(bright orchestral music) - [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU, PBS Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- 180 episodes, that's the legacy of "Up Close," since the show began airing on WEDU in October of 2006.

Join us for a retrospective as we celebrate 16 successful years of visiting with significant people, places and organizations on the series finale, coming up next.

(upbeat thematic music) Welcome to "Up Close," I'm Cathy Unruh.

For nearly two decades, I've been signing onto this program, hosting guests here in the studio, on location and even virtually.

We featured worthy nonprofit organizations through our WEDU Be More specials.

We've highlighted the issues of adolescent substance use in our community through our Kids and Alcohol Specials.

And when the pandemic began in 2020, that didn't stop us.

We continued to share our guests' fascinating stories through virtual interviews when we didn't have the ability to meet in person.

Over these many years and 180 episodes, we've had the privilege to share the passionate voices of individuals across West Central Florida and beyond.

Today, we look back at some memorable moments from the show as a farewell to "Up Close."

We begin with our very first episode that premiered in October, 2006.

We had Liz Kennedy here in the studio to share her work as a volunteer and philanthropist.

She has served on many non-profit boards and was instrumental in the formation of the Ophelia Project, Tampa Bay, an organization designed to help girls develop stronger self-esteem and confidence to create future female leaders.

- And it starts with the mom.

The mom can model that kind of behavior or really focus on who her daughter is from the get go, from the time they're small.

But I'm not sure we always do.

- Well, plus even if mom is doing her best to say, it's inside that counts and it's your brain and it's how you are as a human being.

Even if that's coming from mom, turn on the music videos, go on the internet, look at the billboards on the side of the road.

How does a parent or parents or caregivers compete with that?

- Well, that's been our task at the Ophelia Project, is to try to reach the girls, to give them some tools to discern the messages that they're receiving, to try and figure out who they are before they let everything else get in and change them.

But you're really right, that parents can be doing all the right stuff, but society, the media, their peers, there's not a lot of protection unless it comes from within.

- Over the course of "Up Close," we've had the opportunity to feature many interesting personalities.

One of my personal favorites was Peter Buffet, the son of Warren Buffet.

Like so many other people, I was fascinated by this child of a multi billionaire who'd been raised to make it on his own.

- I grew up in a family where both of my parents always said, do what you love, find something you're passionate about.

And not only did they say it, but I saw it every day with my dad.

He loved what he did, the money wasn't even the issue really ever.

And so when I got into college, and in fact I didn't know what I wanted to be, I took everything that ended in 101 or ology, every course I could find.

And then it was the realization that music had been there all along and my parents said, look, you've got a little bit of money.

Go for it, you can always go back to school.

They were paying for my education, which was a tremendous privilege.

And so I did, I took some time off and started building my business.

- And your first commercial gig was writing for commercials, writing music for television commercials.

- Exactly, 'cause, I wanted, I didn't have a lot of money to getting started, so I thought, how am I gonna make this last?

And how am I gonna be pragmatic about this in terms of making a living?

And music for commercials made a lot of sense, actually.

And I had the temperament for it.

- So you have a long multimedia successful career and we're gonna come back to that with what your latest venture is.

But now we're gonna go back to the famous father part, which you can't escape.

And of course what everyone is just, and everyone is a big generic inclusive term, but I think it's really pretty true in this case.

Are just fascinated by the fact that your father has so, so, so, so much money and the children aren't getting it.

- Right, yeah, I know... - [Cathy] It's hard to get your mind around.

- Right, isn't it?

- So when you were 19, as did your other two siblings, you each received basically an inheritance from your grandfather.

- Right, exactly.

- Which was $90,000.

- Right, it happened to be $90,000 when I got it because it was in stock and that was the value of it at the time.

- And that was when you were 19, so that was a while ago.

- Yeah, it was a while ago, it was, yeah.

- And you used that money to buy time.

- Right.

- Explain.

- The most precious resource is time, of course, it's irreplaceable.

And again, I'd gone through about a year and a half of college undecided, and I came across this money, I came across some events that said, maybe you can do this music thing and I thought, okay, I want to take the leap, and of course, my parents did support that and my dad sort of sat down with me and said, okay, here's how you can live on this and not eat away too much of it.

And of course I was a college kid, I didn't need that much.

Bought a little equipment, bought a lot of time, a good year or so before I established myself with those MTV commercials and other things.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The fun part of this story, of course, is that if I had done nothing, if I'd sat here and talked to you from the time I was 19 until now, I'd be worth over $70 million.

And that's the fun part 'cause it's very hard for people to also wrap their mind around the idea that wouldn't you love to have that money?

And don't you feel kind of dumb that you spent it and it couldn't be further from the truth.

I mean, I have a life and successes and failures and all things, that's way more valuable than money.

