November 21, 2025 by Cathy Salustri

Text reads: Gulfportian of the Year For 2025Text reads: Gulfportian of the Year For 2025 And the nominees for the 2025 Gulfportian of the Year are…
Image via The Gabber Newspaper.

Gulfport, you have outdone yourself. 

When we opened nominations for Gulfportian of the Year, we weren’t sure what to expect. How many people would nominate someone? 10? None?

In all, we received more than 50 nominations. Some were names many of us know, and a few were names you may not. But the nominations made one thing clear: Gulfportians notice when people do good. It’s encouraging to see how much love Gulfport has to share. 

In those nominations, we had some duplicates (we briefly debated starting a pool about how many nominations Dawn Fisher would get; she closed out almost 20 nominations). 

Next week, we’ll talk with the candidates and their nominators to give you more insight as to the people in the running for 2025 Gulfportian of the Year. 

Thanks to all who participated and helped celebrate the best of Gulfport! And thanks to the nominees who help make Gulfport better.

The 2025 Gulfportian of the Year nominees are:

Peggy & Dave Bach

George Cavanaugh

Bob Chomko

Linda Craig

Wolfgang Deininger

Dawn Fisher

Kelli Garcia

Gail Gravell

Sam Henderson

Helena Josephs

Suzie King

Aimee Kosta and Erin East

Anita McLaughlin

Brenda McMahon

John Mooney

David Perkins

Courtney Prokopas

CreaSirene Egan Romanelli

Mark Sieg

Noreen Smith

Jax Taylor

Lynn Taylor

Dia Vartsakis

And the winner is…

Voting starts now and ends Dec. 10 at 5 p.m.

The winner gets a front-page feature about them in our Jan. 1 issue. They also get bragging rights and a lot of community love. 

So let’s get voting!

Want a reminder to vote? Subscribe to our daily newsletter, the Spoonbill Scoop, to get daily news of Gulfport and South Pinellas.

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