Tom Petty's Florida
UF Later Years: More Good Booty
Hilton, where first city key was given in '81, doc interviews held '07
Hilton, where first city key was given in '81, doc interviews held '07
Hilton, where first city key was given in '81, doc interviews held '07
2900 SW 13th St., Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/jKiXFFbH46DQ8DSK8
Tom Petty received his first key to the city of Gainesville during a 1981 press conference at the Gainesville Hilton at 2900 SW 13th Street, which at the time was considered a luxury hotel, although after changing hands and brands over the decades, it fell into disrepair and today it has shuttered.
You can watch a video clip of Mayor Courtland A. Collier presenting the key to Tom Petty here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=501171171869113
And you can also watch an MTV News report that covered Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1981 homecoming, which included the key presentation as well as Petty answering questions from reporters. You will also see a short clip of the band performing a charity concert that night, where Stevie Nicks was one of the guests on stage. Watch here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=796275864763474
The Oct. 8, 1981, concert was held at the new Stephen C. O’Connell Center on the campus of the University of Florida, which had been built the year before. Here is the set list to the concert that night:
Note that a key to the city was also awarded in 1985, 1991 and in 2006, the last, by Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan at a pre-concert press conference at the O’Connell Center, where the concert was held.
When the Peter Bogdanovich-directed documentary “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream” premiered in Gainesville on the nights of Monday and Tuesday, October 15-16, 2007 at the Regal Royal Park theater, in Royal Park Plaza (3702 Newberry Road), it received extensive coverage in The Gainesville Sun.
In the Oct. 14 issue, Bill Dean wrote about the making of the documentary: “After Bogdanovich interviewed Bruce Petty and Marsh (in a room at the Paramount Plaza Hotel on SW 13th Street), the three got in a car and drove around Gainesville to show the director some of the locations that figured in the early days of Petty and his band...”
In 2007, the former Gainesville Hilton was called the Paramount Plaza Hotel and Conference Center.
A side note about this once luxury hotel on the edge of a lake called Bivens Arm: It has sat vacant in recent years. The Gainesville Sun reported in a May 12, 2025, story by Alan Festo, that its owner, Rob Beyer, wanted to develop it into affordable housing. Beyer is reported to have told Festo that he was trying to partner with local nonprofits and the city. As of February 2026, it was still boarded up.
Photo from MTV News video footage
University Centre Hotel, where key given and hands cemented in 1991
Hilton, where first city key was given in '81, doc interviews held '07
Hilton, where first city key was given in '81, doc interviews held '07
1515 SW Archer Rd, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Mn3K3YWQDKJEf6yu9
On the afternoon of Oct. 26, 1991, in the conference room of what was then the University Centre Hotel at 1535 SW Archer Road in Gainesville, the County of Alachua and the City of Gainesville proclaimed it to be “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Day,” all the band members were presented keys to the city, and Tom’s hands were cast into a cement slab, into which all members of the band carved their signatures, for what was intended to be part of a Walk of Fame in the city. That night the band played to a hometown audience at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on the campus of the University of Florida.
Gainesville Sun reporter Bill DeYoung covered the 1991 homecoming. In a published article the next day, he made note of the proposed Walk of Fame. He reported that the effort was led by Petty’s cousin, Sadie Darnell, who then was the Gainesville Police Department spokesperson (she later became Alachua County sheriff), with the intention of putting the slab into the West University Avenue sidewalk in front of the building where the Florida Theatre and Great Southern Music Hall were once located (233 W. University Ave.) DeYoung’s 1991 article noted that this Walk of Fame “has no definite date for construction” and that “getting Petty's initial block was the first step.”
At the University Centre Hotel press conference, Petty was asked about others from Gainesville who should be included in its Walk of Fame. As DeYoung reported, Petty said: “I think if you’re going to put somebody in a Walk of Fame, they’ve got to be really famous. So I wouldn’t get in a hurry to fill it up, in my opinion. I’d just wait and let some of these kids that are playing now get really famous.”
To learn about this 1991 homecoming for Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench and Stan Lynch, read DeYoung’s article from The Gainesville Sun here:
https://www.thepettyarchives.com/archives/newspapers/1990s/1991-10-27-gainesvillesun
Gainesville’s Walk of Fame never came to fruition, though. Barry Sides, a blues musician from Gainesville, wrote a guest column in 2007 for The Gainesville Sun in which he explained that after he and Sadie Darnell hashed out the idea of honoring famous people who had lived in or near Gainesville. Perhaps concrete slabs then could have been cast for Bernie Leadon and Don Felder (both from the Eagles), Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills and Nash), Marty and Jeff Jourard (from the Motels), Bo Diddley or River Phoenix, and others. But after getting the concrete slab of the Heartbreakers, challenges ensued. Lawyers representing the Hollywood Walk of Fame threatened a lawsuit, claiming that using the phrase “Walk of Fame” was copyright infringement. And then acquiring funding and a location for a Gainesville Walk of Fame became problematic – and thus it never happened. Sides noted in the 2007 column that the 300-pound Heartbreakers slab then found a home in his garage.
