Best sellers run in the family
By Judy Taylor Cramer
Managing editor, Florida State Times
Michael Shaara was a writer all his life. But it was his death that launched
a literary career for his son Jeff.
Jeff, a 1974 criminology graduate of Florida State, grew up watching his
father write short stories and novels for a little fame but no real commercial
success. Writing was his passion, but teaching creative writing at FSU was
his livelihood.
Five years after his death and nearly 20 years after it was published, Michael
Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the Civil War, "The Killer
Angels," made The New York Times best-sellers list, propelled by the
release of the film "Gettysburg," based on the book. The film's
director and writer, Ron Maxwell, approached Jeff about writing a prequel
and a sequel to his father's work.
"My first thought was to contact some of my father's former students,"
said Jeff, whose plans to be a game warden were sidetracked by a lucrative
business in rare coins.
"But I felt the torch was being passed. If anyone was going to continue
my father's legacy, it should be me."
Today, "Gods and Generals," Jeff's novel and the prequel to his
father's book, is a New York Times best-seller. Jeff is on a 48-city book
signing tour, and Tallahassee is stop number 35.
"I'm having a wonderful time," he said during a phone call from
his mother's home. "Coming back to my hometown is really special.
"This is a unique experience in my life, to having something of my
own for the first time."
Jeff was always interested in the Civil War, even as a child. It was a family
vacation to Gettysburg in the mid-'60s that gave his father the inspiration
for his novel. Later, as a teen-ager, Jeff returned to Gettysburg with his
father to help him research the battlefield.
"My father not only created a story based on history, actual events,
but told that story through the minds of the people who were there,"
Jeff said. "It was his way of telling the story that drew people
in."
Michael Shaara once said that he was "visited" by the main characters
in his book, and Jeff eerily experienced the same sensation. "When
I was writing "Gods and Generals," I had the eerie sense that
his story was being told through me, not by me," Jeff said. He particularly
felt close to the character of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson,
whose grave he visited in Lexington, Va.
"Describing his death, through his eyes, was the most difficult part
of writing this book," Jeff said. "I had never been an especially
spiritual person, but I had the unnerving feeling that he was in the room
with me when I wrote it, that in some strange way I was receiving help -
if not from him, then perhaps from my father."
Jeff will write a sequel to "The Killer Angels" to complete the
Civil War trilogy. It will pick up immediately after Gettysburg and probably
conclude with Robert E. Lee's death in 1870. He is also writing the screenplay
for a film adaptation of "Gods and Generals."
One of the pleasant surprises of his success, he said, is hearing from so
many of his father's former students. Some are published authors, as Jeff
is now, and others are still striving to follow Michael Shaara's literary
path.
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Jack Taylor
Even music can't escape technology
By Judy Taylor Cramer
Managing editor, Florida State Times
Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news: More music teachers and
their students are in tune with technology.
>From elementary schools to universities, keyboards aren't just for pianos
anymore. Computers are being used to accompany choruses, chart routes for
marching bands and bring to life the musical genius of long-dead composers.
Florida State's Center for Music Research (CMR) is an old hand at all this
new technology. Founded in 1980 by Jack Taylor, a professor of music education,
CMR was melding music and machines long before PCs became popular.
FSU was one of the first universities to develop computerized music instruction
- MEDICI (short for Melodic Dictation Computerized Instruction). And through
the years, the center has been in the forefront of research and development
in software and hardware.
But the center also serves as a resource on music technology for educators,
sponsoring a summer workshop for elementary and secondary teachers, and
offering a certificate program in Computers in Music.
"I thought CMR stood for Computer Music Research," software specialist
Doug Stoun said with a laugh. But both he and Taylor acknowledged that the
high level of computer skills among schoolchildren has left many teachers
lagging behind.
"That will change naturally," said Taylor. "But it will take
another generation."
In the meantime, he said, this generation of music teachers and students
are using computers to write and arrange music, play music as an accompaniment
to students in the chorus or the band, and teach the basics - notes, chords,
scales - through games and interactive play.
But even with all that computers contribute to music education, Taylor said,
the technology is "really still at the primitive stage. We'll laugh
about this five years from now."
