PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Publisher & Editor
Gregory Enns
772.940.9005
enns@indianrivermag.com
Associate Publisher
Allen Osteen
Director of Sales
Lisa Crawford
516.721.0848
lisa@indianrivermag.com
Associate Editor
Judith Collins
Copy Editors
Pattie Durham, Gaettane A. Paul
Design Editor
Michelle Moore-Burney
Writers
Susan Burgess, Donna Crary,
Rick Crary, Rachel Cuccurullo,
Pattie Durham, Kerry Firth,
Janie Gould,
Catherine Enns Grigas,
Mary Ann Koenig,
Christina Tascon, Anthony
Westbury, Bernie Woodall
Photographers
Robert Adams, Rob Downey
Anthony Inswasty, Mary Ann
Ketcham, Christina Tascon
Cover Photo
Joe Semkow
Advertising Representatives
Sunny Gates
772.204.5043
sunny@indianrivermag.com
Marsha Lange
772.237.1717
marsha@indianrivermag.com
Bookkeeping
Mary Enns
Distribution
Wes Holloway, Kirk Jones
Our Motto
‘We fly our own mission’
— Ed Drondoski, Founding
Photographer
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Indian River Magazine Inc. is a locally
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To my No. 1 fan
In the 15 years since we launched this magazine, one reader has shared her opinion
about how we are doing or what we should be doing more than any other.
That would be my mother, Katie Enns, who has always been quick to suggest
a good story, note who might be a good advertiser or critique our latest issue.
In nearly all cases, her observations have been unsolicited, unfiltered and unrelenting.
But they certainly never have been unknowing.
That’s because for 36 years, until his death in 1990, she was married to my dad,
Bob Enns, the longtime editor of The News-Tribune in Fort Pierce. How she came
about her journalistic acumen requires some explanation about her migration to
Florida from her hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The year was 1952, and she was just about to graduate from Marquette University
in Wisconsin with a degree in the newly formed discipline of speech therapy.
Then called speech correction, the discipline was aimed at improving speech communication
disorders, and her choice of the profession was inspired, in part, by the
stuttering of her younger brother, Chuck, who would eventually become a Roman
Catholic priest.
With a dislike for the cold and visions of perpetual sunshine, mom wrote various
school superintendents in Florida offering her services. Carl Huskey, then superintendent
of the St. Lucie County district, immediately responded, interviewed her
by phone and hired her to become the first speech therapist in the St. Lucie County
School district. Today, there are 48 speech pathologists — the term now used for the
profession — in the district.
As the 1952-53 school year and time to start her new job approached, mom
and college friend Nancy Anderson and childhood friend Marilyn Dorrance
packed up Mom’s 1948 Mercury convertible her parents had given her as a
graduation present and headed to Florida, driving with the top down all the
way.
When they arrived in Florida, they spent several days in Daytona Beach,
which met all the criteria they expected of the Sunshine State — crowded
beaches, lots of young people and a spirit of revelry. But several days later, as
they drove down A1A through the Treasure Coast over the rickety wooden
bridge on North Beach they encountered something totally different and unexpected
— a sleepy town with not much going on for a 22-year-old. Compared
to Daytona, Fort Pierce seemed abandoned.
Tearful, mom called her dad and said she was returning to Iowa. But he
insisted she fulfill the yearlong contract she signed, and she gave in. Nevertheless,
within a few days, her friend Nancy returned to her home in Chicago.
Katie Enns, the first
speech therapist in
the St. Lucie County
School District and
mother of Publisher
Gregory Enns, has
been a goodwill
ambassador for Indian
River Magazine since
its launch in 2006.
Katie Enns, right, and two
friends leave the old St. Anastasia
Church on Orange
Avenue in Fort Pierce shortly
after she arrived in 1952
from Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
to become the district’s first
speech therapist.
Marilyn was desperate to return to Cedar Rapids as well, but mom pleaded
with her to stay, offering to pay Marilyn’s room and board until Marilyn could
find a job. Luckily for Katie — and Marilyn, who would meet her husband,
Bugsy, here — she stayed.
Within a few weeks of mom’s arrival, an enterprising reporter at The News-
Tribune named Bob Enns interviewed her for a story in her new role as the district’s first speech therapist. By
the end of the interview, he had asked her for a date. The rest is my family’s history.
They married in 1954 and subsequently produced eight children and, except for maternity leaves, my
mom worked through it all. As the first speech therapist, she had to travel to a number of schools, trying
to educate principals and teachers about how she could help students with one-on-one lessons. Many
principals didn’t know what to do with her, and she often was relegated to a school utility closet they would
retrofit into a small classroom for her.
Because she had to cover so much ground and visit so many schools, one year the district, flush with cash
from a federal grant, gave her an air-conditioned step van that she could drive up to schools and give speech
therapy lessons inside.
Combined with driving her octet of children around to various appointments, lessons and athletic events,
she established an incredibly wide communications network, which she generously looped my dad into.
People who wanted to get stories into the paper often knew that one good way was through tipping off Katie.
When my dad died, she took a few decades off from her covert journalistic career, though she remained
a sort of den mother to the journalists who had worked for my dad over years, including some of the ones
who work for this magazine today. But she began anew when I returned to the Treasure Coast in 2006 to
start this magazine.
Besides offering endless commentary and suggestions for the magazine, she also acted as an unofficial
goodwill ambassador, stocking her car with a box of magazines each time an issue was printed and dropping
them off at the various doctors’ offices, beauty parlors and other places she visited.
Unfortunately her efforts on our behalf have been sidelined by news from a doctor that no one wants to
hear. Yet she remains grateful for each new day and is thankful
to be able to continue living in her home of more than half
a century. She accepts her future with courage, grace and an
abiding faith.
So thanks, Mom, for the memories and all the unsolicited
opinions and advice. You were always right, of course.
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Signatures:Signatures 2/25/13 4:25 PM Page 1
Reach Publisher Gregory Enns at
enns@indianrivermag.com or 772.940.9005
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