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FSU president John Thrasher wins praise for response to campus shooting

 
The Florida State University campus is healing from the fatal shooting that took place in the Robert Manning Strozier Library at Florida State University in Tallahassee on Friday, November 21, 2014. Myron May a former student returned to campus where he opened fire hitting three students on Thursday.
The Florida State University campus is healing from the fatal shooting that took place in the Robert Manning Strozier Library at Florida State University in Tallahassee on Friday, November 21, 2014. Myron May a former student returned to campus where he opened fire hitting three students on Thursday.
Published Jan. 7, 2015

TALLAHASSEE — In the same room where students once jeered his claim to the presidency of Florida State University, John Thrasher won praise Friday for providing reassurance in the aftermath of Thursday's campus library shooting.

Thrasher attended his first meeting with his new bosses, the FSU trustees who hired him. Weeks ago, they were criticized by students and faculty members for hiring a veteran legislator, former lobbyist and leader of conservative causes at odds with liberal academia.

Trustees met a day after troubled gunman Myron May wounded three people, one critically, before he was shot and killed by police in a hail of bullets that shattered the post-midnight calm.

"I remember this room," said a smiling Thrasher as the meeting began. It was in that university conference center where he threatened to walk out of a job interview in September when students heckled his reply to a question about whether climate change was real.

But the shooting that stunned the FSU community forced Thrasher to rely on the same skills that have served him so well in politics, along with his pride in his alma mater.

Quickly finding the right message, he led the call for unity in "Seminole nation." He reached out to students, his toughest constituency. He praised the work of others, especially law enforcement, as university police chief David Perry got a standing ovation.

"The campus, in my opinion, is coming back together," Thrasher said Friday. "We hurt. We all hurt for the folks that are there in the hospital."

Thrasher attended a candlelight vigil with students Thursday and greeted them Friday as Strozier Library reopened. Trustees watched a video of the vigil in which students, gathered on Landis Green, sang Amazing Grace and as Thrasher told them: "We're stronger. We're more passionate, and we care about each other."

The video ended with the FSU song, Hymn to the Garnet and Gold.

"He's had the right message with the right tone," Chief Perry said of Thrasher. "He's not wanting to ride on the truck with me. He wants to walk around campus and personally interact with students."

On campus, the jury is still very much out on Thrasher. But in interviews Friday, students said his response to the shooting improved his standing with them.

"I wasn't a big fan when he was first named president," said Tory Finley, a 20-year-old junior from Jacksonville, who was selling cupcakes outside the library. "But he's been doing a good job these past few days."

Katie Horton, a freshman from New York, said she appreciated Thrasher's call for a quick return to business as usual.

"You can't wallow in this. You have to move on," she said.

FSU senior Taylor West, 21, said of Thrasher: "He was polarizing, but this issue is bigger than that."

Freshman Kyle Breazeale, 18, said he remained concerned about Thrasher's past support from the billionaire libertarian Koch brothers, who once made a controversial $1.5 million gift to the FSU economics department that also initially gave the Koch brothers influence over some hiring decisions.

On Saturday, FSU will focus on what always matters so much this time of year — football — as the undefeated and top-ranked Seminoles host Boston College.

Thrasher said players will wear ribbons on their helmets during the nationally televised game. Actor Burt Reynolds, who played football for FSU in the 1950s, will throw down the spear at the end of pregame ceremonies, a job usually reserved for a man symbolizing Seminole Chief Osceola, riding a horse named Renegade.

Thrasher will deliver a videotaped message on the huge TV screens at Doak Campbell Stadium, and FSU is asking the network to show the three-minute video of the candlelight vigil as a sign of student solidarity at a time of crisis.

"From what I've seen, he's provided sensitive leadership," said Bob Rackleff, a speechwriter at the U.S. Department of Energy who was Thrasher's Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity brother at FSU and whose own liberal views are strongly at odds with Thrasher's. "His commitment to FSU is genuine and long-standing."

Ray Bellamy, a part-time FSU instructor who took out a full-page newspaper ad that called Thrasher unfit to be president, said it's still much too early to gauge Thrasher's effectiveness as president.

"Time will tell," he said.

Thrasher won two more votes of confidence Friday as trustees extended for one year the board chairmanship of his ally, Allan Bense, a Panama City businessman and, like Thrasher, a former state House speaker.

They also approved Thrasher's continued role as a board member of Chalmer-Sunbelt Group, a major wine and liquor wholesaler.

FSU trustee Ed Burr of Jacksonville, who chaired the presidential search committee, said Thrasher's handling of the shooting crisis has vindicated the decision to hire him over others with better academic credentials.

"He didn't have all the qualifications that everyone wanted," Burr said. "And I doubted that 10 days into it we'd be tested on the credibility of our choice. But we were."

Contact Steve Bousquet at sbousquet@tampabay.com. Follow@stevebousquet.