needs. Miramar Beach (850) 278-3000 ascension.org MEDICAL PRACTICE

Fort Walton Beach Medical Center Quality care and patient safety priorities have made them a top general hospital for the past 45 years. Fort Walton Beach (850) 862-1111 fwbmc.com MEDICAL SPA

GLOW Med Spa of 30A

Injectables, bio-stimulators and PRP facials for a bright, new look. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 764-2340 glow30a.com

MORTGAGE LENDER

Inlanta Mortgage

Paving the way to your dream home with the loan programs that best suit you. Destin (850) 499-4759 southeastlender.com ORTHODONTIST PRACTICE

Stubbs Orthodontics The latest orthodontic technologies make more confident smiles for kids, teens and adults. Niceville and South Walton (850) 678-8338 stubbsortho.com ORTHOPEDIC SURGICAL PRACTICE

Orthopaedic Associates

Experienced specialists perform quality orthopaedic treatment for

provide compassion and care for infants, toddlers and children. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 659-6611 coastalpediatricgroup.com PHARMACY

The Prescription Place A locally owned pharmacy for all of your prescription, over-thecounter medication and immunization needs.

DeFuniak Springs, Niceville* (850) 389-8182* prescriptionplacerx.com PHOTO BOOTH COMPANY

Epic Photo Co.

Fun, themed photo booths make GIFs, stills and digital keepsakes from your wedding, party or corporate gathering. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 213-4434 epicphoto.co PHOTOGRAPHY

Danny Dillard Photography

A professional, journalisticstyle approach to wedding, party and landscape photography and portraiture. bones, joints, ligaments and musculoskeletal disorders. Fort Walton Beach (850) 863-2153 orthoassociates.net OUTDOOR SERVICE PROVIDER

Adept Pressure Washing PHOTO COURTESY OFF LEASH K9 TRAINING

Bringing dumpstercleaning, paver-sealing and pressure washing power to Emerald Coast properties. Serving Rosemary Beach to Destin, located in Santa Rosa Beach (850) 855-7209 adeptpressurewashing.com PEDIATRIC PRACTICE

Coastal Pediatric Group

Three board-certified pediatricians and two pediatric nurse practitioners

Fort Walton Beach (850) 496-5050 dannydillard.photography PHYSICAL THERAPY PRACTICE

Select Physical Therapy

A competent clinical team puts you on the road to recovery with sports medicine, reconditioning and specialty therapies and services. Multiple locations throughout the Emerald Coast 1(844) 294-6923 selectphysicaltherapy.com PLUMBING FIXTURES/ SERVICE

Emerald Bay Plumbing

Natural gas services, plumbing solutions and 24/7 emergency assistance since 1996. Destin (850) 837-1979 emeraldbayplumbing.com

POOL BUILDING/ SERVICE COMPANY

Blue Haven Pools & Spas

Custom, affordable inground pools for a backyard paradise.

enclosures and screen room upgrades for your home. Serving the Emerald Coast (850) 417-4112 eandesunrooms.com SPECIALTY FITNESS (PILATES, YOGA, ETC.)

Pensacola/Northwest Florida*, Santa Rosa Beach (850) 932-2600* bluehaven.com

Sculpt Studio

PR/ADVERTISING AGENCY

Santa Rosa Beach (850) 231-0010 sculptstudio30a.com

Proffitt PR

Boosting your brand visibility with digital and strategic marketing, social media management, public relations and more. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 460-7777 proffittpr.com PRINTING/COPYING SERVICES

Fresh Prints of South Walton Realizing your designs on screen-printed shirts, hats, stickers and other compatible items. Freeport (850) 280-4005 freshprintsofsouthwalton.com PROPERTY MANAGEMENT GROUP

Both a creative and fitness space for a balanced workout and work-in.

SPECIALTY PET SERVICES/ PRODUCTS

Off Leash K9 Training 30A

Fast and effective training sessions, private lessons and therapy dog preparation for man’s best friend. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 536-8895 30adogtrainers.com STORAGE FACILITY

Niceville Storage

A family-owned storage facility with 24-hour access to temperaturecontrolled units.

VIDEOGRAPHY

Land Air Sea Productions

Capturing life’s moments and magic with wedding and event coverage, social media support, drone videography and more. Emerald Coast landairseaproductions.com WEDDING HAIR/ MAKEUP ARTIST

Kendra K Beauty, LLC

Personalized, glamorous and timeless bridal makeup by a licensed cosmetologist. On-site Beauty Services (850) 603-4133 kendrakbeauty.com WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

Documented Photography by Hara Gabrielle

Internationally comissioned photographer Hara Gabrielle masterfully captures the devotion and emotions of your big day. Pensacola (850) 287-1864 documentedphotography.com

NewmanDailey Resort Properties

Niceville (850) 353-4064 nicevillestorage.com TITLE COMPANY

RaeBird Events

Miramar Beach (850) 837-1071 newmandailey.com

Over 200 years of combined employee prowess in residential and commercial real estate transactions and real estate law.

Destin, Miramar Beach, Scenic 30A (850) 714-7336 raebirdevents.com

Top-notch customer service for vacation and resort rentals, sales and management.

RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE GROUP

Sandestin Real Estate

Market-leading real estate from Sandestin to 30A and beyond. Miramar Beach (800) 277-0801 sandestinrealestate.com ROOFING

Specialty Roofers, Inc. Metal and shingle installations, expert reroofs and repairs for flat and sloped roofs. Northwest Florida (850) 974-ROOF specialtyroofers.com SCREEN ENCLOSURE

E&E Sunrooms

Letting the sunshine in with sunrooms, carports, pool

McNeese Title, LLC

Destin (850) 337-4242 mcneesetitle.com VACATION RENTAL COMPANY/SERVICE

My Vacation Haven

Your passport to paradise with the finest vacation property rentals on the coast. Miramar Beach (850) 608-6078 myvacationhaven.com VETERINARY PRACTICE

Airport Veterinary Clinic

Invaluable medical care, emergency services, boarding facilities and bathing for your fur babies. Destin (850) 837-3227 airportvetdestin.com

WEDDING PLANNER COMPANY

Seeing your wedding goes off without a hitch with full-service event planning, design and coordination.

WEDDING/RECEPTION VENUE

SunQuest Cruises/ SOLARIS

All-inclusive wedding packages are carefully designed to offer unforgettable, luxurious and stress-free experiences. Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort (850) 650-2519 sunquestcruises.com WEIGHT LOSS FACILITY

Dunn Diabetes and Wellness Center Empowering patients with specific plans to achieve and maintain a healthy weight through proper nutrition and medical intervention. Santa Rosa Beach (850) 267-3498

EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

October-November 2021

SHOPPING FURNITURE RETAILER

Tuskers Home Store

Stunning reclaimed wood pieces, outdoor fittings, deluxe matresses, rugs and chic furniture for every room.

