When I first met Diane Beruldsen, she was teaching at Sugarloaf School and playing as DBQB in a three-team women’s flag football league at Bernstein Field on Stock Island. That was in the early 1990s. Now she’s traveling all over the world, building the International Women’s Flag Football Association as its founder and president. “I think two dozen or more,” she said, counting off the countries she’s visited, “26 probably,” selling the values of flag football. “It’s my journey. It’s why I was born,” said Beruldsen. After the games end, the players shake hands and there are lots...
The daughter of Keys music legend “Grateful Ted” recently released her first cover song and collaboration with Grammy award winner “Bluegrass Boy” Peter Rowan. “Seminole Wind” is an original piece by country singer John Anderson that speaks to the struggle and displacement of the Seminole Tribe in Florida caused by war, destruction of natural resources, and the draining of the Everglades for financial gain. “I learned this song by hearing my father, Ted Hyde, AKA ‘Grateful Ted,’ play it,” Kelly Hyde said. “My father was based in the Florida Keys and played music there for over 30 years, and...
Justin Martin was born and grew up in Key West, graduated from Key West High, then Flagler College in St. Augustine. After college, he spent three years tending to the family business — commercial fishing — before he took on coaching the Conchs’ girls soccer team. Now, since June, and at the age of 27, he has become the school’s athletic director, succeeding Sarah Eckert, who has become the Key West volleyball coach. Several balls had to fall in the right place for Martin to become AD: Kim Butler decided she didn’t want to continue as head coach of the school’s volleyball team. Eckert,...