The Florida Humanities Council honored Gary R. Mormino in the 2025 Florida Humanities Hall of Fame.
Photo courtesy of Gary Mormino
On Oct, 18, the Florida Humanities Council (FHC) inducted Dr. Gary Ross Mormino as an inaugural member of the Florida Humanities Hall of Fame. This event at the Tampa Bay History Center celebrated Mormino’s teaching, scholarship, and promotion of Florida history and culture.
FHC previously honored Mormino in 2003 as its first Humanist of the Year and bestowed upon him the Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing in 2015. These and many other honors celebrate a scholar who grew up in the shadow of industrial sites near the Mississippi River.
Working-Class Roots
Born in the Wood River area of Illinois in 1947, Gary lived approximately 20 miles upriver from St. Louis. He came of age in an industrial, working-class community.
Among the Sicilian immigrants on his father’s side, Gary became the first to complete grade school. His father valued hard work more than book learning. Gary’s early work experiences included delivering newspapers and working at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
The senior picture of an aspiring chemist at East Alton-Wood River High School in 1965.
Photo courtesy of East Alton-Wood River High Oiler yearbookKentucky Fried Experience
Colonel Harland Sanders once visited the franchise where Gary worked. Sanders asked Gary to show him the gravy. The Colonel tasted the gravy and told Mormino to discard it.
The Colonel asked Gary, “Son, have you considered a career with Kentucky Fried Chicken?” Gary answered that he planned to attend college. Sanders replied, “You know son, you just walked away from a million-dollar deal!”
While completing her history master’s degree at the University of South Florida (USF), Susan Donoff profiled Gary as the first family member to attend college. Donoff remembered the time when Sanders “admonished him for not making the gravy correctly” as a “classic Gary” moment.
Debbie Carson, a 2012 Florida Studies graduate, shared with The Gabber Newspaper, “Toiling over a hot fryolator, the real Colonel Sanders noticed Gary’s talents and, on the spot, offered him a promising career.”
Carson said that she was “thrilled beyond measure that Gary chose differently.”
Millikin Instead of the Mills
As a senior at East Alton-Wood River High School in 1965, Gary aspired to become a chemist, seeking a path to stay out of the mills and refineries that dominated Wood River.
Mormino enrolled at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. While at Millikin, Mormino met C. Robert Haywood, a history professor.
Robert Haywood, history professor and dean at Millikin University, 1969.
Photo courtesy of Millikin University Millidek yearbook
Haywood had completed his doctorate in history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) in 1956. Gary held a campus job at the admissions office. He met Lynne Wheeler, also a student at Millikin.
Mormino, a member of the Student Admissions Corps at Millikin University, gives a tour to prospective students in 1967.
Photo courtesy of Millikin University Millidek yearbookChapel Hill and Immigrants on the Hill
Haywood encouraged Mormino to attend UNC. Gary earned his bachelor’s degree at Milliken in May 1969, married Lynne a month later, and enrolled at UNC.
Gary wrote his dissertation on immigrants who shaped “The Hill,” an Italian-American community in St. Louis. He conducted extensive oral history interviews, graduated in 1977, and sought a teaching position in a tight market.
Mormino, shown here in 1969, majored in history and psychology at Millikin University.
Photo courtesy of Millikin University Millidek yearbookTransforming Florida History
Mormino learned that USF planned to hire an immigration historian. Offered this position, Mormino began researching the immigrant communities of Ybor City. Mormino conducted more than 100 interviews with those who had first-hand knowledge of Ybor history.
For 26 years, Gary had an office in the SOC building on the USF Tampa campus.
Image courtesy of James Schnur
Gary frequently visited the USF Tampa Library, shown here in the late 1970s.
Image courtesy of James Schnur
Gary’s true devotion to Florida history took shape while he was in Italy. He had an opportunity to teach at the University of Rome in 1980-81 under the Fulbright Program.
Gary Mormino offering a lecture at USF St. Petersburg in the early 1990s.
Photo by James SchnurRecording Voices, Preserving History
Ellen Babb told The Gabber Newspaper that, “For over 40 years, Gary Mormino has been a valued friend, mentor, and colleague. As an undergraduate in the 1980s, his immigration history classes sparked my interest in oral histories.”
Gary shaped Babb’s graduate studies and her professional efforts as a historian and manager at the St. Petersburg Museum of History and later Heritage Village.