JEWELRY STORE

SPORTING GEAR/ PADDLEBOARD RETAILER

Destin (850) 650-2262 mccaskillandcompany.com LOCALLY OWNED RETAILER

You, Me & The Sea Boutique

ANTIQUES SHOP

Smith’s Antiques Mall & Interiors Market A 25,000-square-foot showroom exhibits ecclectic collectables, high-quality antiques and decor.

Coconut Kidz Vibrant, whimsical clothing collections for boys and girls of all ages.

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Getting thrifty with over 10,000 square feet of home furnishings, designer handbags and women’s consignment fashion.

TIE COSMETIC PROVIDER/VENDOR

CHILDREN’S CLOTHING RETAILER

Ava’s Attic

Miramar Beach (850) 424-6767 avasatticindestin.com

Miramar Beach (850) 654-1484 smithsantiquesmall.com

Miramar Beach (850) 351-1800 sandestin.com/shopping/ coconut-kidz-apparel-toys

CONSIGNMENT/ RESALE SHOP

Pish Posh Patchouli’s

An apothecary boutique of advanced skincare, body products and custom fragrances in Rosemary Beach. Rosemary Beach (850) 231-2005 patchoulis.com

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COSMETIC PROVIDER/VENDOR TIE

Rollands Beauty Bar An art gallery/salon mashup with hair treatments, makeup artistry and exclusive beauty product lines. Inlet Beach (850) 231-6085 rollandsbeautybar.com TIE

FURNITURE RETAILER

Stock & Trade Design Co. Offering a vast selection of custom upholstery, local art and classic, contemporary home furnishings. Miramar Beach (850) 460-8990 stockandtrade.com

High-caliber, customprinted clothing for your events, organizations and self-expression. Freeport (850) 610-1500 pelicanprintshack.com

Designer watches, diamond engagement rings and the largest collection of fine jewelry on the Emerald Coast.

Today is all about you. Margaret Ellen Bridal isn’t just a dress shop full of racks and frills and lace; it’s a place where you will create a lifetime memory. Each member of the Margaret Ellen Bridal team takes that responsibility seriously. This wedding shop books sessions by appointment only, so that when you walk in and the doors close behind you, the rest of the world fades away. Empire, trumpet or otherwise, Margaret Ellen Bridal provides an intimate, relaxing experience as you discover the dress of your dreams.

Pelican Print Shack

Miramar Beach (850) 424-3969 tuskershomestore.com

McCaskill & Company

Margaret Ellen Bridal

SPECIALTY RETAILER

A curated, confidenceinspiring clothing collection for women of all shapes and sizes. Destin (850) 460-2085 shopthesea.commentsold.com

BOTE

Premium paddleboards, kayaks, micro skiffs, inflatable accessories and outdoor gear for an exhilarating day on the water. Destin*, Fort Walton Beach, Grayton Beach (850) 460-2250 boteboard.com WEDDING SHOP

Margaret Ellen Bridal

Domestic designer gowns and must-have bridal accessories to suit your price range. Inlet Beach (850) 641-0266 margaretellenbridal.com

MEN’S APPAREL/ SHOES/ACCESSORIES

WOMEN’S ACCESSORIES

Resort-style apparel, footware and accessories from Vineyard Vines, Southern Tide and more.

Trendy boutique handbags, bohemian jewelry, lacy bralettes and durable, eyecatching tumblers.

Island Clothiers

Miramar Beach (850) 351-1806 sandestin.com/shopping/ island-clothiers OUTDOOR FURNITURE RETAILER

Bay Breeze Patio

Creating the ultimate outdoor experience with premium grills and smokers, fire pits, outdoor furnishings and patio accessories. Miramar Beach (850) 269-4666 baybreezepatio.com

Clasea Chic Boutique Fort Walton Beach (850) 374-8595 shopclasseachic.com WOMEN’S BOUTIQUE

Barefoot Princess

Stylish, seasonal apparel, staple jewelry, travel bags, quirky home goods and monogrammed wood art. Miramar Beach (850) 351-1806 sandestin.com/shopping/ barefoot-princess WOMEN’S SHOES

Scuba Tech

Sunset Shoes & Lifestyles

Destin (850) 837-2822 scubatechnwfl.com

Miramar Beach (850) 837-5466 sunsetshoesonline.com

SCUBA DIVE SHOP

Equipment services, gear rental and expert-led diving classes ahead of your next underwater adventure.

Stocking the latest in women’s and men’s designer brand sandals, boots and leisure shoes.

PHOTOS BY JOHN HARRINGTON AND COURTESY MARGARET ELLEN BRIDAL

TIE

Sunset Shoes & Lifestyles Marilyn Monroe once said, “Give a girl the right shoes, and she’ll conquer the world.” According to our “Best of the Emerald Coast” readers’ poll, many local ladies begin that quest at Sunset Shoes & Lifestyles. Opened 20 years ago as a supplier of Birkenstock, Naot and Mephisto European comfort shoes, Sunset now stocks over 100 brands of designer sandals, sneakers and boots. The one-stop shoe shop plays to local trends, such as beach-ready Olukai, Reef and Rainbow sandals, as well as lifestyle footwear ranging from Patagonia and Sanuk, to UGG and Doc Martens.

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O N LY O N E

GULF It spawns storms, stirs passions, inspires wonder and needs love

ONCE, ALL OF THE GULF OF MEXICO WAS PRISTINE, TEEMING AND UNCHARTED. TODAY, WE SAIL AWAY ON QUICK, LONG-RANGE POWERBOATS TO REACH WATERS WHOSE RICHES HAVE NOT BEEN DRAWN DOWN. FOLLOWING ARE THREE STORIES THAT RECALL TIMES, NOT SO LONG AGO, WHEN THE GULF WAS LESS PRESSURED, AND SO WERE WE. HOW, WE MUST WONDER, WILL STORIES OF THE FUTURE READ?

HEAR THE HATCHLINGS LOSING THEIR WAY As is said about rivers, you never step in the same Gulf twice BY STEVE BORNHOFT

PHOTO BY ANNA GORBACHEVA / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS

efore this morning, I never had hooked a bluefish that leaped from the water. This one did, like a greyhounding blue marlin. The bluefish, you should know, is the Mitch McConnell of nearshore waters, a perennial scowl on its face, always more red than blue in disposition, forever slashing things and exercising power that exceeds its stature. I am not sure the bluefish intended to jump. Rather, I think it possible that it darted and dashed so madly that it left the water inadvertently, a tantrum at the end of a line. The chopper, as they are called by some, peeled line from the Pfleuger Trion GX-7 reel that my son won as a door prize at a charity golf tournament more than 10 years ago before departing for graduate school at the University North Carolina. The reel, while inexpensive, refuses to die, and in combination with a Eupro

ore waters throughout the way Bluefish are found in insh g the Atlantic coast all the ty Gulf of Mexico and alon nas and s jaw ul erf with pow ir to New England. Equipped ng sportfishermen for the teeth, they are known amo vicious disposition.