To learn more about the effort to create a Gainesville Walk of Fame, read Sides’ article here:
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2007/10/10/tom-pettys-hand-prints/31539109007/
In 2006, the University Centre Hotel, which had been constructed in 1986, was razed. To learn more about the hotel’s demolition, read this article from The Gainesville Sun:
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2006/05/23/landmark-demolition/31484664007/
In the footprint of where the University Centre Hotel was once located is the Shands Cancer Hospital at the University of Florida. To learn more about the hospital, go to their website here:
https://ufhealth.org/locations/uf-health-shands-cancer-hospital
Other keys to the city were given to the band in 1981 and 2006. In 1985, another key to the city was presented to the band, although the full band wasn't present for that event. Stan Lynch accepted the key on the band's behalf in a ceremony before a handful of reporters in the City Hall auditorium.
Photo courtesy of The Gainesville Sun
Stephen C. O'Connell Center, where key to city was presented in 2006
Hilton, where first city key was given in '81, doc interviews held '07
Stephen C. O'Connell Center, where key to city was presented in 2006
250 Gale Lemerand Dr, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ToHQdurR959C1iwD9
The Stephen C. O’Connell Center on the campus of the University of Florida, a venue that hosts sporting and entertainment events, is where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played six shows and was presented a handful of keys to the city. The band played here in 1981, 1983, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 2006. Stevie Nicks was a special guest on stage at the first and last shows.
The 1981 concert, for which the band was touring and promoting the “Hard Promises” album, is noteworthy because it was widely seen as a homecoming for the band members who had previously lived here. In this much-anticipated triumphant return to Gainesville, Petty was given a key to the city in what was described by the press as a packed ballroom at the Gainesville Hilton (2900 SW 13th St.), which was followed that night by the O-Dome concert.
Chris Qualmann was in 1981 a UF student who held the position of chairman of student government productions (SGP), a position he held for three years, from late 1979 to January 1983. In this position, he oversaw the first homecoming of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I met Qualmann for the first time in November 2025 at Tom Petty Weekend, where he served as a logistics coordinator for the staggered shows on the inside and outside stages. I observed that he had his hands full with trying his best to keep performers on schedule, as they were in 1981 with another logistical speed bump. I had previously read in the student-run newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator (IFA), about the roofing issue for the Oct. 8, 1981, concert, but Qualmann was kind enough to take a few minutes to elaborate for me. The O’Connell Center at the time had an inflatable roof, so the lighting that TPATH used for its concerts couldn’t be suspended for overhead illumination. To make sure that the show would go on, Qualmann had to maneuver the logistics of building a scaffolded roof underneath the inflatable roof.
While Qualmann oversaw the contract process to book the band for the 1981 Gainesville concert, he told me that he didn’t get to meet Tom Petty until he traveled to St. Petersburg for an Oct. 6 TPATH concert at the Bayfront Center (400 First Street South). Given a backstage pass, Qualmann met Tom there. He told me that he had two initial impressions. One is that he was struck by how small in stature – short and thin – Tom was compared to himself, standing about 6’3” with a fairly beefy physique. And the second impression was how nervous Tom Petty said he was about the band’s show in Gainesville two nights later. Qualmann assured Petty that he would do just fine. And by all accounts from those who attended that night, Petty and the band did just fine.
Here is the setlist for the 1981 concert at the O-Dome:
There was extensive coverage of the 1981 concert in the IFA newspaper. Despite the lineup of entertainers on campus that fall semester, a great deal of printer’s ink was devoted to the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show that had Joe Ely as the opener and Stevie Nicks as a special guest. On campus that semester a student could have also seen Peter Frampton Sept. 1, Pat Benatar and David Johansen Sept. 26, Rodney Dangerfield Oct. 16, the Little River Band and Poco Oct. 17, Gary “U.S.” Bonds Nov. 8, Frank Zappa Oct. 24, the Commodores Nov. 12, and Devo Nov. 13. The Rick James concert on Sept. 31 was cancelled.
Originally scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 7, the concert was postponed until Thursday, Oct. 8, by Tony Dmitriades, the band’s manager, after Petty became fatigued following the Bayfront Center show Oct. 6. As reported by the IFA, Petty needed a day’s rest.
“He’s looking forward to it,” Qualmann was reported to have said. “This is a very special show for him.”
While Qualmann told me that not all of the tickets sold for the 1981 show, it was just on the cusp of a sell-out. This is likely due to the addition of 2,000 seats behind the stage only a few days before the show, when students perhaps thought it was already sold out and didn’t hear that seats had been added. IFA coverage shows there was a buzz about this concert. In the classified ads section, one ad submitter thought the concert had sold out: “Had plans for Petty and now have nothing to do? Come to the Career Night worksops [sic]” that promised advice about resumes and interviews through workshops. The newspaper also reported that a student in Rawlings Hall had three tickets stolen from his room while he was in the bathroom across the hall. Demand for tickets was also high off campus in the city of Gainesville, as demonstrated in the case of a ticket sales scandal at a clothing store that served as an outlet for the general public to purchase tickets. At the store, The Junction, the manager admitted giving his employees first dibs on the floor seats when they went on sale, which left the non-employees settling for bleacher seats.