- Sharing documentary films has been a wonderful part of the show, allowing us to go behind the scenes to meet the passionate filmmakers revealing important untold stories.

The subjects have spanned from animal rights, as in the film, "Peaceable Kingdom," to segregation in high school sports with the film, "Into the Storm."

This next highlight is from an episode featuring a local filmmaker and the star of the documentary, "Because of Sam."

This inspiring story was created to open eyes and hearts about individuals with special needs.

Our guest, Sam Piazza, certainly grabbed our hearts with his contagious personality.

- I do have a disability, I know I have Down Syndrome, but that does not define me for who I am right now living my life.

- And Renee, that pretty much sums up what you want the documentary to tell us?

- It does, it's really an anthem for underdogs and people to overcome any hardships.

It certainly focuses on the families with special needs and brings forward a lot of the services that helped Sam, which is a really big part of the movie and important as a filmmaker for me, it was to bring that forward because there's a major network in Tampa that helps families and this movie will enlighten any family as to what services could be helpful to them.

- Before we watch it, what do you want people to know?

What are they looking for?

What are your highlights that you'd like them to really get?

- I want them to walk away from this movie understanding what is possible with the capabilities of people with disabilities, and not look at the disabilities.

And understand that if Sam can step forward and achieve his dreams, that others can as well and be inspired.

I really want them to walk away knowing that they can pursue their dreams.

It's a homegrown movie about a hometown hero that I believe transforms how the world views people with disabilities and shows all people that they can pursue their dreams.

- And here's a preview of the documentary.

- Well, I remember I got a phone call from John saying the baby was here and Ruth needed me.

- He said, Well we believe your son has Trisomy 21, and I'm like, what's that?

- People who find out that they're gonna have a baby with Down Syndrome, the next statement out of their mouth is would you like to terminate?

- The doctor says, this is a time when you can decide if you want to institutionalize him.

- I think the hospital probably owned him for the first two or three years of his life.

- Well, I definitely thought Sam had a good chance.

He has a way with the ladies, and so I knew all the girls were gonna vote for Sam.

- Yeah, I was also on homecoming court, Sam Bootman.

- He told me that he was a rapper, a freestyle rapper.

- [Woman] Two, three, wait, go.

♪ This is what I am ♪ ♪ This is what I do ♪ ♪ This is the way I live it for you ♪ - We got formally introduced and I couldn't go two seconds or two feet without someone stopping and saying, oh, hey Sam, hey Sam, hey Sam.

- So, I'm a better deputy and a better friend because of Sam.

- Because of Sam, our life is richer, my life is much richer.

- A lot of people with disabilities have their own minds, their own souls and their own actions, what they wanna be for rest of their lives.

I have a girlfriend, I have two best friends with Down Syndrome.

That does not stop them from living their own lives because of the support I have right now.

- Advocating for animal welfare is one of my foremost personal passions.

And we've done many shows that highlight the wonderful nonprofit organizations serving animals in West Central Florida.

Like the Grady Goat Foundation, where the goats have great lives and humans get to do yoga with them.

- I like to feel that everybody on our farm has a job.

The goats mainly being keeping the grass trimmed down along with the cows, producing some milk so that we can make some cheese and fudge and soaps and do goat yoga.

- And I want to make very clear right off the top that on your farm, unlike other farms, animals are not killed for any purpose.

- [Woman] They are not.

- They are bred naturally, the mothers nurse their own babies.

- Yes.

- [Cathy] They live out full lives.

- Yes.

- [Cathy] Could you elaborate on that for me, why that's important to you?

- Well, we also do rescue.

So I've rescued goats that would have normally gone to auction and you don't know what's going to happen to them after that.

So I certainly wouldn't do anything to any of my own goats.

They stay on the ranch, they're actually our pets.

I know the names of all 140 goats.

- We're gonna obviously talk about the goat yoga and goats themselves, but the foundation then helps both children and animals.

- Yes, yes.

Obviously I am an animal lover, so we do expand a little bit in say, children facing adversity, and whether that is physical, economic or mental adversity.

And we also do a little bit for animal rescue causes, too.

- And as you know, we visited and some practitioners shared their yoga experiences in the company of goats.

Even our producer, Farah Vickery, also an experienced yoga instructor, gave it a try.

(upbeat folk guitar music) (crowd chattering) - I call this style of Goat Yoga, I call it, Goatostina, because there isn't a style, I mean, there's a lot of hatha, there's a lot of vinyasa, there's a lot of flowing, but remember, we're here for the goats and they make the yoga all that much more perfect.

(crowd chattering) - So, what brought me here today was my maid of honor, I'm getting married in December, she surprised me and got all my bridesmaids out here, 'cause she knows I love yoga.

And today, it was like I was joyful the whole time.

I smiled the whole time, and my face hasn't stopped smiling since I've been here, which has been great.