graphite rod, whipped the fish, which came to the net exhausted. Good thing. You don’t want to try to remove treble hooks from a green bluefish. I hooked the bluefish while wade fishing grass flats at the mouth of Grand Lagoon at the foot of Jan Cooley Drive in Panama City Beach. I tangle with choppers there regularly — an inedible by-catch made while pursuing speckled trout and redfish. From those flats, which front massive homes with too-green lawns that extend to the water’s edge, I look out and watch sportfishing yachts from the Capt. Anderson and Treasure Island marinas pause to get a scoop or two of live cigar minnows from a floating bait station and head into the Gulf of Mexico. I am fortunate to have exited the pass to St. Andrew Bay many times on dive trips with Steve McLellan and fishing excursions with Capt. David Buckner. No two trips were anywhere near the same. After releasing the bluefish and two undersized trout, I permitted my mind to wander and thought back to the first trip I made with Buckner. I was new to town and to the northern Gulf of Mexico, having moved from the Midwest to accept a job as a municipal government reporter at the Panama City News Herald. Bill Salter, my editor on arrival, was a native Texan who wore cowboy boots (ostrich) whenever he wasn’t wearing golf spikes. He drove an El Camino and drank legendary amounts of George Dickel whiskey until the gout and his wife, whom he preferred to call Miss Kitty, caused him to quit. He was one of a couple of bosses I had who took pleasure in publicly humiliating subordinates, and once shouted at me from his corner office,

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Roller” Whitten of Gray, Georgia, hoisted a hefty king mackerel taken aboard a Mako centerconsole vessel piloted by Capt. Dave Buckner in the 1980s. A shark tore into the fish before Whitten got it all the way to the boat.

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“Bornhoft, there is no ‘q’ in barbecue.” He didn’t have to tell me twice. Salter, let me be clear, was a fine editor. Not long after I started at the News Herald, Salter appended outdoors reporting onto my other duties. To hear Salter tell the story, he had gone to extraordinary lengths to get a freelance writer named Wilson onto a yacht participating in the old Bay Point Invitational Billfish Tournament. EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CAPT. DAVE BUCKNER (WHITTEN) AND PANAMA CITY BEACH TURTLE WATCH

▶ The late Jimmy “Low

When Wilson failed to make it to the marina on time and missed the boat, he was sunk. “You know anything about fishing?” Salter asked me. “I fished lakes back home a lot and fished the surf during trips to Longboat Key when I was …” Salter cut me off. Good enough for him. I was his new outdoors guy. The next fishing tournament of consequence on the calendar was a shark tournament sponsored by Half Hitch Tackle. “I’m from the newspaper, and I’d like to speak to Capt. Putnam,” I said tentatively. An employee went to get the store’s owner and tournament sponsor. Presently, I shook hands with a ruddyfaced man with a Santa belly and a welcoming personality. “I’ve got just the guy for you,” B.J. Putnam said with a wry smile after I explained the nature of my business. “Name’s David Buckner. Young guy from Macon. You’ll like him. His boat’s the Never Enough. Docked behind the Treasure Ship. Only beigecolored boat down there. Leaving out at 6. They’re expecting you.” The Half Hitch tournament, established in response to the sensation that surrounded the movie Jaws, was a weeklong, total pounds affair. Motorists streamed off Thomas Drive to get a look at sharks suspended from the scales in front of the tackle shop. For years after the tournament was discontinued, the skeletal scales remained. Shark gallows. Buckner, tall and sporting a mullet, was presentable enough in navy shorts, a white shirt and leather flip-flops, but the members of his crew looked like so many Santiagos. Sharks had gotten the better of them, too. One, who answered to Low Roller, was much shorter than the rest, wore a signature polka dot railroad engineer’s hat and never let the conversation stall. The group favored a dialect unfamiliar to me, which they ratcheted up a notch when they wanted to talk among

themselves. Like parents spelling out words in the presence of preschoolers. Low Roller worked for Georgia Power, and years later, during a visit by management, he streaked au naturel across the plant floor on a pair of roller skates he had fashioned from materials he found on the job. A working-class hero, he served a suspension, gladly. Buckner anchored up within sight of land. As the sun set, Low Roller and others took turns dicing freshly thawed bonito and starting a slick behind the boat. The captain set the baits — big chunks of bonito impaled on tuna hooks and suspended beneath balloons. A reel didn’t start clicking until the wee hours of the morning. Anglers who had dropped off due to the accumulated effects of whiskey, weed and exhaustion, took turns reeling in what would prove to be a large hammerhead. Buckner dispatched it with a bang stick, and the success occasioned the opening of another bottle of Crown. Soon enough, all were reeling, if you know what I mean. At the scales, the shark registered 325 pounds. The numerals were sprayed onto its flank with shaving cream. A decent hammer, but in 1985, the largest catches entered were tiger sharks weighing three times that much. Things are different now. Sharks are fewer. I don’t hear about catches of big tigers anymore. Putnam is long gone, Low Roller, too. McLellan retired voluntarily and moved to Blacksburg, Virginia, where once he graduated VT, and Buckner retired involuntarily, his back ravaged by a career spent atop rolling seas and folded into engine compartments.

My forays into the Gulf of Mexico are fewer. But the Gulf exerts tremendous influence on my life and the life of the region each day. It supplies the seafood that the Southeast most loves to eat. It is the reason that Tyndall Air Force Base is being rebuilt. It heats up the coastal real estate market. It is the natural feature that brings millions of visitors to our beaches each year and, with them, economic returns and suffocating, dangerous traffic. But those millions don’t think about dead zones or Deepwater Horizon dispersant or freshwater flows or poisonous runoff or nutrient pollution. “I hope that red tide stays down in Tampa,” they say, as if there were more than one Gulf. “Don’t talk about the beautiful fish in the deep blue sea dyin’,” sings the brilliant balladeer Neil Young. “People want to hear about love.” Of course, Mr. Young. But you will agree with me that they also need to hear the sharks expiring. They need to hear the water levels rising, the shortsighted lying. They need to hear the

ecosystems trying. They need to hear loggerhead hatchlings losing their way. “Every year, the Panama City Beach Turtle Watch program documents isolated instances of nesting interference by the public as well as hatchlings disoriented by lights along the beach,” wrote Jessica Graham, a longtime Turtle Watch volunteer in an email to me. “Following Hurricane Michael, any cover that was provided to the beach by trees or other natural features was eliminated from the landscape, resulting in a greater level of light pollution and sky glow from off-beach development. “The Turtle Watch program works together with local government entities, the Tourist Development Council and resource management agencies to find balanced solutions that protect sea turtles from these threats while minimizing the impact to businesses and visitors. Only through partnerships, outreach and communication can we make a difference in conserving our resources for the future.” Hear her love.

