Terry Tomalin, the Outdoors Editor for the Tampa Bay Times, published Florida author and all-around good guy, died Thursday, May 19, 2016. He was 55.
Tomalin, whose thoughtful words and excursion suggestions about Florida's environment helped new Floridians and natives alike find ways to appreciate the the outdoors, leaves behind a family.
More details are forthcoming, but his death shocked his friends and colleagues, including this writer, who first met Tomalin at the Florida Studies Program at USF St. Petersburg (Tomalin wrote his master's thesis on mullet).
"He really lived life to the fullest, with his long swims and fishing and taking Boy Scouts camping," his former colleague and fellow Florida-phile, Jeff Klinkenberg, told Creative Loafing Thursday evening.
"I would see him in the hallway and he always wore Hawaiian shirts, and I would … say, 'That's a nice shirt," Klinkenberg remembers. "Time would pass, and one day, he'd give me that shirt. I guess Kanika told him, if you buy a new shirt you have to get rid of an old one, and he remembered. He was an amazingly generous guy."
Out of respect, Creative Loafing declined to reach out to Tomalin's family at this time — his widow, Kanika, serves as St. Petersburg's Deputy Mayor — but our thoughts are with them, as they are with his colleagues who have lost a journalist and true Floridian dedicated to his family, his craft and his state.
Farewell, Florida friend. We will miss you.
This article appears in May 19-26, 2016.