By the time Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers returned to Gainesville for a Feb. 10, 1983, concert with Nick Lowe as the opener, interest had increased further. In a story headlined “Waiting for tickets no petty pastime,” the IFA reported in late January that an estimated 50 students camped out overnight in 30-degree temperatures to buy tickets on the morning they went on sale. One of them, Paul Sinclair, who was the first person in line, had seen the 1981 show, which he said “was one of the best concerts I’ve seen.” Two other students, Cory Rozen and Jeff Lee, came prepared for the night with a tent, sleeping bags, food, “and Tom Petty music,” Lee said. Nearby, “totally number one fan” Jane Sanders, layered in winter clothing, reclined on a lawn chair she had brought for the night. Lisa Feldman kept warm under heavy blankets as she lounged on a beach recliner, sipping from a cup of bourbon. She was one-upped by Margee Cordy, who brought blankets and an electric heater, for which she found a plug.
“We’re all here for the same thing,” Cordy is quoted as saying. “It makes us like one person.”
After the mad rush to gobble up the best seats by those who braved the cold, one of the ways the UF’s Student Government Productions helped get word out about the concert was to table outside of university libraries at the north end of the Plaza of the Americas. In doing so, they reportedly played songs by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at loud volume – much to the irritation of one student who submitted a letter to the editor of the IFA. The writer’s name was listed as Missy Earnest, who wrote about her ire for the SGP.
“What is the problem? Something about the Tom Petty concert?” the letter read. “Yes, folks, it does involve the Petty concert. Specifically, the problem was the SGP’s method of promoting Petty outside the libraries. Now isn’t that a great place to play Petty tapes really loud so everyone can hear? There are always lots of students at the library… Generally, the idea is to study in the library.”
In the O-Dome during a 2006 pre-concert press conference, the University of Florida presented Petty with a Distinguished Achievement Award. Afterward, Gainesville Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan proclaimed Sept. 21 to officially be Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Day in the city, then presented a key to the city to Tom Petty, who was joined by his fellow Heartbreakers that all received keys as well. Other keys to the city were given in 1981, 1985 and 1991. The full band was present for the key ceremonies other than in 1985 when Stan Lynch accepted the key on the band’s behalf in a ceremony before a handful of reporters in the City Hall auditorium (200 East University Avenue). During this City Hall ceremony, the mayor said the honor was being bestowed because of the band’s participation in two recent high-profile charity events: Live Aid, the July 13, 1985, concerts that raised money to help victims of a famine in Ethiopia, and the Sept. 22, 1985, Farm Aid concert that raised money for financially beleaguered farmers.
About the 2006 key, Tom reportedly said, “It’s a lot nicer than Chicago’s,” according to an Ocala Star-Banner article by Dave Schlenker, who covered it. “I’ll tell you that.”
To read the Star-Banner article, go to The Petty Archives website here:
https://www.thepettyarchives.com/archives/newspapers/2000s/2006-09-22-ocalastarbanner
In response to a Gainesville Sun reporter’s question about what returning to Gainesville is like for bandmembers who grew up here, Petty said, “Really, every corner you turn, there’s some kind of memory.” Keyboardist Benmont Tench said: “I really, really love this town. You all need to realize what you got.”
To learn more about this 2006 event, read this article from The Gainesville Sun:
The 2006 concert can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlIegN1unss&list=PLfGibfZATlGrOmN-PCyK5L9WiREPElzH-
In a 2014 interview with The Gainesville Sun, Petty said: “I love playing in Gainesville. I love it. I think we'll get back before all is said and done.”
The 2006 concert turned out to be the last by the Heartbreakers in Gainesville.
At the time in 2006, election season was in full swing, and Sadie Darnell, Tom Petty’s first cousin who grew up next door to him on NE 6th Terrace, was hoping she would get the votes that would make her county sheriff. At the press conference and concert, her volunteers handed out promotional materials, and Sadie would make the rounds.
The Star-Banner article reported that Mayor Hanrahan noted that Tom Petty’s cousin, Sadie Darnell, was running for sheriff, to which Petty, who didn’t then live in Gainesville and therefore was not qualified to vote in a local election, jokingly said, “So you know who we’re going to vote for.”