▶ Sea turtle hatchlings exit a nest on

Panama City Beach and head for the Gulf of Mexico. To survive to adulthood, they will have to dodge a gauntlet of predators and refrain from eating plastic litter that may appear to them to be jellyfish.

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SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY A teen ventures into the Gulf and never makes it all the way back Following is the prologue to a book, The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History, written by John S. Sledge of Mobile, Alabama, and titled “Small Craft Advisory.” Mr. Sledge was for 17 years the book reviewer at the Mobile Register and is an architectural historian with the Mobile Historic Development Commission. His continuing relationship with the Gulf of Mexico dates to his childhood, as this prologue makes clear. With his parents and his younger brother, he would depart the interior of Alabama and visit Panama City Beach and a fledgling community called Destin on family vacations. BY JOHN S. SLEDGE

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PHOTO COURTESY OF STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA, FLORIDA MEMORY

ur first view of Destin, Florida, came as we raced east across the bridge from Okaloosa Island. The year was 1974, and there wasn’t much to the town then—a few high-rise condos, some scattered beach houses, a thinly developed harbor, and about 3,000 residents plopped down amid some of the most gorgeous scenery on the entire northern Gulf Coast. The occasion was our annual family vacation. We lived in a little college town called Montevallo, just south of Birmingham, Alabama, where Dad had taught biology since 1962 and Mom was a homemaker. Despite our inland address, we proudly owned deep coastal roots. Dad was a native Mobilian, Mom had spent part of her childhood in New Orleans’s famed Pontalba Building, and I was born in Gainesville, where Dad attended the University of Florida before working a stint at a Winter Haven plant nursery and then moving us north. Given this family history, as well as the Florida Panhandle’s abundant distractions and drivable distance from home, we regularly vacationed there during the 1970s, though usually farther east at Panama City Beach. Why we chose Destin during this particular year I don’t recall, but neither I, at 17, nor my brother Henry, 10, complained. We had a close relationship with our parents, and it was good to get away together. The 1970s were the apogee of the so-called Redneck Riviera, when cheap roadside kitsch, the “Miracle Strip,” honky-tonks, the Trashy White Band, piratical land transactions, and minimal to nonexistent environmental protections defined the Florida and Alabama coasts. It was a world where, according to one local, “You can holler ‘Bubba’ and 15 people will respond.” Foley, Alabama, native Kenny Stabler, a former University of Alabama quarterback and soon-to-be Super Bowl-winning

NFL star, was the area’s beau ideal, proudly announcing: “I live the way I want to live, and I don’t give a damn if anybody likes it or not. I run hard as hell and don’t sleep. I’m just here for the beer.” Paradoxically, the Redneck Riviera was also family friendly, at least during daylight and away from the crowded watering holes like the Green Knight and the Flora-Bama. The beaches were and are some of the world’s prettiest, featuring sugar-white sand that squeaks when you walk on it. In fact, this powdery heavenly stuff is quartz washed out of the Appalachian Mountains eons ago and ground to fundamental perfection. The Panhandle is also famous for its crystal-clear waters, unspoiled by large sediment-bearing rivers like the Mobile or the Mississippi to the west. Where shallow, especially right along the beach, over sandbars, and in the passes, it’s bathtub warm in summer and a beautiful emerald color, the result of sunlight hitting the sandy bottom and reflecting off copious microscopic algae. Farther away as the depth increases, the water shades into turquoise and then deep blue, all of the colors subtly modulated by conditions of light and cloud. It was and is a delightful place to unwind, listen to laughing gulls, and splash about in the surf. Destin was still unincorporated in 1974, and nearby resorts like Sandestin and Miramar Beach were yet in their infancy. But despite being lightly settled, it had a long history, and thanks to the proximity of the One Hundred Fathom

▶ View of Destin from 1974 documents

how low-rise development was giving way to condominium towers. Due to its nearness to the One Hundred Fathom Curve, Destin is ideally situated as a base of operations for charter fishing boats and has long been known at the World’s Luckiest Fishing Village.

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▶ Pioneer and speculator Leonard

Destin departed Connecticut and settled on the south shore of Choctawhatchee Bay. He would marry Martha J. McCullom; the couple had eight children. The settlement that bears his name would become home to the largest recreational fishing fleet in the Gulf.

Curve, boosters proudly proclaimed it “The World’s Luckiest Fishing Village.” Just 10 miles off Destin, the northern Gulf’s broad continental shelf narrows dramatically and the bottom falls precipitously away. Within minutes of the harbor, boat captains can position anglers over a water column where deep-sea fishing of nearly every variety is possible. Native Americans were in the vicinity first, of course, and left a ceremonial mound in what is now downtown Fort Walton, just west of Destin, to prove it. Then came a few European explorers and the occasional pirate or smuggler, none of whom stayed very long. The area’s earliest white settlers arrived during the 1830s. They knew about the fishing, but they also made do with a little farming, hunting, turpentining, logging, and whatever else would turn a dollar or fill the larder. In the days before sun worshipping, the Gulf Coast’s windswept barrier islands were considered deserts, likely to wreck a ship in a storm and unable

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to support more than the occasional hermit or malcontent. People of good sense put down stakes well back from the beach, behind the lakes and lagoons and along the bays among the magnolias and moss-hung live oaks. The closer one got to the beach, the scrubbier the vegetation became and the harder the living. A Connecticut Yankee named Leonard Destin decided to try his luck nonetheless and, bucking received wisdom, settled on the south shore of Choctawhatchee Bay, a large body of water fed by several small streams and linked to the Gulf through East Pass. What would become Destin was situated at the western end of a barrier island (since reconnected to the mainland by shifting landforms and so now a peninsula) sandwiched between the bay and the Gulf. The very tip of the island made a small lobster claw, which provided a decent natural harbor. This would become Destin’s heart, and home

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to the largest recreational fishing fleet in the entire Gulf basin. Soon a few other hardy souls joined Destin in this isolated spot. Elisha Marler and his wife moved down from Georgia and started building boats and fashioning nets, and the little settlement became a bona fide fishing community, regularly sending forth its sons in wooden boats to reap the sea’s bounty—red snapper, grouper, scamp, king mackerel, wahoo, and tuna. It was strictly a commercial enterprise then, with the fish kept in live wells amidships and taken to market at Pensacola, where they sold for pennies a pound. By the 1930s Highway 98 and the Destin Bridge were built, and a trickle of tourists began to filter into the area. Ever alert to new opportunities, the descendants of Destin and Marler hit upon the idea of recreational charter fishing and started charging guests for an unforgettable few hours off shore reeling in the big ones.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA, FLORIDA MEMORY (BRIDGE) AND ROWLAND PUBLISHING / FILE PHOTO (THE DESTINS)

