{"id":1123,"date":"2011-04-27T17:43:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T17:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=596"},"modified":"2011-04-27T17:43:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T17:43:27","slug":"backbone-of-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1123","title":{"rendered":"backbone of the country…"},"content":{"rendered":"

While in Carrabelle, Florida (pop. 2,778), we got to know Randy Harrison and Joan Matey. \u00a0 They’re married. \u00a0 Joan is a local artist who specializes in various art mediums (paints, pencil drawing, miniature sculptures…) \u00a0 Randy, 62, \u00a0is a personal trainer two days a week about an hour north of here at a YMCA in Tallahassee. \u00a0 And he also volunteers with the Sheriff’s Department in Franklin County. \u00a0 (Randy is \u00a0in such good shape, he still looks like he could still play linebacker somewhere.) Besides their “day jobs,” so to speak, both are extremely<\/em> active in their community — going the extra-mile with most everything they do. \u00a0 (The essence of some of our platform is to mobilize more people to become involved with local community, like it was in the “old days.”) \u00a0 Joan, for instance, is helping organize a new Community Garden in \u00a0close by Lanark Village. \u00a0 What’s more, she \u00a0puts on \u00a0the “Fishy Fashion Show”<\/strong> at the annual River Front Festival<\/em> here. \u00a0 This \u00a0features models wearing her “clothing art,” if you will. \u00a0 Yellow raincoats adorned with colorful fishing lures, sea shells, and the like. \u00a0 Burlap coats with \u00a0painted “fish tails,” sponge bow ties, crab \u00a0trap hats… \u00a0 All things Joan has scavenged from the local beaches. \u00a0 She’s big on recycling. \u00a0 And she’s big on saving the environment in general. \u00a0 The underlying theme for the Fishy Fashion Show<\/em> is one of environmental consciousness, with characters like: The Estuary Fairy<\/strong>. Joan is also the curator for the Crooked River Lighthouse<\/strong> and Museum<\/strong> here. \u00a0 She led us on a tour through a tremendously creative lighthouse museum she, in essence, designed from scratch… \u00a0 Randy, on the other hand, often works behind the scenes helping Joan with staging at the festival. \u00a0 He \u00a0also started a \u00a0Neighborhood Bicycle Patrol and has been part of the Community Volunteer Security Patrol. \u00a0 (Part of our crime prevention platform<\/a> calls for a lot more citizen involvement.) \u00a0 \u00a0Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 It’s people like Joan and Randy who are the backbone of their communities, and \u00a0extrapolated out: \u00a0the backbone of the country. \u00a0 Problem is, as we’ve traveled we’ve noticed a significant amount of this community proactivity is, well, \u00a0on the decline.<\/p>\n

\"joseph<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While in Carrabelle, Florida (pop. 2,778), we got to know Randy Harrison and Joan Matey. \u00a0 They’re married. \u00a0 Joan is a local artist who specializes in various art mediums (paints, pencil drawing, miniature sculptures…) \u00a0 Randy, 62, \u00a0is a …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}