by Florida came up in conversation yesterday, and I mentioned that I went to school there for one semester in 1974, at the Jensen Beach campus of the Florida Institute of Technology. I left quickly because I decided I wanted to study photography, not Oceanographic Technology, and I was in a hurry to start my new life. Parts of the area however, were mysterious and magical, and I hoped to find pictures that captured that.
I scanned these from my photo album. I didn’t have any pictures of the area alas, but a lot of the people I went to school with. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember any of their names, except for my roommate, Elisa Caridi. (And I apologize about not remembering names, it’s nothing personal, I have a very poor memory.) But I’m putting them up here in case any of these people googles “Florida Institute of Technology, Jensen Beach Campus,” as I did, and then they will see pictures of themselves from 1974! There’s a shot of me at the end, which I think I may have posted before.
UPDATE: I’ve gotten names for some of the people below from FIT alum William Davis and others, and I’ve captioned the pictures with their names. If anyone can identify any of the people who are still listed as unknown, let me know and I will update this page with their names.
Names updated 3/2/21.
Row 1: Mike Edsell on the left, Mike Edsell and John Kipp on the right.
Row 2: On the left, Chet King and Tom Kulp, and Mike Kneeland on the right.
Row 1: No guesses.
Row 2: On the left unknown, Bill Atwill, English teacher and crew coach, on the right.
Row 1: That’s me on the right, with my roommate Elisa Caridi.
Row 2: Doug Koontz.
Row 3: Unknown on the left, Bob Keith on the right.
And yes, except for a token shot or two my of roommate, all the pictures are of guys. Come on, I was 18!!
Row 1: I can’t remember his name (this is not personal, I just have memory issues), but I remember he was very nice and would give me rides on his motorcycle, which I loved more than anything. I still remember those rides, the scenery was amazing.
Row 2: Unknown.
Row 3: Unknown.
Row 1: Elisa Caridi on the left, Dennis Morgan on the right.
Row 2: Unknown.
Row 1: Mike Kneeland, on the right Don Cuozzo.
Row 2: On the left unknown, but I remember he was another really nice guy, on the right Doug Koontz.
Row 1: These guys in both shots are unknown.
Row 2: Walter LaFluer.
Okay, this one, where I was trying to get “action” shots of Elisa dancing, shows something of the beauty of the area.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t take this picture. The guys in the picture gave it to me.
Update: I recently heard from the guy on the left! His name is Glen Simms and that is Dennis Morgan on the right.
And these are the pictures I believe I’ve posted before. These were taken for a local newspaper article about the crew team. I was the coxswain. For the record, I was a lousy coxswain. I apologize crew team of 1974!
Update: In the second picture, the guy on the left is Jay Niece.
This is Ken Henke.
1973 was my freshman year of college.
And an earmworm for you:
Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen
Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy
Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair
I love that song!!
I went there for photography from Jan 84 to dec 85. It was a magical place until the announced it was closing a few weeks before I left. Great to see the old dorms. I have a few shots on my blog. Mikemeyerphotopro.wordpress.com
Thanks for the memories Mike
I loved your shots, thanks for the pointer! Yes, it was a magical place. I have very fond memories of my short time there.
13 th row down right hand side
Don Cuozzo
dcuozzo@cdgplan.com
The guy in the yellowish and white striped shirt? Hi Don! You picked me up from the airport when I arrived for the first time. How are you? What are you up to?
Can you identify anyone in the other pictures?
The guy with the long black hair, purple shirt and plaid pants, laying down with his head against the wall is Walter LaFluer. He was a great soccer player and a great friend. I was there in 1974 and 1975 and I remember many of the other people in the pictures. Thank you for posting this.
Thank you! I’m going to add the names of the people above their photographs. I was there in 1974, but I only stayed for one quarter.
Jim Roberts is interested in reconnecting with people that had been in the FIT Jensen Beach Campus 1985 and 1986
I hope you find your former friends.