Eager to spread the good word and strengthen the fishery, the Destin Businessmen’s Club and some local captains started a fishing rodeo in 1948, and the enthusiasm only grew from there. By the time my family and I arrived in Destin for our vacation, charter fishing was a fully established industry, though the town proper offered few amusements other than some unremarkable restaurants, bars, and stores. We stayed across the highway from the beach, and after a couple of days trudging over hot asphalt and battling traffic, sandspurs, and sunburn, Henry and I became bored. In an effort to vary the menu, Dad decided that a short fishing trip might be just the ticket. The next morning we had a light breakfast and headed to the harbor where Dad had already made arrangements for a four-hour trawling trip. Our boat was the Calypso II, which Henry and I thought was neat since Dad was a biologist and we loved The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau television series, then in its heyday, featuring the French explorer and his research vessel, Calypso. Our conveyance that day was no scientific research ship but rather a deep-sea fishing boat roughly 40 feet long with a flybridge, cabin below, and open stern. It was captained by Howard Marler Jr., a Navy vet, a descendent of old Elisha, and one of several family members in the charter boat business. He wore a trucker cap and untucked short-sleeve shirt, was deeply tanned, and didn’t have much to say. The mate was a wiry young fellow with a ball cap and a Jimmy Buffet-like moustache. Both captain and mate smoked like steam engines. Besides us, a newlywed couple had also booked a trip. After brief introductions, we all got on board, Capt. Marler ascended the ladder to his perch, where he took the wheel, and we motored out of the smooth harbor, rounded a sandspit, and headed south through the pass. It was mostly cloudy and very windy.

Out in the pass a strong southerly gust hit us and whisked Dad’s straw hat well astern, where it bobbed jauntily on its crown. Dad just shrugged, but the captain immediately turned us around and deftly maneuvered as close to the hat as he could get. The mate snagged it with a boat hook and courteously handed it back to Dad, none the worse for wear. Clearly, Destin’s charter captains and crews prided themselves on superb boat-handling skills and customer service. We then headed south again, and large rollers funneling into the pass made Calypso II ride like Six Flags Over Georgia’s Great American Scream Machine, growling up and over the big waves. Beyond the rock jetties we could see that it was very rough, and the mate remarked that there was a small craft advisory, with seas running five to eight feet. From an early age, Dad had instilled in us a healthy respect for the Gulf— the ferocity of its sun on unprotected skin, the dangers of its riptides and currents and sea life. Now we were embarking on it in less than ideal conditions. Once out in open water, we were rocking with the green waves lifting and dropping the boat and shoving it in all directions. Dad, a World War II Marine Corps combat veteran whose sea experience included riding out a typhoon on board a supply ship, said it reminded him of being in the Pacific. Henry recently recalled in an email: “I was very worried about getting seasick even though I felt fine. Dad told me not to think about it too much and slipped me a Rolaid. I also believe I asked him if he was ever seasick, and he said it had never bothered him.” About five miles out, Capt. Marler paralleled the shore, and the mate got to work. In fact over the next four hours he hardly paused, tending the gear, baiting the hooks, and handling the fish as we reeled them in over the stern. I had done more than my fair share of fishing—from muddy creek

banks to placid lakes, murky bayous, Mobile Bay, and the Gulf Shores, Alabama, pier—but this was an entirely new undertaking. And strange to say, it didn’t particularly interest me. Happy to let the mate do the hard work, I was more intrigued by the scenery and the seas. To begin with, the shore was just visible, and in fact exactly matched how the colonial explorers had described it. In 1699 for example, Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville wrote, “The mainland, which I see beyond this lake [Choctawhatchee Bay], looks very fine, quite level, covered with tall trees, the ground elevated enough to be visible from the deck six leagues out.” Five- to eight-foot seas wouldn’t have been much noticed by Iberville and his compatriots, with their larger vessels and extensive time afloat, but Henry and I were mightily impressed and soon enough left the fishing to Dad, the newlyweds, and the mate in order to explore the Calypso II. Henry recalls: “I climbed up to the top where the captain was nonchalantly at the wheel. I could hear the other mariners talking on the radio about the rough seas. He seemed completely unconcerned and was smoking a cigarette. I remember he was knocking the ashes into a Meister Brau can that had the top cut out of it to act as a makeshift ash tray.” While Henry was aloft, I decided to go below into the cabin, accessed by a couple of small steps. What in the harbor would have been a simple thing was anything but in those conditions. As I stepped down the boat dropped away from me into a trough, and I tumbled into a heap on the cabin floor. Picking myself up and grabbing something for support, I reeled and lurched with the craft’s wild motion. It was like a carnival ride out of control, and I quickly scrambled back on deck, but as I lifted my foot to plant it the boat violently rose, slamming my foot just before I put my weight on it and sending a painful shiver all the way to my lower back. Done with

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ch in the Gulf of Mackerels are a popular cat on trolled lures. en tak are ally usu Mexico and el arrive in the spring Migrating Spanish macker the warm-weather and kick off the start of mackerel have King y. man for son sea fishing ents; big ones rnam tou ing fish in long figured ” are called “smokers.

▶ Destin’s marina and boat basin,

my little foray, I staggered unceremoniously into the others at the stern. Throughout our trip, we watched other boats pitching and yawing in the waves. I vividly recall a small motorboat that had an older couple on board. Despite the relentless tossing, they looked unconcerned, but had the seas been any higher, it is difficult to believe that anyone would have been out there. Through it all, our mate kept busy at the fishing lines, at one point scrambling aloft and grabbing a rod to reel in something. Henry and I stared wideeyed as he leaned against an aluminum rail visibly bending under the strain. Happily, it held, and he wasn’t yanked overboard by whatever leviathan was on the other end of the line. By the end of the trip, we had about a dozen large king mackerel to show for our adventure. Back in the harbor, the mate swiftly filleted the catch and parceled it out. Dad remarked on his good cheer and phenomenal work ethic. Affixed to the stern was a white sign with red letters: “If you had a good time $ay $omething to the mate.” Neither Dad nor the newlyweds needed the encouragement to tip the man generously. He had certainly earned it that day.

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Back at the condo Mom cooked up the fish, and we talked about the trip. But as I quickly learned, getting my land legs again would take a little time. No sooner did my head hit the pillow that night than I felt like I was on board Calypso II again, lifting and falling and tossing. My mind’s eye saw an agitated green sea, nothing but waves in constant motion. Maybe I never really got my land legs back, because ever since I have been haunted by the Gulf, its climate and moods, pleasures and terrors. I have read and wondered about its history and secrets; trembled at the legend of Hurakan, the Mayan storm deity believed to whip the Gulf into a vengeful fury; studied ancient Indian pottery alongside a coastal river; sailed on board a large schooner down Mobile Bay; and clambered over the skeletal timbers of an old shipwreck to the accompaniment of the seagull’s cry. I have been absorbed by timeworn charts and thrilled to a newly

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discovered account of colonial New Orleans. For much of my adult life, I have lived within an hour’s drive of Alabama’s beaches, and my wife and I frequently scoot down there during the off-season for quiet seafood dinners backgrounded by fiery sunsets, or to ride the Fort Morgan Ferry across the mouth of Mobile Bay, staring past Sand Island Lighthouse into a profound and mysterious immensity. I find myself falling into a trance on such occasions, beguiled by the colorful figures and famous ships that have coursed what the writer Lafcadio Hearn called, during his New Orleans sojourn, that “grand blaze of blue open water”—Ponce de León on board Santa de María de la Consolación, Francis Drake on the Judith, Laurens de Graaf on the François, Tyrone Power on the Shakespeare, Alexander Agassiz on board the Blake, Raphael Semmes and the fearsome Alabama, and Charles Dwight Sigsbee at the helm of the doomed Maine.

