As she came to the conclusion of her benediction at the service for Bill Sharpe, The Reverend Vicki R. Walter noted the diversity inside the Hyde Park United Methodist Church on Tuesday afternoon.
There were people from the upper crusts of Tampa community life, and there were the homeless, several wearing the blue Tampa Epoch t-shirts that they wear every day selling the newspaper that Sharpe began publishing late last year, after the city of Tampa imposed a partial ban on panhandling.
The hour-long service included testimony from three of Sharpe's friends: homeless advocate Linda Karson, former Fox-13 reporter Warren Elly, and political consultant Gregory S. Wilson, who went back 30 years with Sharpe, and was amazingly frank about their longtime friendship.
Sharpe was found dead in his office on Monday, April 2, in a death that authorities called a suicide by strangulation. It stunned many in Tampa who didn't believe he would ever contemplate ending his own life.
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2012.