HA! I did find it by accident… I went ’72-’74 so we probably knew each other by sight… Charlie Valance used to refer to me as “The Mad Bomber”… Underwater Demolition went to my head I guess…
And I recognize some folks but name…
First 4 pics
Row 2: On the left, Chet King, (AKA Squirrel, live in room below me) possibly (don’t know who is next to him), no guesses for the guy on the right. Hawaiian shirt is Mike Kneeland! Taught me how to surf… green/white van.
Row 3 unknown is Bob Keith
Another one of Mike Kneeland… I have a yearbook and could look some up.
Thanks so much! I updated the names, except I wasn’t sure which row 3 is Bob Keith. I’d love to see the yearbook. What year is it from?
PS: I was so disappointed that I hadn’t taken the underwater demolition class before I left.
Yearbook is from ’74… I went 2 years and ran off with an A.S. in Marine Science. Guy with Squirrel is Tom Kulp…
I don’t see a squirrel anywhere. Do you mean Snoopy, the picture in the window?
I attended F.I.T. sometime in the early 80’s. Commercial diving. Head instructor was an ex navy seal. One of the assistant instructors (Drew somebody) was a former student also. He was teaching a underwater video class. We were wearing hard hats and weighted gear videoing hulls of boats on the Indian river. Air was surface supplied. But not from a compressor. From a bank of scuba tanks connected to regulators to lower psi and then hosed to diver. I was in the river when I got 4 tugs on my umbilical. An emergency sign. Proceeded back to dock, climbed out of the water and all of a sudden I had no air!! It seems the rigged air supply had failed. Students were trying to release helmet from neck dam with no success. I still had no air. I remembered you could take the entire assembly off in one piece and that’s what I did. Finally gulping in sweet oxygen. Drew sauntered over and asked “Diver OK?”. I should have kicked his ass
Oh GOD. What if you hadn’t remembered?? Jesus.
Thanks Stacey for posting these photos of FIT Jensen Beach. Very little can be found on the internet regarding this special place. I attended FIT-JB from 1978-1980 after getting information about this campus from an ad in Skin Diver Magazine. I was in the Oceanography Tech program. Being from Ft. Lauderdale, I had the luxury of going home to Ft. Lauderdale on any given weekend, or visiting friends who lived on the beach in Daytona Beach. At the time, there wasn’t much going on in JB for young students except school and the beach. I was heavy into scuba diving and surfing at the time. I used to get up before dawn during the Fall & Winter months and drive to Stuart Beach to check out the waves, then tell my friends what was going on between and during classes. I would get out of class mid-afternoon and hit the beach, surfing till dark. Used to dive for lobsters on Peck Lake Reef using my friends inflatable boat. Here are some of my memories of FIT-JB: The Student Center was built on top of an authentic paleo-Indian mound. There were several “artesian wells” around the wooded area of the campus, trickling fresh water up from the ground. The center pond across from the library had a resident alligator, making retrieval of a lost frisbee sketchy. The dorm buildings across the street were in pretty bad shape. During the hot summer months, the A/C could not keep up with needed cooling. The cafeteria food was dismal most of the time, making the occasional weekend trip home something to look forward to. I can remember on two occasions a medical-helicopter landing on campus to place a commercial diver with decompression sickness into the campus dive chamber. Bluegrass music band playing near the steep grassy slope at the student center on weekends. The concrete bunker known as the rathskeller on Friday & Saturday nights. Loud music and lots of smoke! My parents coming to visit and taking me out to dinner at the polynesian-style restaurant “The Outrigger”, owner by Frances Langford and Ralph Evinrude. Bonfires on the desolate beach on Hutchinson Island, before the condo invasion of the 80’s & 90’s. In May & June, going to the beach at night to watch sea turtles come up the beach to lay eggs. I could go on….lots of great memories for me over a short period of time. So glad I got to experience this campus and the area during this time. Today, the property is a county park and the Student Center building has been fully restored and used for weddings and special events. I think the only other original building still standing is the Chapel. The pier and boat dock out to the deeper water of the Indian River has been completely redone and looks great. The dorm buildings were torn down years ago after severe damage from Hurricane David in 1979 and students were housed in nearby motels & efficiencies after the storm. Today, there are several assisted-living buildings here. The old soccer field is over-grown and the remains of the old lighted wooden scoreboard are laying on the ground. The occasional gopher tortoise can still be found in the sandy and weed-infested field.