PHOTO COURTESY OF STATE ARCHIVES OF FLORIDA, FLORIDA MEMORY (MARINA) AND ROBERT P. JONES (GROUPER)

seen here in a 1974 photo, has grown over time and accommodated increasingly large vessels. The advent of bottom machines and generations of navigational software have made fishing a matter of technology as much as luck.

I admire the ingenuity of Gulf Coast residents who have developed new vessels and technologies over the centuries, including high-sided, saildriven barges suitable to both open seas and shallow bays; Biloxi’s graceful “white winged queens”; New Orleans’s boxy Higgins boats, the plywood amphibious landing craft that helped carry U.S. troops to victory in World War II; and shipping containers, a world-changing concept perfected at Mobile by a former truck driver frustrated with antiquated loading practices. And then there are the exotic cities and ports—La Habana, way station for conquistadores and treasure-filled galleons, a stunning collection of Spanish colonial architecture awaiting reintroduction to the free world; New Orleans, the Big Easy, famous for its beautiful French Quarter, Mardi Gras, and relaxed morals; and Mexico’s oldest city, Veracruz, founded by Hernán Cortés and reverently known as Heróica Veracruz, an oft-besieged wonderland of fortresses, churches, a palace, and the impressive Faro Venustiano Carranza, an early 20th-century lighthouse overlooking the harbor. Throughout history, the residents of these cities and their neighbors along the littoral have struggled with challenges both natural and manmade— devastating hurricanes, frightening epidemics, catastrophic oil spills, and conflicts ranging from dockside brawls and labor riots to pirate raids, foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution. These are the things that have fed my thoughts and dreams for more than half a century.

Excerpted with permission from The Gulf of Mexico: A Maritime History by John S. Sledge, published by the University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, © 2019 University of South Carolina, uscpress.com/ The-Gulf-of-Mexico

KARMA AS CATCH OF THE DAY Student of Mako Dude proves to be less than macho BY ROBERT P. JONES

ne summer day in the late 1980s, I invited Gene, Walter and my fellow St. Augustinian Charlie to go grouper fishing off Cape San Blas. I had some great Loran numbers for spots located within five miles of shore. Charlie was a world-class hunter and gatherer from the git-go. He grew up chasing mullet on Vilano and St. Augustine beaches. He was well known for driving a skeeter — a vehicle with a motor, chassis, wide tires and homemade wooden body. The seats were nothing but old orange crates that you had to pin to the floor with your body weight. You could see the ground rush by while riding in the skeeter through the holes that rust had eaten in the floorboards. But the big Ford engine ran like an Ingersoll watch, and Charlie brought home many a ton of roe mullet in croaker sacks stacked on the wooden plank that he called the back seat. I met Charlie at 6 a.m. at Shields Marina in St. Marks to gather up my 22-foot Mako at the dry storage barn. We pulled onto U.S. 98 and headed to the Indian Pass ramp. Gene and Walter were there waiting for us with bait,

▶ Karma favored Bob Jones who,

when fishing out of Indian Pass, boated most of the fish in this mess of gag grouper. It didn’t hurt that he was fishing on his own boat, the Bigfish.

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feet this day, and the sun was bright with just a few clouds building up to the west. Odds were excellent that even Gene would not turn green. On the trip aboard my boat Bigfish to our first drop, I thought Gene might be thinking back to his early years when he would set his gillnet around a school of mullet or Spanish mackerel. Whatever he was thinking about made him happy and put him at ease. Walter and Gene are among the best freshwater fishermen I have ever seen. They know all the creeks and every turn in the Apalachicola River system throughout Gulf and Franklin counties. They have fished those waters since they were first able to crawl into a boat.

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Charlie and I specialized in grouper fishing in those days. We could anticipate the slight brush of a grouper’s mouth as it lunged for a cigar minnow. We preferred cigar minnows and menhaden as dead baits, and pinfish was our preferred live bait. We knew how to catch grouper. A cooler full of fish was more likely than not. We hadn’t traveled more than a couple of miles when we reached one of the spots that Gene had given me. Sure enough, we saw a four-foot rise on the bottom and marks that looked like big fish on my color depth finder. Gene flung an orange-painted bleach bottle and two-pound weight off the stern to mark the spot. I turned large circles around that bottle and looked at more bottom in the vicinity.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT P. JONES

cold drinks and enough sandwiches to feed twice our number. Nor did they forget the Vienna sausages and saltine crackers for snacks. Our plan was to tempt grouper and red snapper with cigar minnows, sardines and squid and load up the fish box. This was before today’s bag limits were imposed on sport fishermen. We launched the boat without difficulty despite some current, and after loading food and bait onto the boat, we made our way through a narrow cut to deeper water. I punched in the numbers for the cut, designating it as “home” for our return trip. Only his close friends knew that Gene got seasick sometimes when fishing offshore from a small boat. But the seas were running less than two

▶ In photo on opposite page, Bob

Jones displays a pair of red snapper at a cleaning table. He was joined by his brother-in-law, Gene Laird of Pensacola, who showed off an amberjack. Above, Jones, then newly gray-bearded, shows off two grouper taken during a successful trip offshore.

As we came within 50 feet of the marker, we got a promising reading again, so I decided to anchor up while taking the wind direction into account. We would find, however, that the current was running in a direction opposite that of the wind, and when we threw the anchor, we settled down 100 feet from the marker. A second attempt at anchoring produced the same result; we were still 100 feet removed from our target. Thinking he could do better than I had, Charlie wanted to raise the

anchor again despite getting testy and tired from pulling it repeatedly. “Suit yourself,” I may have said. We swapped places. He took the wheel, and I threw the anchor when he gave me a sign to do so. No improvement. We just could not get the boat to come exactly to the marker because the wind was blowing one way and the tide was running the other. I said something to Charlie, and it wasn’t complimentary. After a fourth attempt, we decided to stay where we were. By this time, Charlie was bitching and moaning, and I would be lying if I said I weren’t irritated, myself, my prowess having been questioned by Charlie. Gene and Walter were content to smile and take it all in. Charlie had learned to grouper fish at the foot of a master angler whose call sign on the VHS radio was “Mako Dude.” The Dude had a solid reputation among the best grouper fishermen in the Panhandle of Florida. I, too, had had a few lessons with the Dude and was no slouch when it came to boating gags and reds. Once we were finally anchored, Gene and I fished off the port side, and Walter and Charlie fished off the starboard side. My bait had been on the bottom for less than a second when I sensed a fish mouthing my cigar minnow, and I set the hook and brought up a hard-fighting 7-pound gag grouper. I hooked another cigar minnow through the tail, sent it to the bottom. Boom. I had another fish as soon as the sinker hit the sand. By the time I brought my sixth grouper to the surface and put it

