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Destin B.C.: Before incorporation, citizens remember the Community Center
Nov 07, 2009 (Destin Log - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Destin wasn't a city before 1984, but it still needed a way for the community to get things done.
"There was no city government, there wasn't anybody doing anything, so you had to have some kind of a town center where people could meet and try to resolve problems," longtime Destin resident Jerry Najarian told The Log. "The Community Center acted like local government; it was the only thing we had."
The Destin History "And the Roots Run Deep" says the Destin Community House Association was organized on Jan. 31, 1944, to establish a "community house for the general welfare needs, including proper room for the Destin Library." The association held its first meeting the following month at the community's three-room wooden school house.
Tyler Calhoun had donated four acres of land to give the center a better home; after several years of fish fries, raffles and rummage sales, the money was raised and the Destin Community House was completed in 1947, changing its name to Destin Community Center in 1948.
Former Community Center board member and president Charlotte Patterson said the center sat on the same site it does today, but it was a lot less pretty: "It was a concrete block building, a two-story building but it was one huge room with a kitchen in the back. Some of the fishermen donated stuffed fish, and one time a bunch of ladies got together and made new curtains for the windows."
The Community Center, Patterson and Najarian said, sponsored the Fishing Rodeo, supported the library, answered questions from potential tourists, established and maintained the Destin Cemetery, scheduled the annual Christmas party, built Destin's first fire station and then bought a fire truck. When money was needed, they held fish fries, bingo games or fishing contests.
"More than anything, it was a clearing house for civic activities," Patterson said. "It was sort of a community town-hall kind of thing more than anything else -- it wasn't a whole lot of official things."
Being president, Patterson said, didn't involve a lot of duties, usually someone calling up and saying "Charlotte, we need to schedule a fish fry."
Fish fries and other fund-raisers paid for restoring the old seine boat, the Primrose, which now sits opposite the History and Fishing Museum on Stahlman Avenue, and restoring Destin's original wooden post office, which sits next to the Primrose.
Najarian said when the fire department was finally ready to buy a fire truck -- the original truck had been a donated forestry truck equipped with a modified jet-engine container for a water tank -- it had cost $15,000, so one of the center directors contacted 30 people willing to pay $100 a year for 15 years, which would cover a bank loan.
Najarian had multiple roles on the Community Center board, including serving as the last president from 1989 to 1990; he also chaired the Fishing Rodeo, the DestinChristmas Partyandserved as parade master for the first two Christmas parades. He said with a laugh that he's not sure how he originally got involved: "Most likely I started going to the annual meetings and got elected to the board."
Najarian said the Community Center's meetings often included a cooking contest, where Destinites brought in dishes organized around a theme such as the fire department or Washington's Birthday. "No other man ever entered," Najarian said, "but I beat the women three years in a row." For the fire department theme, Najarian said, he'd built a log cabin out of bar sausages, with burned Pop-Tarts for a fire-charred roof, an LED to provide a flickering fire effect, and a fire truck made out of a block of Velveeta, painted with cream cheese reddened by food coloring.
"Nobody wanted to eat it, but we did eventually," Najarian said. Then he remembered a Rodeo themed dish in which he'd used pudding to mimic the Gulf waters. "Nobody wanted to eat that, it was green and blue pudding."
Even before Destin incorporated, Najarian said, the Community Center's importance had dwindled. It was entirely volunteerpowered, with Secretary Charlie Hughes handling correspondence and tourist inquiries, and when the Destin Area Chamber of Commerce formed, it had the staff to do a better job.
When Destin tried to create the Destin Fire District, Najarian said, then-Rep. Jerry Melvin said it was the chamber's support and opinions that he wanted, not the Community Center.
"When the chamber got organized, it became the focal point of Destin, they started doing the same things (and) people went to them when they needed something done," Najarian said.
To see more of The Destin Log or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.destin.com/. Copyright (c) 2009, Destin Log, Fla. Distributed by
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
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