This week, as my daughter, Ashley, is about to celebrate her birthday, I am reminded of how very PROUD I am to have such a wonderful daughter! When my two children, Ashley and Ben, Jr., were young, one of the most important things I wanted for them was the ability to take care of themselves well. Ashley was eight and Ben Jr. was five when their mother and I divorced. Because they were now not with me on a daily basis, my focus shifted from a physical focal point to a cons

Back in 1990, I ran for State Senate. Of course I was running to win, but as it turned out, I did not. I initially felt somewhat dejected, but this “defeat” set me on a path that has led to a great deal of happiness. I think it’s important to learn from life’s challenges, and after much thought, I’ve come to the conclusion I was not elected because of words. As in many campaigns, I too had advisors who kept telling me what I should say and even tried to tell me what to th

As a 22 year old aspiring businessman, I opened an automobile auction in Albany, GA. This auction was just for licensed automobile dealers, so to drum up business, I visited numerous car dealers in the SW Georgia, North Florida and Eastern Alabama. My objective was to encourage used car dealers to come to my weekly auction to purchase cars and trucks to sell to the public at their dealerships. Additionally, I called on new car and truck dealers to encourage them to sell t

In the aftermath of Hurricane Charley, a team from my Rotary Club, called the Rotary Rotary Foundation Fryers, went to Arcadia, FL where we cooked and served more than 1,000 hot meals to those who had been without electrical power for over a week. While there, I learned from the local Rotary Club president, Susan Rachles, that the University of Florida Agriculture Office in Arcadia had a problem. A forklift was needed to unload the pallets of animal feed, drinking water a