And sometimes, during like, yoga yoga, you're like, oh my God, let's grind and bear it through it, but today, it was just so joyful, just really fun.

- We featured many different animal programs throughout the years on "Up Close."

And while we can't show clips from all of our favorites, we did put together a highlight reel of some of the cutest moments we've had with animals on the show.

(bright upbeat music) The arts are a tremendous part of the Gulf Coast community.

So naturally, we featured many artists and arts organizations on "Up Close" over the years.

In 2018, shortly after the James Museum opened its doors in St. Petersburg, the "Up Close" crew went on location to tour the museum and share the experience with viewers.

It was wonderful to be in the beautiful space and talk about the collection of western and wildlife artwork on display with co-founders Tom and Mary James.

(solo native flute plays solemnly) - You told us about the day of the blizzard out west.

You went shopping, you blew your budget.

This is one of the very, or the very first one you bought.

- This is the very first... - That day.

- I'd seen the artist's work before, his name is Earl Biss.

He's a Crow Indian.

He lived part time in Aspen, traveled all over the southwest with a chauffeur-driven car.

He did not like to fly, and he wasn't allowed to drive.

So he was a very good artist, well trained, but you notice he uses spirits and he uses the Appaloosa spotted horse here in almost all of his paintings.

And you see this tribe of people going across a frozen lake and he's got spotted backgrounds, kind of abstracting out the whole background of the painting and that's typical of his work too.

- And the color just pops at you, I can see how you were drawn to that when you walked into... - Yeah, he writes poetry on the back of the paintings.

He died about 12 years ago, but he was one of the people, and I probably have 10 of his paintings.

I mean many of which I bought in recent years in auctions, but he's a real leader of the development among the Native American artists.

- And we are delighted to have Mary James with us now.

We've been talking about you, you're Tom's partner in every way, and most certainly in this museum.

And we are in the Jewel Box.

Tell us about the Jewel Box.

- The Jewel box.

Tom of course, he's been collecting the southwestern paintings for a very long time and Indian market and Santa Fe is where we like to go.

And so he was buying his paintings and his bronzes and I was helping him out with that.

But the jewelry was catching my eye.

So, finally my first piece he let me buy was a belt that he bought for me.

And then, every year I would pick one or two really special things and Jesse Menonge, he's like the premier southwestern Native American jeweler in the country, and I would have to get up in the middle of the night and be first in line to be able to buy a piece of his.

And the Opal Bear, which you'll see in this museum, was the first really special piece of his we bought.

- And I just wanna say that when you come to the museum, you do want to stop in here because it's gorgeous and it's things that you have, you and Tom have worn and you love to wear this jewelry.

- [Mary] Oh yeah.

- [Cathy] And you're being very generous to display it.

- [Mary] Thank you.

- A large portion of our West central Florida community live outside the urban areas and the coastal lines.

And we've made an effort on "Up Close" to showcase topics from our more rural regions.

In 2013, we featured Keel and Curley Winery in Plant City.

The brand has certainly grown since that time but we had fun having Clay Keel and winemaker Jared Gilbert in the studio to taste some of their blueberry wines and learn how these blueberry farmers turned leftover berries into something completely new and tasty.

And let's talk about the health benefits of wine, 'cause we all know that red grape wine is great for us, the rest fare (mumbles), which is the only reason I drink it, of course.

Are blueberry wines good for you too?

- Oh yes, yes.

University of Florida actually came out with a study proving that blueberry wines, the antioxidants, all transfer through into the bottle and is actually more healthier for you than most red wines.

- Okay, so drink that blue wine for the antioxidants.

So, that's what we're gonna do right now, we're gonna have a little tasting and you can tell us, we're gonna move from dry to sweet.

- Okay.

- Okay, so tell us what we're tasting and we'll... - Sure, yeah.

This is the Winemakers Reserve blackberry, so, this is the blackberry dry.

This is 100% blackberry, Florida blackberries in here.

And this is a drier wine, this is the driest we make, so this would be room temperature.

(indistinct) Yeah, Jared, we'll all taste.

- Okay.

- Jared gets some too.

- There you go, sir.

- I mean, Jared, can you taste from bottle to bottle and say, well, this bottle's better than the last bottle I had.

You probably can, right?

- [Jared] Yes, I can.

- Okay, so give us the vintner's description of this wine.

- When I was designing this wine, I had designed it to be more like a traditional grape wine, a little bit more of a fine grain tannin on the mid palate, a little sweetness up front, just to mask some of the extra acidity in there.

And I oaked it for an extra long time.

I actually oaked this for nine months in American Oak.

- Meaning in an oak barrel.

And you know, I don't think I would be able to say that this wasn't a grape wine.

- [Jared] That was my goal.

- Is that it?

Okay, that's a good thing?

- Yes.

