A short tenure at a local newspaper helped cultivate a lifelong commitment to community service. Following his graduation from the University of Florida, Gary Crumley returned to his parents’ home in Jacksonville Beach to await the results of his board exam as a registered landscape architect.
He took a part-time job at The Beaches Leader newspaper where he spent four months in the belly of the pressroom learning the rhythms of a small community newspaper.
“I was preparing to start my own company, so I used that part time work along with a couple of nights working as a bouncer for a club called Malongo Bay and a line cook a couple nights a week at Tres Amigos,” he said. “I would hand out my business card for ‘Gary Crumley Landscape Architect’ to see if I could get some people interested.”
The newsroom in the late 1970s was a hive of activity with the front office staff who took classified ads and obituaries over the phone and handled any subscription issues at the front counter. On the other side, sales reps would come and go throughout the day, selling ad space to build revenue and the page count. Residents buzzed in and out, picking up extra copies of the paper or dropping off photos and information for family announcements.
Crumley started by fitting each issue with a coupon insert, eventually loading the vans with papers to deliver in bulk to the main downtown post office.
“Being a part of The Leader, I got to know the guys in both the newsroom and the pressroom,” he said. “[Former editor] Kathleen Bailey was in the Fletcher class of ‘78 with my sister Carla. There are so many people that are connected to other people at the beach.”
His mother Jean Crumley-Barbour also managed the front office after she stepped down from the Beaches Chamber of Commerce. Her husband Bob Barbour served as a consultant for the Beaches Redevelopment Agency. Crumley recalled when Barbour raised the alarm about Striton Properties failing to establish any projects as the private “master developer” for the Redevelopment District. City leaders refused to approve the final Development Agreement, and the project collapsed into litigation.
“The upshot was he told Bob Nelson, who was the Chamber director at the time, that it was a bad move and should not be supported,” laughed Crumley. “So, she left the Chamber of Commerce and Beryl and Bill Dryden hired my mom as their Office Manager somewhere around 1979.”
Once Crumley received his letter from the architecture review board, he used a financial gift from his grandmother to start his own business.
From 1990 to 2016, he taught the Community Education Landscape Design Class at Fletcher High School. The course was in such high demand that it branched into programs in Mandarin, Orange Park, Chimney Lakes and DuPont.
“It was really enjoyable to have that kind of enthusiasm. Eventually it started to pare down when they cut the funding. First, they got rid of the advertisement in the newspaper and then they tried to completely get rid of us by cutting our salaries,” he said. “I refused to leave out of service to the community.” After 37 years, Crumley continues to grow his passion for landscaping through a series of community engagement initiatives. “Teaching and community service is just part of the credo,” he said.
His local projects include beautification efforts at Sunshine Park during the original construction. “I was a volunteer for a week. It was like going into the Peace Corps,” said Crumley, who has a memorial brick in the walkway leading
to the park. “I teamed up with the design company out of New York as their local guy and got to be one of the team captains. I was delighted to help.”
Crumley also spent 15 years with the Department of Economic Opportunity as a volunteer serving the Mayport Waterfront Partnership. He volunteered during the first season of Deck the Chairs and is also among the nominees for the American Society of Landscape Architecture Class of 2027.
“We managed to get permanently funded through the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and we’re restoring the Mayport Village,” he said. “Volunteering is something I’ve been very proud of.”
Today Crumley, now 68, traces his commitment to civic engagement and community-building back to those early days in the newsroom. Stories about growth, preservation, parks and public spaces showed that communities don’t blossom overnight. They are carefully planned, nurtured and stewarded over time. Like a garden, both thrive with proper care and cooperation.
Understanding what matters to people continues to guide his work. Local journalism taught him to listen to communities. Landscape architecture gave him the tools to help shape them.
In a healthy garden, pollinators move from flower to flower, dusting them with the pollen that helps the ecosystem to flourish. Reporters also move through the landscape of a community, sharing stories, concerns and information that help residents stay connected. The result is a healthy community and shared understanding of who we are, what we value and where we are headed together.
Though his time at The Beaches Leader was brief, its imprint served as the foundation for Crumley’s multi-pronged program designed to create landscaped spaces that foster connection, identity and a sense of belonging.
“Essentially, it teaches people the essence of doing a tight inventory, the importance of a good site analysis, how to develop a design concept based on the observation of the site, working with Florida-friendly plant material, making water-wise decisions and understanding micro-climates,” he said.
“For me, The Beaches Leader was an opportunity to continue what Mom had been doing which was supporting the local Beaches community. It may not make me wealthy financially, but there’s a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of goodwill in community service. It’s a win-win.”
