Never tell a Stavros not to try
By Judy Taylor Cramer
Managing editor, Florida State Times
Gus Stavros' 11-year-old granddaughter Alexandra has what some would call
an impossible dream: to be the field goal kicker for the Florida State football
team.
But impossible dreams have a way of coming true in the Stavros family:
· Alexandra's great-grandfather came to America from Crete, washed
dishes in a restaurant, taught himself to read and write in two languages,
and eventually owned his own diners.
· Alexandra's grandfather started Better Business Forms in 1959 with
three employees. When he retired as CEO in 1989, his company, the largest
business forms manufacturer in the Southeast, had 550 employees and sales
of more than $80 million.
· Alexandra is the only girl on her soccer team.
"My father came to this country because he'd heard the streets were
paved with gold," Gus Stavros once said. "He found that they weren't
paved with gold, but they were paved with opportunity."
Opportunity and hard work brought success to Stavros; his wife, Frances;
his children, Ellen, Paul and Mark; and his grandchildren, Nicholas and
Alexandra.
"We live the American dream," he says.
And he truly believes it is not an impossible dream for America's children
if they have a good education.
"No matter what the ills of the society are," the Pinellas County
businessman says, "the only sure solution to them is education."
For more than three decades, the Stavroses have been passionate supporters
of education in Florida's public schools and universities.
Stavros never attended FSU, but he is one of its best friends. (He also
helps the University of South Florida.) This year as chairman of the board
of directors of the FSU Foundation, he is leading the university's $200-million
capital campaign, An Investment in Learning.
"It's pretty well known that most southern states either have low tuition
and high state funding or high tuition and low state funding," says
Stavros. "In Florida we have both low tuition and low state funding.
That's why this campaign is so important."
FSU must increase its endowment to pay for more scholarships, more professorships,
more eminent scholar chairs, he says.
Like the Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar Chair in Economic Education, which
he and Frances endowed in 1992. That was four years after they established
the Gus A. Stavros Center for Free Enterprise and Economic Education.
The couple's hard work and generosity have been honored on every level,
but in 1991, a "humbly surprised" Gus Stavros was awarded an honorary
doctorate from FSU.
"Every time I go to FSU, I'm more and more impressed with its academic
excellence," he says. "Yes, it does have an excellent athletic
program, but the true excellence is in its academic programs."
At a time when many businessmen are slowing down, the 71-year-old Stavros
is still busy with his four loves: a love of God, a love of family, a love
of country and a love of work.
"I believe two things. One, nobody accomplishes anything alone,"
he says. "I have been very fortunate to have wonderful people and family
around me. It takes a team.
"And two, you can't stop. The condition of standing still is the beginning
of the end."
Like his soccer-playing granddaughter (and future FSU kicking star), Gus
Stavros won't stand still as long as there are goals to be scored.