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FSU Alumnus insists Bar can do bettter
By Larry Keough
FSU Communications Group
When Shakespeare said, "kill all the lawyers," John Frost reminds
us, the playwright didn't mean it would make a better world; he meant it
would leave the world vulnerable to revolution because lawyers are defenders
of the established order.
Lawyers, Frost says, are still trying to overcome that most misconstrued
quote of English literature.
His contribution to that battle - to save the lawyers and their reputation
from the public's contempt - is to lead the 54,000 members of the Florida
Bar to an era of restored professionalism, civility and decorum.
In June, Frost became the first graduate of Florida State's law school (he
was in the first graduating class of 1969) to head the Florida Bar. He ran
for the office hoping for a pulpit from which to preach professionalism
to attorneys who, he believes, have become their own worst enemies.
"How can we expect the public to like us if we don't like each other?"
Frost asks. "Only when we increase our level of professionalism can
we expect the public to hold us in higher regard."
He says he has watched with pain while lawyers engaged in such
"Rambo-type"
tactics as:
· Browbeating and spewing expletives at other attorneys;
· Asking abusive, irrelevant questions to rattle opponents;
· Reneging on promises;
· Intentionally delaying documents for opposing attorneys.
"There is absolutely no advantage to be gained by this kind of
behavior,"
he says.
Frost recalls that in his early days as a trial attorney, lawyers treated
each other with respect.
He plans to use his presidency of the state bar to work at restoring that
respect and civility to the practice of law. Under his leadership, the Bar
is vigorously stressing professionalism.
Three South Florida lawyers have been enjoined from soliciting business
from relatives of those who were killed in the May 11 ValuJet crash in the
Everglades.
"I'm appalled by what has gone on down there," Frost says. "I
believe my profession is better than that."
But Frost's campaign goes beyond ethics. He is working to establish a Center
for Professionalism in Tallahassee.
Initiated by previous Bar president John Devault, the center will bring
judges and lawyers together in each circuit to talk about professionalism.
"I firmly believe that trial judges could have the quickest and biggest
effect on professionalism if they go back and take control of their courtrooms
and let people know they aren't going to put up with Rambo tactics,"
Frost says.
And he is lobbying law schools to teach professionalism, just as they now
teach ethics.
FSU Law Dean Don Weidner says the course is being considered.
"We are going to work with John closely on the professionalism issue,"
Weidner says.
Though Frost's base is tiny Bartow -15,000 people and a downtown of antebellum
houses and buildings surrounding a very modern, nine-story courthouse -
he had no trouble gathering enough statewide support for the Bar presidency
to discourage opposition.
Florida lawyers knew him from years of service to the Bar.
He has been chairman of a committee to study prepaid legal services, member
of the Florida Trial Lawyers' Executive Council, chairman of the Board of
Governors Investment Committee and Program Evaluation Committee and member
of the Board of Governors of the Young Lawyers Division.
And his hometown knows him as a good man to have on your side.
"He's got all of the qualities of the consummate trial lawyer,"
says Florida Supreme Court Justice Stephen Grimes, who headed the litigation
department of Holland and Knight's Bartow office where Frost began his legal
career. "He was the best young attorney that I ever worked with."
And one of the most ethical, Grimes said.
Polk Circuit Judge Oliver Green agrees.
"John has a reputation of being a very forthright and honest person,"
Green says. He describes Frost as a model attorney - a strong advocate who
is professional and comes to court well prepared.
Add civility to that, and you have Frost's own definition of
professionalism.
"If everyone throughout the state of Florida treated people the way
John does, the public would think lawyers were the nicest people in the
world," law partner Neil O'Toole says.
Devault says his successor is not only an outstanding attorney, but a
humanitarian.
"I've seen that with his approach to women lawyers, to the minority
community and to small firms," Devault says. "Those are the qualities
that you want in someone who is heading an organization as diverse as the
Florida Bar."
Paula White, Frost's secretary for 17 years, says that when she was pregnant,
he gave up cigars because they made her sick.
"He said, 'I want you to be able to come to work and not worry about
getting sick.'" she says.
Longtime friend Gerald Tucker says Frost kept Tucker's wife, Sissy, on the
payroll as a secretary when she was bedridden with cancer.
Gerald Tucker thanked Frost by letter: "Your stature with the Florida
Bar nor your physical size will ever exceed the size of your heart."
"Those things," Frost says, "mean much more than big
verdicts."
