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DeWitt: South Brooksville center should live up to revered teacher's legacy

 
Published July 7, 2016

Princess McCalop stepped outside her mobile home on St. Francis Street in south Brooksville and briefly closed the door on the unmistakable sound of small children racing around a small, enclosed space.

It was her two nieces and nephew, McCalop said, on the sweltering afternoon of July 4, and there wasn't a lot for them to do but hang out and watch television — and certainly nothing at the South Brooksville Community Center.

The small yellow building on the other side of Dr. M.L. King Jr. Boulevard was, as usual, shut tight.

"I don't see too much happening over there," said McCalop, 49. "Not anymore."

The height of summer reminds a lot of us of the good times we had as kids, hanging out at public rec centers, community pools or municipal golf courses — which should in turn remind us of the shortage of such facilities in Hernando County.

It may not be fair to single out the Sheriff's Office, which runs the center in south Brooksville. Youth recreation is not its primary duty, after all, and the shortage of activities for children is part of a bigger political problem: a lack of voter support for the kind of comprehensive youth programs found in neighboring counties. Citrus County, for example, has not one but two public pools.

But the center's location, and the promises when it opened in 2009, and a couple of recent developments, make the center an especially prominent example that we could, and can, do more for children.

The County Commission recently voted to name the center after Sarah F. Davis, a beloved retired teacher and community volunteer who was murdered in her south Brooksville home in 2010.

And earlier this year, the Sheriff's Office asserted its control over the center from Clarence Clark, who said his organization, Shiloh Problem Solvers, had received written permission from the previous sheriff, U.S. Rep. Richard Nugent, to run it in 2009.

Though I also remember Nugent pretty much turning the center over to Shiloh, Clark could not produce the authorizing document. And, especially in recent years, I've seen little evidence that he accomplished his goal: creating community outreach programs that were supposed to be the whole point of the center.

Which brings up the reason that recreation and education are, if not the responsibility of the Sheriff's Office, at least in its interest.

Nobody would argue that the more constructive things kids have to do, the less likely they are to get into trouble. And if they can do it in a place with the Sheriff's Office's name on it, in the company of friendly deputies who occasionally stop in to write reports, law enforcement would seem like a natural ally rather than an enemy.

The center hasn't completely failed in this role. CareerSource Pasco Hernando staffs the center to help residents look for jobs twice a week, and three community organizations hold meetings there, said sheriff's spokeswoman Denise Moloney.

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And some members of a group formed to approve the renaming have said they want to explore ways to bring more community groups in to provide more activities.

But at this point, Moloney said, though the Sheriff's Office makes the center available to such groups, it does not actively seek them.

It should.

Davis, by all accounts, was a selfless, tireless advocate for youth in south Brooksville, and the name change is designed to honor that legacy.

"When little girls walk by there and say, 'Who was Sarah Davis?' we want them to know who she was and what she stood for," Moloney said.

It's a message that would have a lot more impact if the center could live up to her ideals and her name.

Contact Dan DeWitt at ddewitt@tampabay.com; follow @ddewitttimes.