in the big Igloo cooler, Charlie had still not landed one. Things were uncomfortably quiet on the starboard side of the 22-foot Bigfish. Gene and Walter said nothing but enjoyed taking in the competition. Charlie had been a blowhard telling me how to anchor and fish. Gene and Walter, too, caught several fish before Charlie finally got one. But that time, I had put 13 gags on ice. My left arm was getting tired. We decided that we had enough for all of us and the wind was picking up, so we pulled the anchor and headed for shore. Charlie was a mentally whipped man that day. Not too much was said among us during the short run back to Indian or on our longer ride back to St. Marks, where we put the boat in storage and divided the fish. Charlie got into his trusty Bronco and took off. My St. Augustine buddy and I never fished together again. I regret that. He was a damn good fisherman — except for that time when karma bit him in the butt for questioning the ability of Capt. Bob Jones. EC

In recent years, red snapper have figured in controversial catch limits and abbreviated fishing seasons. Government scientists found that fishing pressure resulted in reduced numbers of breeding-size fish.

Robert P. Jones is a fifth-generation Florida native. He is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran whose eighth great grandfather, Onesimus Futch, fought in the American Revolution. His uncle, Staff Sgt. Phillip Lester Brinson, was killed in action during World War II. Jones married his high school sweetheart, Malinda Usina, in 1955. The couple had five children, four of whom survive. For more than 50 years, Jones served as the executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association, representing the interests of commercial fishermen. In this photo, Jones, third from right, helped host a fishing excursion, sponsored by the Southeastern Fisheries Association, for children with muscular dystrophy. EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

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Celebrate the joy of living, eating and drinking well.

Located at The Pearl Hotel 8 5 0 . 5 8 8 . 2 8 8 2 | t h e p e a r l R B . c o m | 6 3 M a i n S t r e e t | R o s e m a r y B e a c h , F L 3 24 61 110

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expression OCT/NOV 2021

CREATIVE WORKS LAND ON PAGES, CANVASES AND STAGES

MUSIC

HITS MILLIONAIRE ↓

Skylar Capri becomes TikTok sensation

← For Skylar Capri, the combination of a Ralph Lauren schoolgirl dress, ALDO fuzzy heels and an electric guitar/amp represent a blend of then and now.

by HANNAH BURKE

BOOKS photography by SEAN MURPHY

Love, Maturation, a Slip and Reflection

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PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

Working in a studio, photographer Sean Murphy proposed placing prints of Skylar Capri’s face on a white wall as a backdrop. She took that idea a step further, printing the shots in pieces and reassembling them.

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photography by SEAN MURPHY

n her junior year at Niceville Senior High School, Skylar Capri made a promise with Keno Manuel. Capri yearned for a career in music, while Manuel aspired toward professional videography. That day in art class, the friends swore if they ever seriously pursued their prospective fields, they would collaborate on projects. Today, the dream has been realized. As of the summer of this year, the pair have produced video accompaniments for Capri’s songs Wax Lips, Right About Us, Maybe We Should Run Away From Here and debut single Sway! — an endeavor witnessed by millions on the popular social media platform, TikTok. The Sway! video, which includes dreamy, neon scenes from Destin diner Mary’s Kitchen, also features Capri and friends dancing before a gradient wall collage made up of thousands of pastel paint chips.

↑ “Songwriting is a tool to process and go deeper with my emotions

and to think about situations in my life,” said Skylar Capri. She creates melodies and lyrics “until I love them so much I know that others will.” EMERALDCOASTMAGA ZINE.COM

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“I woke up one day and opened TikTok’s explore page to find this hashtag trending,” Capri said. “People were posting about someone or something they’d never forget from these crazy scenarios. I thought, well, the weirdest thing I’ve ever done is make this giant, art wall collage of paint chips for Sway!, and I could never forget the Home Depot guy who made it possible.” Capri said she didn’t think much of posting the behindthe-scenes footage, which included the solicitation of paint samples from said “Home Depot guy” and their later assembly. But, by the end of the day, the video had accumulated over half a million views. By the end of the week, seven million.

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Now sitting at around 18 million views, the viral video has been a career booster in earning Capri a broader following. For Capri and other creators, views equal validation, a sign that people are taking one’s craft more seriously. But, Capri said, the notion of consistently showing up on social media every day was a bit daunting. “I only say that because, from a creator’s perspective, I want to just create and do, but artists today are asked to do so much more than that,” she said. “But I’m so happy for that because it’s taught me so much about the fullness of the industry and how multifaceted we can be as artists.” Too, the experience taught Capri to appreciate social

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↑ Social media and business have become inseparable in the life

of Skylar Capri, seen in her finest office attire, top. She sings the praises of proliferating communication platforms. “Never before have entrepreneurs, dreamers and artists been able to share themselves so authentically in real time,” she said. And never does Capri, adept at skateboarding, abandon her fondness for play for very long. photography by SEAN MURPHY

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media as a vessel of opportunity. One of the more exciting things to come out of going viral, Capri said, was the exposure she gained from an interview with People magazine. With a new, built-in audience via TikTok and Instagram, she’s been able to experiment with her sound and receive instant feedback. Capri describes her genre as “alternative dream pop,” but said many of her songs defy categorization. They live in their own worlds, but all retain a signature Skylar flair. At this writing, Maybe We Should Run Away from Here is Capri’s latest single. It’s the upbeat, top-down convertible type of tune you’d belt out with your friends on a road trip. Wax Lips, meanwhile, centers around a relationship dissolved by lies. Over poppy, synthetic keys and an alt-rock beat and bassline, Capri sings, “Rose-colored glasses down Fifth Avenue, you had wax lips, babe, I never had a clue.”