WOW!! Thank you Jeff for all that information, and the update about the area. I remember classes being poorly attended when the waves were great for surfing.
Google “Indian RiverSide Park, Jensen Beach” and you can see what the campus grounds look like today. For many years after the campus was abandoned and students were sent to FIT Melbourne campus, the property was surrounded by a chain-link fence and debris, weeds and broken glass were strewn about. Kids got through the fence and painted graffiti on the buildings. It didn’t really matter because the roofs were leaking (collapsing) and the windows were all broken. Some buildings had trees growing out of the large holes in the roofs. The whole property was slowly returning back to nature. Finally, Martin County purchased the property and made many improvements after demolishing most of the old buildings. Today it is a beautiful county park and the student center was completely renovated. It is now called the “Mansion at Tuckahoe” and now used for weddings and special events. Take a look at the incredible images of the park today and the mansion……so glad they saved the student center as that was the central icon of the FIT campus. Such a prime piece of real estate that as students we never fully appreciated, I know I took it for granted while there.
I remember how beautiful that building was. I wonder why I didn’t take pictures of it though.
OH……MY…..HECK!!! I can’t believe I stumbled across this! I was on the crew team with you! The two guys in the dorm room playing banjo and guitar were Dennis Morgan and myself, Glen Simms. I’ve always wondered what happened to you and so glad to see you doing so well! I have many stories to tell if you care to hear them sometime. I also have some pictures of you I can send along.
Crew pictures second row: foreground left Jay Niece.
Glen! How great to hear from you. The second you said what your name is it all came back. I’d love to hear your stories and to have the pictures!! Thanks for identifying Jay, I will update my post.
How are you doing?? What are you up to?
Stacy,
Thank you for posting this blog. I was as inexperienced coaching crew as you claim to have been at coxswain, but I remember you as accomplished enough. I’m guessing the photography teachers—Charlie Hutchins, Dennis Egan, and Robert Reynolds’s—must have had a positive effect on your decision to transfer. I always felt a little subversive glee when someone in my English classes decided the humanities were calling them.
I left FIT (Jensen Beach campus) in 1976 and headed to NC. A PhD from Duke and a long career at UNCW completed my academic life, but I never forgot those wonderful first years in Jensen Beach. Your memories and photos are a treasure. Congratulations on your accomplishments!
Bill, how wonderful to hear from you. Thank you for the positive crew feedback! And congratulations on your accomplishments, very impressive.
Hello to all, I attended from the summer session of 76 to 78 but changed schools so I am not a graduate. Yes, indeed it was a very special place back then not only the school but the surrounding areas as well. I still keep in touch with some of my class mates and we are trying to locate Francisco “Paco” Colon. He was from Puerto Rico so if anyone knew him and possibly how to contact him I would be deeply appreciated. His name is very common there in Puerto Rico Fyi. I went back in 1990 surprised and saddened the campus had closed. I learned from that moment on you can never actually go back to things as they were.
Blessing to all
Hi Jeff, thanks for stopping by. I too was sad to learn that it had closed. I only went there for one semester and I never forgot it and have the fondest memories. It would have been nice to go back and visit one day.
Hello All, I attended FIT Jensen Beach Campus from 1982-1986. I graduated in 1986 with a BS in Oceanographic Technology. I was the last class to graduate before the closing in the Spring of 1986. I remember getting word at the Student Center on the same day that the Space Shuttle exploded. We were in an Underwater Acoustics class that morning. There was a big reunion in 2017. It sold out quickly and was a great experience seeing old class mates and even an instructor or so. Bernard Kinney Jr.
Hi Bernard. Where was the reunion? Which professors attended?