“I don’t think I ever saw Gary without his trusty old-school tape recorder,” Babb recalled. “Knowing my passion for women’s history and local history, Gary often sent me relevant newspaper articles, supporting my academic and professional pursuits.”
Mormino taught many students who later became scholars of Florida history and culture.
Photo courtesy of USF Digital CollectionsTeaching and Walking Tours
From 1977 through 2003, Mormino taught primarily at USF Tampa. Beyond the classroom, Gary offered walking tours of Ybor City and West Tampa.
Mormino in front of the Cuban Club during an April 2012 walking tour in Ybor City.
Photo courtesy of USF Digital Collections
Gerald Notaro, a librarian emeritus at USFSP, remembered how attending Gary’s walking tour allowed him to appreciate his Italian roots.
“I brought my Dad because he loves the Italian history in Ybor,” Notaro recalled. “Gary took us to the Italian Club and pointed out the tile map of Italy and Sicily on the wall.”
Notaro continued, “He asked where my family had immigrated from and I was embarrassed that I did not know.”
Notaro researched his family history and became “the family historian and knowledge keeper and sharer, all because of meeting Gary.”
Clippings to Share Everywhere
Long before digitized collections, Mormino carefully reviewed old Florida newspapers preserved on microfilm. Even today, Gary provides newspaper clippings to those who meet him for coffee, biscotti, and conversation. Sharing clippings has become a Gary tradition.
Clippings are a historian’s best friend.
Photo by James Schnur
Andy Fairbanks, a 2012 Florida Studies graduate, told The Gabber Newspaper about seeing Gary’s office with “papers spilling out of files, boxes, and books … manila envelopes stuffed with recent clippings and photocopies of microfilm from old newspapers.”
As Fairbanks mentioned a random research interest, Mormino “reached into the recycling bin, rifled around for a few seconds, found the piece and handed it to me with a smile.”
Fostering Florida Studies
In 2003, Mormino and Raymond Arsenault at USF St. Petersburg (USFSP) submitted a proposal to create an interdisciplinary, graduate-level Florida Studies Program. Gary transferred to USFSP during the fall of 2003 after this proposal was approved.
Christopher Meindl, current director of the Florida Studies Program, knew about Mormino’s work long before arriving at USFSP that year.
Meindl shared with The Gabber Newspaper that he “wanted to be like Gary Mormino because of his devotion to exhaustive research, eloquent writing, engaging teaching, purposeful storytelling — and perhaps most of all — his kindness and generosity.”
Mormino leading a walking tour in Ybor City, 2012.
Photo courtesy of USF Digital Collections
Nevin Sitler, curator and historian at the St. Petersburg Museum of History, was one of the first Florida Studies graduates in 2006. He praised Mormino as “a brilliant teacher, advisor, and mentor.”
An author and historian himself, Sitler noted Mormino’s “passion for Florida’s past was matched only by his generosity in guiding the next generation of scholars … and for the countless ways he has shaped our understanding of this state we call home.”
More Mormino Memories
Hope Black earned her Florida Studies master’s in December 2007 at the age of 73. She remembered Gary as “a brilliant and generous scholar and an exemplary human being.”
Alison Hardage completed her Florida Studies master’s degree in 2019. Gary taught her first class. She told The Gabber Newspaper, “I loved it because he found so many quirky tidbits to keep our attention and to keep the class involved.”
To DeeLynn Rivinius, a 2020 Florida Studies graduate, history became “something to feel, question, and explore.” Florida was “a story worth telling, researching, and understanding deeply.”
Gary Mormino speaking at USF St. Petersburg, 2015.
Photo courtesy of USF Digital Collections
Marilyn Polson earned her Florida Studies master’s in December 2024. The oldest graduate at her commencement, Polson told The Gabber Newspaper, “His enthusiasm for his subject is phenomenal and his caring and kindness for his students remarkable.”
A Legacy of Learning and Teaching
Gary retired from USF in 2012, after 35 years. However, Mormino continues to teach classes and give walking tours.
An assortment of books authored and edited by Gary Mormino.
Photo by James Schnur
In 1983, Mormino stated that “if each generation must rewrite its own history, Tampans will indeed be enriched as 21st Century scholars debate the cutting edge of our past.” Forty-two years later, Mormino continues to shape the future of Florida history.
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