As it turned out, Sadie was elected in November 2006 as Alachua County Sheriff. She served in this position for 14 years. In 2020, she lost the democratic primary. She retired in 2021 after a 42 year career in law enforcement. To watch an interview she gave at that time with WCJB, the ABC affiliate in Gainesville, go here:
Before the O-Dome night in 2006, Tom and Dana Petty had been in Gainesville for a few days, the Star-Banner reported, visiting family and friends, plus touring old haunts in the area. Sadie Darnell told me during a November 2025 interview that during Tom and Dana’s 2006 visit to Gainesville, as well as other visits over time, the Pettys would acquire an old pickup truck so that they could discreetly drive around to check out various places without being noticed. Sadie noted that Dana would do all the driving since Tom, a notoriously poor driver, had willingly relinquished the steering wheel.
One of the locations where Tom wanted to go was the Duck Pond in the Duckpond neighborhood (alongside NE Blvd., between NE 6th Ave. and NE 5th Ave.). Here, Tom Petty went as a child with Keith Harben, a close friend from his neighborhood, to try to catch “tadpoles, minnows and crawfish” under the bridge, “because that’s what boys do,” Keith told me. On other outings with his family, Tom Petty would play here with his younger brother, Bruce, or feed the ducks with his cousins, Sadie and Norma Darnell.
In the Gainesville Sun article in 2006, Tom Petty expressed to the reporter his nostalgia for his Gainesville hometown, including this Duckpond neighborhood.
“I remember a lot about Gainesville, such a lovely place to grow up. Just incredible growing up there.” Petty is quoted as saying. “It was really special there. It was so great. Sometimes I have this fantasy of buying one of those houses by the Duck Pond and moving there. I loved it there. I really did.”
Tom Petty never ended up buying a house in this neighborhood.
Photo courtesy of The Gainesville Sun
Gainesville Regional Airport, where TPATH arrived for 1981 UF show
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where are 'I Won't Back Down' Singalongs
Stephen C. O'Connell Center, where key to city was presented in 2006
3880 NE 39th Ave A, Gainesville, FL 32609
https://maps.app.goo.gl/v2yxBMF7EspzBaPi6
Seven years after Mudcrutch drove to California in search of a record deal, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made its first visit to Gainesville in 1981. In this triumphant homecoming, Petty was given a key to the city in a packed hotel ballroom, which was followed that night by a concert on the University of Florida campus that included special guest Stevie Nicks. Tom Petty, Benmont Tench, Mike Campbell, Stan Lynch and Ron Blair returned to Gainesville as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for their first time as a band, much to the excitement of the large crowd of journalists, fans, and friends who greeted them at the Gainesville Regional Airport, many of whom returned to see them off.
Sarah Passons was one of the fans. There with friends, she managed to get out onto the airport tarmac to take some souvenir photos.
“And Stan Lynch totally busted me and my friend that just rolled in with the press and cameras in hand as if we were legit as young teens,” Passions told me. “He was super nice about it though. We were just trying to check out our favorite band.”
Keith Harben, a lifelong friend of Tom Petty that began as kids in the same neighborhood, was also on the tarmac that day to greet him.
He took pictures of Petty being greeted by the press – as well as Petty greeting his young son.
Rick Merriman remembers being at the concert.
“I was there that night and ended up finding my way backstage after the show and briefly met each member of the band as they headed out,” he shared with me. And when the band boarded the plane to depart Gainesville, Merriman was there. He remembers following “their limo to the airport where Stan (Lynch) came over to the runway fence where we and other fans had gathered.”
Mayor Courtland Collier presented the city key to Petty at a press conference in the Grand Ballroom at the now-shuttered Gainesville Hilton (2900 SW 13th St.). To learn more about the ceremony – including watching the presentation and hearing Petty’s short speech, or watching an MTV News report that includes footage of the Oct. 8, 1981, concert at the newly opened Stephen C. O’Connell Center – see the Tom Petty Trail stop here:
https://tompettytrail.com/uf-later-years
Boo Krauss Cerutti, a fellow fan, told me that she managed to hang out with band members at the Gainesville Hilton after the concert – an experience she called “just incredible.”
“I was there the first night they played and ended up at the Hilton partying with the Heartbreakers,” she reported. “Stevie Nicks showed up at the Hilton in a white limousine and Tom Petty showed up in a black limo. My friend and I were invited in if we would help them carry in the beer. Cases and cases of Heineken were carried in there. Partied in the penthouse until 5:30 a.m. What a night!”
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would next return to Gainesville in 1991, where another city key was awarded. Another was given as part of the band’s 2006 homecoming.
In 1985, another key to the city was presented to the band, although the full band wasn't present for that event. Stan Lynch accepted the key on the band's behalf in a ceremony before a handful of reporters in the City Hall auditorium.
Photo by Keith Harben
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where are 'I Won't Back Down' Singalongs
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where are 'I Won't Back Down' Singalongs
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where are 'I Won't Back Down' Singalongs
157 Gale Lemerand Dr, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/idBiQRM9ZbJeYWcR6
Tom Petty and neighborhood friend Keith Harben, while both were 13, sold Cokes in the stands of Florida Field.
