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Highlands Today

Lake Byrd rec center named for 'unsung hero'

Jasmina Meyer, Highlands Today

Bert and Amy Lawrence recently received the honor of having the Lake Byrd Shores recreation center dedicated to them.

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: June 24, 2009

AVON PARK - Last week, an event went unnoticed in most of Highlands County: the recreation center for a new housing addition, Lake Byrd Shores, was dedicated to Albert and Amy Lawrence.

So, who are Bert and Amy Lawrence? For the last 49 years, no one at Lake Byrd has needed to ask that question.

History

Pittsburgh Real Estate Co. built a lodge north of Avon Park in 1919, said Tom Tworoger. Along with his son, David, Tworoger is developing a 21-lot housing addition on the north side of Lake Byrd, at what is now U.S. 27 and Stryker Road.

"They used it like a hotel, to bring people here to buy land," Tworoger said.

During World War II, the Army Air Corps billeted its pilots and trainers there, Tworoger said. In the post-war economy, the Congregational Church (now known as the United Church of Christ) bought the lodge.

"For $5,000, I think," Tworoger said in a telephone conversation. Back in 1960, Lake Byrd hosted one of perhaps a dozen Central Florida church camps. Until Walt Disney World came to Orlando in 1971.

"It was too much competition," Tworoger said. Nearly all of the church camps closed.

Camp counselors

But this story is about Bert and Amy Lawrence.

"I started going there in 1959," Tworoger said. "Bert came the next year."

"I was in Nebraska," Lawrence recalled. Back then, he was just turning 40 years old, and he'd been married to Amy for three years. He met a camp director at a conference, and the director mentioned the Lake Byrd camp needed a youth minister. A few weeks later, the phone rang, so Bert and Amy made the cross-country trip in their Pontiac.

When they got there, he found a lake with a red clay road around it. Avon Park, a few miles south, was then the metropolis of Highlands County. His neighbors were some of the best people he'd ever met, including Ben Hill Griffin Jr.

When they built their own house, the citrus magnate came over to get a look at the wide windows Amy designed so the entire front wall of their home would have a lake view. She likes open, airy spaces, so there's no front door, only side doors.

The Lake Byrd of those days was an enclave, Lawrence said. Even today, concerned neighbors offer to take each other to medical appointments.

"Avon Park was the center, but it was a dead center," Lawrence said. There was little culture in the sparsely populated Central Florida. In the days before South Florida Community College and Highlands Little Theatre, they drove to Sarasota or Tampa if they wanted to see an art or music event.

There was a movie theater, but in Jim Crow times, black people weren't allowed inside until the balcony was finally opened to people of color. Blacks couldn't enter the restaurant either. A special employee was designated to take meals to blacks, who waited outside.

Friday nights were for football games - not because the Lawrences were pigskin fans, but because they admired the marching band's halftime show. The musicians were so proficient, the brass were invited to become part of Disney World's opening event, Lawrence recalled.

The senior center was the most active place in town during winters, with snowbirds continuing shuffleboard games until 2 a.m. "It was always jammed," Lawrence smiled.

Church leaders

As youth counselor, Lawrence mentored campers.

"It was a real treat for kids from all over Florida," said Tworoger, a Miami native who was raised in Hollywood. For years, he kept returning to summer camp at Lake Byrd. Like the other children, he took the train and arrived at the downtown Avon Park station.

"One train would leave, and another came in," Tworoger recalled. He knew this because in 1966, as a teenager, he was hired by Lawrence to be the camp's waterfront director and teach campers to fish for bass or water ski.

"We took them to the Rexall Drug Store, and had the 99-cent special," Tworoger said, a T-bone steak dinner for less than a dollar.

"I was paid $200 for the summer," said Tworoger, who recalled the story at the June 17 dedication of Lawrence Commons. The 21 new lots are on the site of a mobile home park that was never built.

As the children wrote or practiced skits, Amy was their guide. By day, she was the director of Tri-County rehabilitation services.

"She's a wonderful person," Tworoger said. "They were almost like the president and the first lady. We had dinners at her house, and I can still taste some of those dishes."

When Lawrence met a child, he would reach back and grab a nickel, seemingly out of the child's ear. It was a trick he learned in vaudeville, where as a child he entertained for 10 years.

Bert and Amy

Tworoger isn't just an admirer of Lake Byrd and the Lawrences, whom he calls "Bert and Ernie." His life still centers around them.

"I was married at the lodge, and my kids went to camp there," Tworoger said. His grandchild was baptized there. Tworoger came back to Lake Byrd in 1971 with friends and family to marry his wife, Leslie, at the lodge.

Lawrence, he said, "wasn't just the glue that held the camp together. He made the camp so successful.

"There are probably a thousand people who were just like me, who just loved the guy." Many are successful today because of Lawrence's leadership training, Tworoger said.

A hundred children a week, 1,000 every summer, for 14 years. That meant the Lawrences touched thousands of lives, Tworoger said.

Tworoger became such a good friend, when Lawrence's old house became available, he called Tworoger 25 years ago and persuaded him to buy it. It didn't take much. Tworoger's childhood dream was to own a house on Lake Byrd.

Modern times

The church shut down the lodge about nine years ago. It was in declining condition, with little chance to save the old buildings, so Tworogers tore down the lodge and named the commons in front of the 21 new lots for a man who, in his own way, is the best known of all the Lake Byrd residents.

"He's an unsung hero," Tworoger said. "Kids all over the county keep in touch with him."

Highlands Today reporter Gary Pinnell can be reached at 863-386-5828 or gpinnell@highlandstoday.com.

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