Weeks before Saturday’s Republican-led removal of Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Mark Dodds was putting pencil to paper to hopefully resurrect the Key Biscayne Republican Club.
Now, he’ll likely be able to feed off that momentum, a charge fueled by President Donald Trump and supported, in part, by Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, along with another Key Biscayne resident, U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar.
Dodds, a “young, retired, 69-year-old,” is a familiar face in the Village when it comes to politics. For more than two weeks prior to the 2024 election, he dressed as Trump (“Some people say I look like him”), standing at the Village entrance “being silly” but also hoping to sway voters to the Republican side of the ballot and, just as importantly, to get people out to the polls.
Mark Dodds with his family at a baseball game.
Islander News archives
Now, he’s organizing the rebirth of the Key Biscayne Republican Club with a casual meeting set for 6 p.m., on Jan. 14, in the Key Biscayne Police Department’s first floor community room, where he can only promise the event to be “social with water.”
“We’re just trying to figure this out,” Dodds said Monday morning, not yet knowing if officers will be elected then or at a subsequent meeting. “People have moved on and I’m just trying to get (the club) restarted, so we’re gathering a bunch of people to share the Republican-Conservative ideals.”
For years, Armando Chapelli led the Key Biscayne Republican Club but moved away from the Village last year after doing “a good job,” Dodds said.
Having lived on the Key for almost 40 years, raising two sons with his wife, Cindy, Dodds has some personal, close-to-the-heart motivation for motivating others.
His younger son, Kyle Cole Dodds, died of fentanyl poisoning eight years after surgery from two labrum tears while playing football at Miami Westminster.
“They gave him opioids to deal with the pain, and he suffered trying to get over it,” Dodds said. “It was a very tough time. He thought he was buying cocaine (in later years to deal with the pain) but it was laced with fentanyl.”
Kyle Cole died at age 24 on Sept. 26, 2016 and the Dodds’ family, which earned a Family of the Year award by Islander News officials, was included in a nine-minute segment on a compelling “State of Addiction” documentary by NBC 6, now seen on YouTube.
The elder Dodds said it’s these types of issues, such as protecting kids from fentanyl and keeping illegal drugs under control, is where political clout comes in.
“I’ve talked to college kids at the Rec Center and while lifting weights,” he said. “You can take a pill, but you don’t know where it came from.”
By the way, his other son, Logan, is a young father himself and “doing well” while overcoming the loss of his brother.
For information on the Key Biscayne Republican Club, e-mail Dodds at markdodds346@gmail.com