Hi Stacy,
It was held at the old Jensen Beach campus with the main event in the remodeled student center building. The reunion was actually in 2018. It was a 2 day event. Several people from by OT class attended. I remember seeing Nikos Ornaphodakis (spelling?) and Gerald Zadikoff.
I visited the good old Jenson Beach campus today which is now a park and took a look at the dorm which is now a senior home. I went there in 1976 after leaving my electronics career to enroll in Oceanagraphic Technology. Sorry I could only go for 1 year due to financial reasons. It was an exciting and fun time. Thanks for the pictures and memories.
Hi Don. I’d love to visit the former campus. Did you take any pictures, by any chance? I’m sorry you had to leave after a year. God, life is so unfair sometimes.
Yes I wish I would have looked for a big student loan to continue. I still have reoccuring dreams of going back to school there. Yes I took a few pictures.
Well, if you don’t mind sharing them Don, I’m sure everyone would love to see them. That is so poignant that you still have dreams of going back to school there. I wonder if there’s something you can do to somehow address that missed opportunity? IE, I wanted to be a photographer, but I went in a different direction, but I take pictures and post them on my blog. I also love to sing and I’ve been singing with a community choir for decades
Maybe you could find some organization that is involved with doing positive work for oceans and volunteer with them from time to time? I’m sorry if this is a dumb suggestion, but here are ten organizations working to save oceans:
https://dipndive.com/blogs/stories/10-amazing-organizations-fighting-to-save-our-oceans
Thanks Stacy, I will try to get the pictures of Jenson Beach to you. Excellent suggestions on helping the oceans. Now that I am retired from IBM and PADI Open Water instructor work I can spend more time with Project Aware. But I still have fond memories of FIT Jenson Beach and the friends I made there.
Ohmygod, what a life on you! It sounds like you are already living a life that includes the water!
Hi Stacy. I went to JBC from 1973-75, then again from ‘77-‘79. I have wonderful memories of the place and the people. And lots of embarrassing photos. Several friends from there still get together a few times a year. In October 2016, several of us and our spouses decided to go to Italy and have our own little homecoming. Melbourne sent me a bunch of swag, including a big FIT flag that we proudly held for a picture on the Ponte Vecchio. The group includes Stan Piltin, Paul Turina, Steve Randall, Bill Bukevicz and me. Thanks for sharing this blog and prompting the many happy returns.
Kevin, I’m sorry I have taken so long to respond. I’d love to see any photos you’d like to share from those days. I enjoy bringing back memories. Happy memories, I should say.
Hi Stacy… circling back I see a few more questions.
Chet King, (don’t know who is next to him)—> It is Tom Kulp. He road an orange Honda 550-4… which is why I bought the same bike in 1976 in Colorado.
And row 3 under the picture of you and your roommate… Bob Keith is the one on the right.
Mark, thank you so much! That’s two more identified! Maybe someday they all will be identified.
I attended in 1977-1979. I played soccer for coach Pete Navaretta and have some very fond memories of those times!
Hi David. Yeah, that place was special.
Jeff Hutchinson,
I was there 1978 – 80 also and have so many of the same memories. OT major also. Lobsters in Peck’s Lake by zodiac, the Rat nearly every night, the awful food in the cafeteria, 3 wall Raquetball at Langford Park, stealing citrus from Frances’ orchards, surfing by the House of Refuge and spearfishing at an old wreck there. Poor Bob’s Restaurant in Jensen Beach. I was second floor in the south dorms. Lots of friends I haven’t seen in decades. Rick Cole. Carlos Reed. Peter McCarthy. Glenn Macaluso. John Ekman. R.I.P. to those last two great guys. I came back home out west and never returned to FL. Going back this week for the first time. I was looking to see what happened to the campus after FIT-JBC was closed and found this website. I had looked on Google Earth and guessed that the Mansion at Tuckahoe was the old main building. Looks like the walkway to the Rathskeller is still there by the river. The old on-campus alligator lagoon still looks to be there. Those were good times. I probably knew you too. It was probably the same guy that took us diving at Peck’s Lake.