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Text Box: Volume 16 No. 1 Text Box: Page # Text Box: Nominations Committee Report October 2006 The Pinellas County Chapter will elect its Board of Directors for 2007 at the Bill of Rights Awards Banquet on December 7, 2006. All current members of the local chapter are eligible to vote. The Nominations Committee is pleased to present these civil libertarians who have agreed to serve you. v names are nominated for election or re-election to two-year terms; the remainder will serve through 2007. Board of Directors Officers, Two year terms Thom Foley, President Ray Arsenault, 1st Vice-Chair v Maria Vesperi, 2nd ViceChair Paul Pohlman, Secretary Carol Steele, Treasurer Members at large, Two years v Jeanie Blue Sidney Goetz v Jeff Harper v Adrian Helm Jerry Moore v Jim Peterson Sam Schrift Nigel Watson Legal Panel vBruce Howie, Chair State Board Delegates, Two-year term Ray Arsenault Thom Foley v Adrien Helm 2006 Board Appointments, One-year term Norman Brown John Chase Robert Collette Jason Davis Karen Doering Margaret Evans Mark Kamleiter Don Neri Glenn Paul Nano Riley Wendy Risk Thomas Smith Jay Sokolovsky Will Tripoli Maria Vesperi, Nom. Chair Text Box: His minister suggested that Harold try seminary and he attended McCormick Seminary in Chicago. Later he received a Doctorate of Ministry from a Presbyterian seminary associated with UC Berkeley. In the summer of 1962, Rev. Brockus was part of an interracial group that held swim-ins to integrate Chicago beaches. He said, “On a couple of occasions Mayor Daley saved our lives. He didn’t want trouble in his city and the police held the mob back.” Harold married and started a family. After seminary, he settled in a Presbyterian church in a small town in Iowa where he immediately got in trouble. Working with Mexican farm workers, he organized a clinic, and advised the school board that the federal funds they were receiving required them to accommodate farm workers’ children. Rev. Brockus obtained school board funding for a school, and was condemned as a trouble maker in editorials in the local paper. While in Iowa he organized a Delta Ministry. This nonsectarian ministry brought poor African Americans from Mississippi to Iowa where he had arranged for a local cannery to provide on the job training. In 1970, the Brockus family moved to Pinellas County to rejuvenate The Good Samaritan Church in Pinellas Park. He organized, with church members, a counter culture center to provide outreach to young people struggling with the bad feelings of those times. The center provided a safe place for counter culture kids to go. Eventually he provided draft counseling as the Vietnam War dragged on. In 1971 Pinellas County Schools were integrated. Dixie Hollins High School was especially difficult and had to be closed for a few weeks. Rev. Brockus organized an interracial youth group in the interim. Black students were brought to Good Samaritan to meet with white students and build a core group of peacemakers. When the school reopened, Rev. Brockus organized a group of adults to walk the halls to help avoid violence. About this same time he proposed to the church, and they agreed, to be- come a Safe Place. They would provide meeting space for activist groups that were unwelcome at other places. Over the years groups that met in the church included Pinellas NOW, a transgendered group, a Chinese fellowship, and Pinellas ACLU. In 1985 Rev. Brockus got involved with sexual minority youth issues. At the time the crisis hotlines had no place to refer GLBTQ youth. Agencies would not deal with them, so Rev. Brockus organized a support group that provided education and social opportunities in a safe place. In 1989 he began working with the HIV/AIDS community as Chair of the AIDS Coalition. Rev. Brockus said, “This was the organizational experience of his life.” In 1995, Rev. Brockus helped organize a PFLAG (Parents and Friends & Family of Lesbians and Gays) chapter. PFLAG wanted the school board to add “sexual orientation” to the board’s anti-harassment and discrimination policy. The night the policy was being considered, David Caton, the gay basher from Tampa, brought in bus loads of his supporters. Harold Brockus had already filled the room with supporters. It passed by one vote. Rev. Brockus retired from Good Samaritan Church in 2002. Since then he has been active organizing farm workers in Wimauma, serving on the Board of Directors of Bethel Farm Workers. They provide legal assistance, a head start program, housing and a literacy program. Rev. Brockus has served as president of the Pinellas Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State for the past two years, and has been part of the Eckerd College Leadership program for twenty-six years. He has four children and seven grandchildren scattered all over the country. A life dedicated to justice and liberty. Rev. Harold Brockus exemplifies the spirit of the Gardner Beckett Award.