- [Cath] Okay, if somebody just handed me this, I wouldn't know.

- Trying to break the taboo of fruit wines is my ultimate goal.

- Okay.

We've had a lot of fun times on this set and we've been able to feature many familiar PBS faces from Rick Steves to Michael Ambrosino, executive producer of NOVA, and even Antiques Roadshow in Sarasota.

Let's take a look back.

(light, quick piano and string melody) - My two favorite things are music and travel.

And that's all I've ever done in my life.

- I am energized, every day I go to work, I know people say that it's a cliche.

- One pilot would've never have shown the expanse of what we could hope to do on NOVA.

- Speaking of well known individuals, it was a blast to have best selling author and former Miami Herald columnist, Carl Hiassen, sit down with me here in the studio.

He is as smart and fast and funny as his books.

- And it's like truly like shooting fish in a barrel in south Florida, there's so much corruption and sleaze and buffoonery.

It's really the greatest gig in journalism, is to be a columnist or any kind of a writer in South Florida, that it's just a fountain of sleaze, and I'm very lucky to be doing it.

- Do you really think that Florida is sleazier than other states?

- Absolutely, and I say that proudly.

I would say that dirt bags from all over the country gravitate here because of the opportunity, just like honest, legitimate people do.

I think, and I've said this before, let's just, if you're gonna be a car thief, let's say you wanna grow up and you wanna steal cars for a living, would you rather steal cars in Detroit, Michigan or would you rather steal cars on South Beach?

No, this is a no-brainer.

So this has been a magnet, Florida has been a magnet for scoundrels since the Civil War days.

And so, it's not surprising that the same theory applies to whether you're a stock broker, running a telephone boiler room, whatever it is, it's much better to conduct these enterprises in a sunny, warm climate than it is in Detroit or Cleveland in the dead of winter.

- Finally, we'd like to end the show today with an interview we did with Dr. Bernard and Lois Watson.

Both are stalwarts of the Sarasota community via various philanthropies.

This clip is just one more example of the exceptional people we've welcomed on our show and who have left an indelible mark in the community through their actions and insight into the world.

You had a particularly stunning thing happen to you when you were a student at the University of Indiana.

- [Bernard] I did.

- Tell us what happened.

- When I went to Indiana University, it was right after World War II, joined a fraternity, and we decided to buy a house, and the house was in a white neighborhood, and the owner said that they would sell it to us.

So we bought it, with the help of the National.

One night, I was walking home from classes, had classes late during the day, and I noticed this car slowly following me.

I didn't pay any attention to it, but as we got closer to the neighborhood where the house was, where we lived, I looked out of the corner of my eye and it was clear that they were following me.

About a block before we got to the house, this car pulled up right in front of us.

A person got out of the car, could tell he was in a police uniform, and put a gun right in my face, and essentially said to me, we know who you are, called me a name.

And said, well, I could blow your brains out and nobody would even know and nobody would care, just so you know.

And that came about because I was a sort of an activist on campus, I had run for student government, I became the first African American in student government there.

And it made some statements of things about the way veterans and about black people were treated on campus.

- And I want to read a paragraph from your book where after describing that event, you say, I was never afraid of dying again.

I knew from that day forward how quickly, how quietly, how easily and unexpectedly death could come to anyone, but especially to those who rocked the boat.

It was then that I began to form my own philosophy about standing up for things you believe in.

Be prepared to stand alone.

Don't request support or assistance, be prepared to accept the consequences.

Tell us why that's so important.

- It's very important because my life was the life of people in my generation and certainly, the life of my parents' generation.

Both of my parents were born in 1898 in Alabama, Talladega, Alabama.

And so, we were taught at home and we were taught in that school, to be prepared to deal with whatever our actions brought.

- But the standing up to ignorance, the standing up to bigotry.

This might be a message that we could use at this time in our experience.

Why is it important for us to push back against that?

- It's important because it's our country.

We say that our country stands for certain things.

That's what our documents say, that's what people say when they talk about the country.

The fact is, unless we stand up against bigotry, unless we stand up for equal opportunity, unless we stand up for all people regardless of their age, their race, their sexual orientation, or any of that, we cannot make this country the kind of country we want it to be and that it should be.

- It's been a pleasure and a privilege to share these voices of wisdom with you, our WEDU viewers.

We hope that these stories have inspired you, entertained you, and strengthened a sense of pride about the community in which we live.

On behalf of all the crew who have worked on this program each month, it has been our honor to serve you.

And while we're saying goodbye to "Up Close," I'm not saying goodbye to WEDU.

I'll be hosting specials, including shows on some of the most important topics of our day, the kind of thought-provoking, quality programming that you expect from us.

So, stay tuned and I'll hope to see you then.

For now, I'm Cathy Unruh, signing off for the final time on "Up Close."

(bright upbeat music)