By Tom Flanigan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-988425.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Claude Kirk, Florida's thirty-sixth governor, died this week at the age of eighty-five. Tom Flanigan spoke with some people who had personal dealings with the often colorful chief executive as Claude Kirk made his final trip to Tallahassee.
Claude Kirk said he wanted to be buried on the grounds of the Florida Capitol so he could, in his words, "keep an eye on them", meaning lawmakers and bureaucrats with whom he famously battled during life. State officials couldn't comply with Kirk's wishes. But that didn't stop him from making one final appearance at the Florida Capitol.
Claude Roy Kirk, Jr. was a true nomad. He was born in California, moved to Chicago and then Alabama, all before the age of seventeen. In 1956, he moved to Florida and founded the American Heritage Life Insurance Company. His success in that arena persuaded him to seek elected office. Never one to start at the bottom, Kirk ran for governor in 1968. That's when the reporter Bill Cotterell, now with the Tallahassee Democrat, met Kirk. Although that meeting actually took place at a political event in South Carolina.
"He came up on a campaign event in 1968 for the Republican Party and since I was from Florida and I'd heard a lot about him, I went over to meet him and he very quickly sat down and asked where I was from since I was from Miami and what part of Miami and who did I know down there. He recalled a few because I'd worked earlier at the Miami Herald and he recalled a few interactions he'd had with the Herald over the years."
Ron Sachs worked for the Miami Herald for awhile, too. He'd later become communications director Florida's forty-first Governor Lawton Chiles. But his first memories of Claude Kirk happened much earlier. Sachs was a high school senior in Miami-Dade during Florida's first and only statewide teachers strike the year Kirk took office. Sachs says there was a big teachers' rally at Miami Marine Stadium on Biscayne Bay.
"And the governor arrived in typical Claude Kirk fashion, very dramatically in a hydrofoil boat that actually rides on a pocket of air above the water and when he stepped onto the stage in front of the crowd of thousands of teachers, not a sound could be heard. And they listened to his every word, there was no applause and then he left as he came on a puff of wind in the hydrofoil."
Linda Kleindeist didn't meet Kirk until long after he left the Governor's Mansion in 1971. She was covering politics for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Kirk lived right up the road in West Palm Beach.
"So oftentimes when I was writing a political story - national or state - I would just call him and he was wonderful. He answered the phone all the time. He was always a joy to talk to, always had something to say and always made a lot of jokes - kidded me about my column picture - always gave a good perspective about all the politics going on."
Kleindeist eventually wound up at her paper's capital bureau. Even then, there was no escaping Claude Kirk.
"And I always enjoyed inaugurations because I knew that Claude Kirk would always be at those inaugurations and you'd always get his perspective on the new governor and what the new administration would be like."
That tradition even continued to this past January at the inaugural for Rick Scott. Former Governor Kirk was acknowledged from the podium. He slowly rose to his feet and politely tipped his hat to the crowd. Even though forty-three years separated the swearings in of Rick Scott and Claude Kirk, veteran Capital Correspondent Bill Cotterell notes there are some similarities between the men and the times
"The conditions were perfect for an outsider, someone who'd not been in government before; a fresh face. He was fortunate in that way. And secondly, today with a much more diffused media with the Internet, with the 24-hour news cycle, with cable in those days of course there were newspapers, radio and television, which in some cases was a 15-minute newscast."
Ask anyone who knew Claude Kirk what phrase best describes him and you'll hear phrases like "larger than life" and "totally frank and unguarded". The consensus is that such a person would be almost unelectable in today's political environment. A few years ago, Ron Sachs was interviewing all of Florida's living governors, including Claude Kirk.
"So when I asked Governor Kirk what was your greatest achievement he pondered it thoughtfully and then he looked up and he said with a smile, I believe it might have been just getting elected.'"