Further Reading

      Tom Petty Trail has required an extensive investment of my time, along with the expenditure of some of my money, but it has been, and continues to be, a labor of love.

    Although I have done and continue to do the heavy lifting for this website, I couldn’t do it without the knowledge and experience of others. Ideally, this is a collaborative effort, so that we together are creating an historical record of things within Tom Petty’s universe that happened at specific places we could visit. Reliable sources with credible information about potential trail stops are encouraged to contact me at tompettytrail@gmail.com

    My collaborators to date have been numerous. All have been credited in the trail stop descriptions on the website, but I list some of them here.

    Thank you to Mike Campbell, Marty Jourard, Jon Scott, Warren Zanes and Paul Zollo for the books they have written. And thanks to Jourard for creating the Facebook group Gainesville Rock History.

    While there are countless newspaper and magazine articles that have been helpful, I will single out two of them – plus reporters from them. Thanks to The Gainesville Sun, especially Bill DeYoung, and to Rolling Stone, especially David Fricke. And The Petty Archives website is an excellent repository of artifacts.

    I am also grateful to those who have either reached out to me to offer information or have entertained my questions when I have reached out to them. While this list will surely expand over time as my research progresses, I want to thank the following, presented in alphabetical order: Kathy Harben Arce, David Bailey, Melanie Barr, Rogers Bartley, Boo Krauss Cercutti, Mike Boulware, Marsha Danielson, Joanne Davis, Michael Dietz, Jeff Goldstein, David Hammer, Doug Hammond, Keith Harben, Marsha Harben, Marty Jourard, Marty McKnew, Gary McMillan, Jeffrey Meldon, Harry Michael, Scott Monroe, Lonnie Morris, Jean Porter, Karen Pruss, Erick Smith, Dan Spiess and David Wright.

    And thanks to the research librarians of Library West at the University of Florida, as well as the members of Elks Lodge No. 990 who gave me a private tour of the Glen Springs Pool.

    From the beginning, I have looked upon the website as a collaborative effort. Those of you who are connected to Tom Petty in some way are the collaborators upon whom I am reliant and grateful. My goal continues to be to create as comprehensive a reference resource as possible. I hope to create something that lasts. One that serves as an informational and navigational tool for those interested in traveling along the Tom Petty Trail.

     Document and preserve, that's what Tom Petty Trail is attempting to do with Tom Petty's Florida history. Helpful in this preservation have been the above books, networking with fellow fans at Facebook's Tom Petty Nation, and interviewing those who were connected to his life in some way.    

     I wish to give a special thank you to Keith Harben, Tom Petty's lifelong friend who grew up a stone's throw from Tom's childhood home. Tom was "my adventure partner," Keith told me. "There was never a dull moment, which is good." 

     Keith was instrumental in getting the city to rename Northeast Park, where he and Tom would regularly play as kids, with its current name of Tom Petty Park. And it was Keith who came up with the idea for the annual Tom Petty Weekend, held around the time of Tom's 1950 birthday, Oct. 20 -- nine days after Keith's, Oct. 11.

     Keith is one heck of a nice guy. It's no wonder that he was Tom's lifelong friend. But to me, Keith Harben is the true Tom Petty Scholar.

     Thank you, Keith, for the ongoing conversation.