
Deborah Elizabeth Adkins, 67, Tampaĭeborah Adkins created floral arrangements and designed plant-scapes. Until age 80, she was head cashier at Wendy’s, where she was a mentor. She worked in a glass plant as a packer, then an executive secretary. “She had big dreams, but the war and poverty were bigger,” her daughter wrote. She was ashamed of her great-great uncle George Custer and donated money to Native American causes for years in hopes of making reparations. Ruth Abbott came from West Virginia, a coal miner’s daughter who won the state science fair at 15. “He was an effective and caring counselor and helped to lead those he counseled in the right direction to find their life’s purpose.” “He was an active and engaged father who coached and mentored many young and not-so-young people,” his obituary said. He was an active member of New Beginnings Community Church in St. Aarons worked as a sales executive at a number of media companies, including the Tampa Tribune. He and his wife, Deborah, relocated several times before settling in Florida. He maintained an active membership throughout the remainder of his life. Air Force Reserve and attended California State University, San Bernardino, where he pledged Phi Beta Sigma. was born in Pensacola, the second of six children. A crushing number of stories remain untold. One thousand stories hardly puts a dent in the pandemic’s ongoing toll. Some had yet to graduate from elementary school. They arranged flowers and picked strawberries, kneaded biscuits and sang the blues. They were immigrants from Poland and the Philippines and lifelong Floridians who retired along the waters where they’d fished as kids. They sold lottery tickets and tended to the sick and lonely. They were cab drivers, veterans, teachers, traffic cops. Plenty had nicknames: Coach G, Cookie, Big Mike, Moosie, Boo-Boo. They loved Taco Bell’s Nachos Supreme, Disney cruises, the Golden Girls and an ice-cold Coors. The people these Times reporters wrote about loved Bible study, fish and chips, trains and flea markets. A grandma who sipped pink Moscato and ordered Hawaiian pizzas. A shell-hunting soccer mom who loved anything with a palm tree on it.