But today, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, popularly known at The Swamp, is where you can participate in a crowd singalong of Tom Petty's anthem, "I Won’t Back Down," at all Gator football home games -- a tradition that began after his 2017 death. To read about the singalong tradition and Tom Petty Day, which begin in 2022 when he was posthumously awarded an honorary Doctor of Music, here's an article from The Gainesville Sun: https://www.gainesville.com/story/sports/college/football/2023/09/23/florida-tom-petty-day-explained-gators-honor-rock-legend-college-football/70935003007/
To watch a YouTube video of a singalong, go here:
Better yet, experience it yourself, in person! But if you can't make it to the stadium and you'd like a souvenir, check out the Tom Petty Day Florida Gator attire for sale by the official Tom Petty Estate store:
https://store.tompetty.com/collections/tom-petty-day-x-florida-collection
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Weimer Hall, where a JOU/CMM course in Tom Petty was offered
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where are 'I Won't Back Down' Singalongs
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where are 'I Won't Back Down' Singalongs
1885 Stadium Rd, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/bXY6DJhnrR8EHYss5
In 2018, the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications, based in Weimer Hall, offered a course taught by Professor Clay Calvert titled Petty: The Biography about the life of Gainesville native Tom Petty, as noted in this Gainesville Sun article: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2018/02/01/petty-101-1-credit-uf-course-to-focus-on-rockers-biography/15352405007/
To read more about Tom Petty's connection to the University of Florida and the Gainesville community, read this article by university public relations: https://floridagators.com/news/2022/10/13/football-tom-petty-lives-on-strong-at-uf-and-his-hometown-of-gainesville-101422.aspx
Photo by Shawn Murphy
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars, Innovation
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars, Innovation
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars, Innovation
101, Fine Arts Building A, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/dzj6XaaeVJEcgHF37
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment. In May 2023, the Tom Petty Estate & Family created the Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars & Innovation at the UF College of the Arts with an initial gift of $100,000. This investment supports the School of Music’s guitar program and helped launch the Music Business & Entrepreneurship program.
To learn more about this endowment, read this University of Florida press release:
https://arts.ufl.edu/in-the-loop/news/uf-tom-petty-honorary-doctor-degree-spring-2023/
Image courtesy of the College of Arts
School of Music, where Tom Petty honorary doctorate was awarded
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars, Innovation
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars, Innovation
Newell Drive, University of Florida campus
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hWRYWveiLqGxFbXN6
Three Rock and Roll Hall of Famers – Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Stephen Stills – have a connection to Gainesville and the University of Florida School of Music.
The school posthumously awarded Gainesville native Tom Petty an honorary Doctor of Music at the spring 2023 Doctoral Ceremony.
Kevin Orr, director of the School of Music, said the following in his presentation speech on May 4, 2023: “We in the UF School of Music and College of the Arts are privileged to honor Tom Petty with an honorary doctorate degree in music, celebrating not only his extraordinary achievements as an artist but the ways in which his music has and continues to unite us as a community. Tom Petty’s tireless defense of the rights of performing artists, and his compassionate advocacy for the wellbeing of his neighbors in every community where he lived, are embodied by the students and faculty of the UF School of Music: commitment to one’s artistic passions, even in the face of challenges; the safeguarding of creative work to ensure unique and lasting impact; and indeed, the power of music to advance causes for the greater good in society.”
Here is a university press release about, and a video recording of, this event: https://news.ufl.edu/2023/05/tom-petty/
And here is the short bio video about Tom Petty that was shown to that audience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muSPgmRXKKU
In Mike Campbell’s 2025 autobiography, Heartbreaker, he recounted the excitement he had upon arriving in Gainesville in the fall of 1968, just off the bus from Jacksonville with his Guyatone LG-130T guitar in tow. He wrote about seeing the University of Florida campus for the first time. He described in detail the physical beauty of the grounds and the laid-back atmosphere among the student body. And he talked about his effort to declare a music major as a freshman.
“In the first week, while choosing classes, I had gone to the school of music to sign up,” Campbell wrote. “But I couldn’t read music. And I had not prepared two contrasting pieces from the Standard Segovia Classical Guitar Repertoire. And I had not taken a music aptitude test, a theory placement assessment, or an aural skills and sight reading exam. Because I was just a skinny self-taught dirtbag from North Jacksonville with a beat-up Japanese guitar. They told me they were sorry, but I would not be able to pursue music at the University of Florida” (pg. 33).
Instead, he majored in general education with thoughts of switching to architecture. And he signed up for a General Education music history course, which proved inspiring.
“I couldn’t get into the school of music but I could take music history courses,” Campbell wrote (pg. 40). “I took a history of Western classical music course taught by a beautiful professor who brought her cello to class. She explained pedal point – where a single sustained note is sounded over contrasting notes – and demonstrated with her cello. She had a record player and she played us Mozart’s “Symphony No. 41 in C Major” and Bach’s “Fugue No. 2 in C Minor.” She told us to listen as the C note sounded against the higher F and G notes played above it. I loved it. I went back to my room and played it on the Guyatone.”
