Jeff LaHurd: Farming was once a Sarasota economic mainstay heraldtribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from heraldtribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Actor-comedian Vir Das took a trip down memory lane by sharing a video on Instagram on Thursday. The clip was from a speech that he gave at Knox College in 2018 when he was bestowed with anhonourary doctorate.
Mary Jane Whitaker
Among the first of these was Mary Jane Whitaker, wife of William Whitaker, Sarasota’s first pioneer settler.
As gutsy as she was small she stood in at 5 feet tall the diminutive Mary Jane was fearless. Besides contending with the hardships inherent in surviving life on the frontier, she faced danger from marauding Seminole Indians who burned her Yellow Bluffs home down in a raid.
Later, she went toe-to-toe with Union soldiers during the Civil War who threatened to burn her second home down. Legend has it that Mary Jane handed the officer in charge a match, saying, “I want to look in the eyes of a man who can stoop so low as to burn the house of a helpless woman and her children.” He and his men rode off leaving the Whitaker home standing.
“You had to tell her,” says Bobby.
“Well, I thought about it all weekend,” says Jill. “I weighed the pros and cons. But then, yeah. I had to tell her.”
“Betrayal,” says Tina. “Do you know what that word means?”
Things get heated. Things get loud. But fear not, this isn’t some end-of-year meltdown it’s a live, un-miked, guerilla-style performance of “Tough!,” George F. Walker’s provocative tragicomedy of youth, relationships and thwarted potential.
“Tina is angry because she heard Bobby was flirting with another girl,” said William Whitaker, professor of practice in drama in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, who directs the cast of three. “Jill is there to help Tina deliver some tough news. And Bobby, seeing his whole life about to change, is doing everything possible to escape.