HISTORY DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER -- February, 1995
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF OLD DELAND:
There are few changes in the DeLand scene. As was said in a Stetson skit, this is one of the few places that
is fighting progress and winning. That really isn't true, but it has a germ of truth The downtown
Athens Theater has been sold by Harlan Paul '65, his wife Mary Ann, Mark A. Zimmerman 71, and his
wife Jill. The Pauls and Zimmermans owned the old theater briefly until the city could get its financing
together to purchase, renovate, and rededicate it as a civic theater. The sale, a non-profit deal, led to
editorial applause by the News- Journal for the Pauls and Zimmermans The Cloisters, the unfinished
retirement complex that was mired in litigation, has now been cleared of legal difficulties and is fully
operative Mano's Restaurant has been sold and has been reopened as Luigi's The Baker Building
on New York Avenue, which some of you will remember as the DeLand Public Library and, later, as the
DeLand Museum, has been sold by the city and is being refurbished for a private residence and a dentist's
office In the College Plaza shopping center, a new Gooding's grocery has opened in the long vacant
Publix building (Publix is now in a new shopping center north of town) The city fathers have
refurbished the old dime store building at the northwest corner of New York and the Boulevard, given to
the city by the Fish Trust. In its reincarnation it appears as a turn-of-the century, classical revival building.
It has its first tenant, the Upper Deck, a seafood restaurant On campus, Stetson has completed its last
winter term. It will return to a traditional two semester calendar in the fall.
FRIENDLY PERSON AWARD:
Funny, she doesn't look like a mortgage banker, but she was vice-president and head of the mortgage
division of a bank before they abolished that section, leaving her free in February, 1991, to seek a more
modest position as secretary of the Department of History. No sooner had the department become attached
to her than the School of Music "stole" her to serve as Assistant to Dean James Woodward. Mother of
three, grandmother of eight (with another on the way) and deeply involved in DeLand civic activities,
Barbara Brunning has become a campus fixture in her five years with Stetson. One doesn't immediately
sense the remarkable organizational talents of the petite and ever smiling Barbara. A common campus
scene is the diminutive and pretty Barbara seeming even smaller than she is, as she pushes large music
equipment into Elizabeth Hall. Yet she always gives a friendly greeting.
DELAND DIARY:
In late July, the arrival of the fall crop of freshmen for an early orientation made a sudden, if temporary,
change in the demographics of the campus. The campus had been dominated in the past summer by youth
groups in special programs in which Hispanics and blacks predominated. These programs, renewed from
earlier years, won editorial plaudits and made favorable impressions on many of us.
Observing the new freshmen, I was greeted by real estate tycoon, William A. Watson, Jr.. Bill shook my
right hand warmly and thrust into my left two advertising gimmicks with his company's logo.