Yet once he auditioned for a spot in Mudcrutch and got the taste of playing before an audience and earning money, education took a back seat. The opportunity to join Mudcrutch was too much of a temptation, so he did not continue his studies beyond his freshman year.
Stephen Stills, who was friends with Tom Petty and Mike Campbell, plus toured with them during the 2010 Heartbreakers tour as the opening act and played with them at a show on the 2016 Mudcrutch tour, also has a UF School of Music connection. Stills, who lived in Gainesville during periods of his younger life, eventually became a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash +/- Young; Buffalo Springfield, and Manassas. In 2003 he donated $100,000 toward the construction cost of a band hall for the UF marching band. His donation was part of a nonprofit he founded, the Stephen Stills Children’s Music Project, that funds and promotes music programs. When in 2004 Stills bought a home north of UF, John Duff, who was then the School of Music’s director, is quoted as telling a Gainesville Sun reporter: “We’re very excited. He’s very energetic and has a very strong interest in music.” The School of Music awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2018 as part of a ceremony in which he gave the graduation speech. To watch and read his speech, go here:
https://archive.news.ufl.edu/articles/2018/12/rock-legend-addresses-graduates-1.html
Photo courtesy of The Gainesville Sun
George Smathers Libraries, home to Tom Petty Special Collection
College of Arts, home to Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars, Innovation
1545 W University Ave, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/4FjfjM8mP83R9tnN7
The academic repository for a special digital collection dedicated to Tom Petty is housed by the George A. Smathers Libraries on the campus of the University of Florida. Much of it is digitized and available online here: https://ufdc.ufl.edu/results?q=%22tom+petty%22
This also happens to be where you will find a comprehensive collection for Bo Diddley, one of Tom Petty's musical inspirations -- and with whom he became friends and performed together on stage. Much of this collection is available to researchers with an advance reservation. Here is where you can learn more about this collection: https://news.ufl.edu/2019/03/bo-diddley-collection-at-uf-honors-the-originator/
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Gainesville Toke-In & Ganga Man, who was a fan of Petty and pot
Gainesville Toke-In & Ganga Man, who was a fan of Petty and pot
Lake Alice Field, University of Florida, Museum Rd, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/uMezUGqeHW5LrDB47
Gainesville, Fla., is widely known for its storied “Gainesville Green,” a hybrid sativa that was created by mixing the genetics of Maui Wowie and Columbian Gold. But a lesser known Gainesville story is that of “Ganga John,” who loved his Gainesville Green and Tom Petty.
Despite the tangential connections to Petty, this Tom Petty Trail stop is nevertheless fascinating, especially when told on 420 Day.
On Jan. 18, 1979, the Independent Florida Alligator, the student-run newspaper at the University of Florida, began receiving mysterious hand-written letters with cash in envelopes deposited into a drop-off location for classified advertisements. The letter-writer always identified himself as John Ganga. His letters railed against laws that made marijuana illegal, as well as those who enforced those laws. He requested that the money be used for an event on campus that would bring attention to this issue. His first mailing, on Jan. 18, came in the form of a Christmas card, on which he requested the money, three $50 bills, be put toward a “toke-in.”
One of John Ganga’s letters included a poem credited to “two young freaks.” It was noted that the poem should be sung to the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” In it, Santa Claus becomes “Ganga John.” Published in the Feb. 19, 1979, issue on pg. 9, it went like this:
“You better come out
We’re setting the date
You better come out
Before it’s too late
Ganga John is coming to town
He’ll see you at the smoke-in
He just put up the cash
Come out and join the party
Catch some rays and scope some ass
You better watch out
Better get high
Go smoke a bowl
I’m telling you why
Ganga John is coming to town
We could have it at Lake Alice
On the Plaza just might do
We could have it in the Union
Or on the lawn of Robert Q.
You better listen up
Forget this not
Let’s pass the bong
‘Til they legalize pot
Ganga John is coming to town”
In the March 8, 1979, issue on pg. 2, staff writer Gina Thomas was tasked with reporting about the latest letter received with more cash. The letter, signed from “Friends of Ganga,” claimed that John Ganga, “a hero,” had died in San Francisco at age 27 “during the drug war,” yet “his spirit lives on.” Thomas consulted a graphoanalyst, Beverly Cannon, to analyze the handwriting in the letters the IFA had received to date. She concluded that all the letters were written by the same person. And she said that his rambling letters showed him to be “outspoken, honest and sincere” – he “was not donating to the smoke-in to gain attention, but because of sincere interests.”
The March 8 letter was accompanied by another letter from “Revolutionary Reefer Dealers of Gainesville.” In it the writers called “for the boycott of certain businesses who enjoy the profits from pot smokers while doing nothing about legalization.” They cited three local businesses “who make bucks from pot users,” most notably the Subterranean Circus (10 SW 7th St.), owned by Bill Killeen, that catered to a hippie counterculture clientele. “Marijuana can be liberated by hitting them where it hurts: economically.” The letter then broadened beyond Gainesville to Tallahassee, the state capital. “If the governor was wise he would rake in billions of marijuana tax revenues instead of spending millions trying to combat smugglers who have as much financial backing as he does.”