“I grew up listening to ’60s and ’70s music from my parent’s record collection, so people like David Bowie, John Lennon and The Beatles inspire me,” she said. “I always admired the way they used their artistry to influence people and create these new spaces for people to love.” Today, she draws inspiration from any artist who’s doing something different. She looks to pop singers such as Lorde and Olivia Rodrigo who are genre-disruptors, blurring the lines between radio-friendly fodder and indie works. As Capri began releasing original music just last year, and she’s still figuring herself out. Posting experimental song covers and snippets of raw, original works on TikTok, she said, has been a fun, yet challenging way of doing so. “I think it takes a certain boldness to just be like, ‘Hey guys, here’s this unedited thing I came up with two seconds ago, what do you think?’” she said. “On TikTok, you

never really know what’s going to take off or totally bomb, and I think that’s beautiful. It’s all about experimentation.” While we can’t expect an album just yet, Capri said to look out for more singles in the months to come. She’s currently in “writing mode,” taking trips to Nashville to record new music and likely visiting Manuel, who now lives there as a full-time videographer. Capri plans to join him one day in moving to Music City, or perhaps she’ll venture farther west to Los Angeles, she said. “It’s been the most thrilling adventure to see me and Keno grow into what we used to dream about as high school kids,” Capri said. “This is really my job; I’m creating music and playing concerts at the venues I’ve always wanted to. “I’m thankful for people like him and this whole community for believing in my dreams when they were nothing. Now it’s becoming something, and I’m so grateful.” EC

SWAY!

Skylar Capri’s debut single, SWAY!, has amassed nearly 200,000 streams on Spotify alone since its release, having been featured on Spotify’s editorial playlist, Soda. Her music unites and transcends pop and alternative pop, resulting in unique melodies with distinctive velvety vocals. SWAY! is accompanied by a choreographed, vintage-theme music video. Capri handled direction, casting, set design and costuming for the video production along with videographer Keno Manuel.

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photography by SEAN MURPHY

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BOOKS

LOVE, MATURATION, A SLIP AND REFLECTION Novel tracks phases in a Grayton Beach boy’s life by WYNN PARKS

here are a couple of great lines by Thomas Ford — “I did but see her passing by; and yet I’ll love her till I die.” — about the instant recognition by the poet of his soul mate. So, when Craig Bush, author of As I Watched You Go, has his main character, Albert Raines, start off his story with “The first time I saw Cathleen, I stopped frozen in my tracks ... it was crystalline that she was a force,” one anticipates a prose analog of Ford’s poem. What does follow is a valiant attempt at a twice-told love story narrated by Albert Raines. Albert is a small-town, Grayton Beach boy, apparently living his life by a watered-down version of the ’60s free-spirit ethos: skinny-dipping, a bit of cannabis on special occasions and a worldly “it’s all good” philosophy. Cathleen is a mercurial, auburn-haired, Abilene, Texas, girl — a one-time marcher for civil rights with a touch of boyishness. When Albert first meets her, she’s down for the summer picking caterpillars off her Nana and Peepah’s tomato plants in Grayton. It’s a summer that sets the precedent she follows for years, slipping in and out of Albert’s sugar-sand world, unpredictable in a predictable — boy finds girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl — way.

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And after he gets her, the two marry. But Bush doesn’t stop with happily ever after. In a Faulkneresque mode, As I Watched You Go aspires to chronicle the lifelong passion between Albert and Cathleen and maintains the narrative beyond the lovers’ salad days through the age of Albert assuming his role as heir to Uncle Ned’s beach shop and the couple’s social maturation. There are Thanksgivings and Christmases with family, gay friends, the birth of daughter Miriam and Albert’s reflections on the cosmogony of parenthood, all wrapped up like a parable-burrito. At this point, with everything going along this predictable path, Albert, pro forma, screws up. On a business trip to Savannah, he gets to drinking with a chick he’s met in a bar, and something predictable happens. Whether he imagines the peccadillo as his way to wisdom through epic excess or not, it stews like psychic indigestion in Albert’s conscience. Yet to spare Cathleen, he vows to carry it, unconfessed, to his grave.

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Turn the page of years, and an aunt dies. So does Albert’s son-in-law. His reflections insinuate it has to be all good, but meanwhile, what about life being short and needing to seize the day? Still, unable to bear the guilt of his Savannah indiscretion, he confesses to Cathleen. She forgives him, and his relief occasions a paean of contrition, rejoicing at how in their advancing years, they — surprise, surprise — still do it! Albert succumbs to a deadly onset of nostalgia against a backdrop of presentday Panhandle. Gone is an organically evolved culture, replaced with one of slick advertisements and yuppie entertainment. Still all good? And when the migraines that he’s suffered for years turn out to be more than just headaches, when he finally dies, it is the coup de gras of brain cancer that does the dirty work. Normally that would be it. Two weeks after he’s died, on a “drizzly, cold and windy” morning, Cathleen and daughter Miriam take Albert’s ashes to photography by MIKE FENDER

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the beach and scatter them to the wind. After wife and daughter trudge home across the sand in the rain, holding hands, the story carries on with the usual reflections, sermonizing on goodbyes long and short, and more broadly on the pathos of human existence. In As I Watched You Go, the author too often buries his main theme within the plethora of Emerald Coast place and people names — audience appeal — and has more than a few rough edges format-wise, a consequence of newly affordable, independent digital publishing. The reader’s conundrum, however, is subtler. If Albert has been narrating the previous 200-plus pages but is now dust in the wind, who is relating how Cathleen and Miriam walk back through the drizzle holding hands? Bush surely knows the writing ropes, having chalked up 10 other novels. It is inconceivable that an apparent plot inconsistency would be inadvertent. So, it is revealing that Bush’s bio-notes mention his admiration for Hermann Hesse, spiritual mentor of the ’60s counter culture through major books like Siddhartha and Steppenwolf. Consider: Hesse died of a cerebral stroke, and Albert Raines meets his end also owing to a cerebral disaster event. Is Albert Raines channeling for another voice? Yes, that’s it. The voice that we assume is Albert’s must really be the title’s anonymous “I” watching not Cathleen, but Albert! Can we call As I Watched You Go first person narrative then, or is the story actually being told by Siddhartha, or maybe Steppenwolf? EC

CHARACTER POOL

“There are goodbyes and leavings long and sudden. We may leave others or get left behind at various times in our lives. I grew up around good country folks, mostly. Many are unforgettable characters. Some still live in my hometown of Jay, Florida. Others have moved on to new places and subsequent lives. I know some of the most golden and wonderful people you can imagine. I have known a few scoundrels and no-counts. They all add up to a rich pool from which to pull characters worthy of development.” — Craig Bush

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Articles inside

POSTSCRIPT

DINING GUIDE

MUSIC For a singer songwriter with escapist

HOME COOKIN’ From

SOCIAL STUDIES

EXTERIORS The advent of high-tech backyards may bring an end to charcoal briquettes, lighter fluid and kitchen matches. Robo-mowers? You bet.

DINING OUT The Citizen restaurant seeks to become an integral part of the Alys Beach community while offering specialties including charred Spanish octopus.

LIBATIONS Old World libations have come to Pensacola’s East Garden District. The Well, handsomely designed and beautifully appointed, offers a stunning blend of sophistication.

CHAMPION Randy

WHAT’S IN STORE

PERSONALITY Dean

FASHION Headlines popular culture and the horrifying world of politics are all likely to influence Halloween costume selections this year. Many folks find costume components at thrift shops.

CITIZEN OF STYLE

EDITOR'S LETTER

FROM THE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

EDUCATION Prof