Meanwhile, a lobbying group calling itself “the People For Rational Marijuana Laws and a Little Justice,” a Florida incarnation of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), approached the IFA to offer to take the lead in staging a rally using Ganga’s money. Its director, William Lasely, stressed, though, that by sponsoring the event it wasn’t turning a blind eye. “We can’t advocate pot at the concert because it would ruin our credibility with the Legislature,” Lasely is reported to have said.
As the letters and cash kept being dropped off with the IFA with the request to put the money toward a pot-friendly event, student-editors found themselves in a precarious position. At that point, the IFA had received $820 from Ganga. In the April 2, 1979 issue on pg. 9, the headline said it all: “Ganga money presented problems for Alligator.” The IFA was suddenly at the center of a news story, reporting on itself.
“Ganga’s goodwill brought sticky legal and ethical problems for The Alligator – some of which still are nagging at the paper three months later,” the piece read. “Huddled in the cubbyhole editor’s office in the newsroom the afternoon the money arrived, the top editors of The Alligator … failed to anticipate to what lengths the ‘smoke-in’ money eventually would mushroom.” It then transparently goes through each concern and addresses them.
In the meantime, the People For Rational Marijuana Laws and a Little Justice, in conjunction with the UF Student Government Productions, had organized an event to take place Saturday, April 7 starting at noon. Seven bands were scheduled to play, along with several speakers. The location was Lake Alice Field (now mapped on the Tom Petty Trail).
The field along Museum Road, across the street from Fraternity Row, sits at the edge of Lake Alice Conservation Area. At the center of this area is Lake Alice, home to countless alligators and snakes. The lake is where at age 16 Tom Petty was there with a girl and accidentally drove his car, a white Chevrolet Impala, into it, when he was supposed to be at a dance at the American Legion Hall (513 E. University Ave.) with his friend Keith Harben. And it is where, a few years later, Petty worked to supplement the meager pay from early Mudcrutch gigs. Working for the University of Florida’s grounds crew, he initially was assigned to work at Lake Alice.
“I just changed the screens on a water purification system they’d set up in Lake Alice,” Petty told Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography. “They were dredging the lake, trying to get all the water hyacinths out so there would be more oxygen in the water, which was filled with alligators, all kinds of wildlife. I had a few adventures with snakes out there” (pg. 53).
In the April 6 issue of the IFA, published the day before the Lake Alice Field event, Robert McClure reported that 27-year-old John Ganga himself – or whoever was behind the alias – appeared in person at their newsroom.
“Wearing mirrored sunglasses and a nondescript ‘Florida Gators’ T-shirt, ‘Ganga’ volunteered to explain his contributions – but only if he remained completely anonymous,” the story read.
Ganga praised the IFA’s “handling of the money for a benefit concert,” as well as its organizers, despite their insistence it was not to be a “toke-in.” And he claimed to have been a former UF political science major.
The April 6 article noted that the event’s purpose was to rally support for a bill, sponsored by state Rep. George Sheldon, a Democrat from Tampa, that would increase the threshold for a misdemeanor versus a felony possession conviction from five to 28 grams of marijuana.
One of the slated speakers was Jeffrey Meldon, who today owns Meldon Law. But in 1971 when he had recently started practicing law, he was hired by Tom Petty while he was in Mudcrutch. At his office at the time (607 NE 1st St.), Mudcrutch band members would go there to meet with Meldon, who also helped them book concerts.
But in 1979, Meldon was an attorney who also served as the state coordinator for NORML, according to this April 6 article.
In the IFA’s April 11 issue on pg. 9, Jayne Thompson reported on the event. She wrote that “about 3,500 showed up at high noon, April 7 on the shores of Lake Alice Field to spend it in what some backers called ‘the biggest toke-in ever on a college campus’” (An IFA article published the next year estimated the crowd to be around 5,000.) Thompson reported that “most smoked – openly – as they do at most UF outdoor entertainment,” adding, “A lone campus cop, his vision of the crowd blocked by the bandstand, said, ‘Yes, there was some pot smoking at the benefit, but no more than usual and with much less problems than at the indoor concerts at Florida Gym.’”
Meldon was quoted as saying: “I don’t know whether it’s going to be two or five years before there’s going to be a change in that area, but it’s going to happen. Marijuana has been legal for all of mankind except for about 50 years and chances are it will become legal again in the next 10 or 12 years.”
A year later, Ganga attempted to organize another pot-advocacy event on campus, as reported by David Futch in the March 14, 1980, issue of the IFA. When Futch interviewed Ganga, plans were in the works for what Ganga called the Second Annual John Ganga Concert and Toke-In.
“I thought last year’s toke-in was a great party,” Ganga is reported to have said. "I was walking around passing out mushrooms and people were telling me about the John Ganga story, but it still didn’t have the impact the second one will have.”
Ganga said sponsors and bands had been lined up for the event, which was slated to begin at noon on Friday, May 23. This time Ganga intended for it to last longer than one day.
“It’s supposed to end Saturday night, but if enough people show up, we might have to make it three days and party down,” Ganga reportedly told Futch. “Gainesville has a reputation to maintain.”
Futch, who described Ganga’s appearance as “resembling Jimmy Buffet and a pirate in his own right,” noted that he was trying to get major musical acts with a Florida – even Gainesville – connection to play the event, including Jimmy Buffet, Molly Hatchet, Bo Diddley and Tom Petty.
But after Acting Gainesville Police Chief Joe Bason said before the May 23 toke-in that anyone smoking marijuana would be arrested, it was cancelled, as reported by Robert McClure in the May 30, 1980, issue of the IFA on pg. 4. Instead, Ganga organized a Saturday, May 31 rally to legalize marijuana and free those jailed for it. It was slated to happen from 12-7 p.m. at the downtown community plaza, which is today’s Bo Diddley Community Plaza (111 E. University Ave.). Chief Bason signed the permit for it. The name of the event organizer on the permit is John Penley – the real name of John Ganga. Penley, a North Carolina native, represented the Coalition for Abolition of Marijuana Prohibition (CAMP), an organization based in Atlanta. Scheduled for the scaled-down event were a band or two, along with several pot-friendly speakers, including Penley/Ganga, who aimed to wear an Abbie Hoffman T-shirt.
While other organizers of this event claimed to have gotten the UF Student Government Productions (SGP) to agree to lend them equipment, including speakers, SGP Production Coordinator Richard Plymel reportedly told McClure: “We don’t have anything to do with it. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. It causes too much bad blood with the administration and UPD.”
In the July 19, 2000, issue of Salon magazine, Colin Moynihan wrote about upstart magazines, including Heads, challenging High Times, the godfather of pot-forward publications. In the article, “Pot shots,” John Penley is sourced. And some details about him are noted.
“John Penley is a photographer whose pictures have appeared in all three daily New York newspapers and many other publications,” Moynihan wrote. “A few weeks ago he took pictures of Hells Angel Sonny Barger for an upcoming issue of Heads. He’s also worked for High Times, photographing the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and in 1990 documenting a violent clash between Mohawk Indians and Canadian police in Oka, Quebec.”
Moynihan reported that Penley talked about being Ganga.
“Using the name John Ganga, he organized the first ever smoke-in at the University of Florida at Gainesville,” Moynihan wrote. “Later he organized similar events in Atlanta and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”
It turns out, John Penley was not solely interested in marijuana. He also cared about social justice issues. In 2009 and 2013, Penley donated to New York University’s Tamiment Library boxes of materials from his lifetime. The John Penley Papers overview on the NYU library website reads as follows:
“John Penley is a photographer and grassroots political activist associated with the squatters’ rights movement and housing protests of the 1980s and 1990s in New York City’s East Village and Lower East Side, as well as numerous other social causes. A former Navy serviceman, Penley took up photography as part of an effort to document the demonstrations, protests, and other political actions in which he took part, and in the process became a photojournalist. Hundreds of Penley's photographs have appeared in in publications including the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the New York Times, New York and Long Island Newsday, New York Magazine, The Villager, High Times Magazine, The Guardian, Art In America, WW 3 Illustrated, The Shadow, the East Village Eye, and many small political publications. They have also been distributed through press services such as United Press International and the Associated Press.”
To learn more about the John Penley Papers at NYU, go here:
https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/tamwag/tam_501/
Some of John Penley’s photographs from this collection have been uploaded to a Flickr account. Those photos, including of events aimed at legalizing marijuan as well as a self-portrait of himself, can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tamiment/albums/72157620867253660/
On Sept. 19, 2021, Cannabis Now magazine published a story in which Penley is the lead source. Bill Weinberg’s story is headlined “VA Still Punishes Veterans for Using Medical Cannabis.” Penley had moved from North Carolina to Nevada, which had legalized cannabis. He used it to self-medicate for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, that he said was connected with his military service. Plus he was taking VA-covered prescribed pain medication for spinal stenosis, not connected to his military service.
“He didn’t anticipate that his use of state-legal cannabis could result in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) cutting off the pain killers that he also needs,” Weinberg wrote.
To read this article, go here:
https://cannabisnow.com/va-still-punishes-veterans-for-using-medical-cannabis/
As for the origin story of how April 20 became 420, one would have to travel back in time to 1971 and stand around the Louis Pasteur statue at San Rafael High School in California at precisely 4:20 p.m. and ask the Waldos this question. Alternatively, one could learn about it by reading this Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)
Graphic of 1979 Toke-in from March 8, 1979, issue of the IFA, pg. 9