Hey, would you like to experience a Fourth Friday event filled with art and performances at TECO Plaza on Feb. 23?
Heywood would like it if you did. Heywood Turner, that is – giant of TECO history, beloved raconteur and, as he described himself in the title of his memoir, “the luckiest man who ever walked the face of the earth.”
Turner, who passed away Feb. 17, 2017 at age 90, lived an amazing life that included the art he immersed himself in at Tampa’s Life Enrichment Center. An art exhibit and performance at the free TECO Public Art Gallery at TECO Plaza, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 23, showcases art from the center borne from collaboration between seniors and students in second, third and fifth grades. Those students, from Legacy Preparatory Academy, co-created 25 pictograph art panels.
A “talk and tour” will happen starting at 5:30 p.m. at TECO Plaza, and Legacy Prep Choir students will perform in song and dance at 6:00 p.m. Many of the artists will be on hand to talk about their work; the program is free as part of Fourth Friday events happening across downtown Tampa.
And it all connects back to Heywood, in part because of how he felt that every human was connected to every other, said Maureen Murphy, executive director with Life Enrichment Center for the Arts.
“We adored Heywood and like so many others we miss him terribly; we are proud of this event as it is a way to honor his legacy,” she said. “The motif of circles factored significantly into his work because of the connectedness he believed all people shared with each other – and that underpinned the many ways Heywood fought to make art more inclusive and accessible to people in this community.”
A little about Heywood can’t come close to capturing the spirit of a man hired by Tampa Electric in 1947 as an oiler earning $1.04 an hour at the long-since-decommissioned Peter O. Knight Power Station. He joined the company mere months after it discontinued the streetcar system the company was founded on, bridging eras for Tampa as he played a major role in the construction of Big Bend Power Station, today a cornerstone of safe, reliable power for our 750,000 customers.
His retirement in 1989 as vice president of Production at Tampa Electric was the start of a new chapter in his life that saw him take up the volunteer mantle of company historian – nobody kept up with old friends and co-workers, and news from his company, like Heywood did. And with the art he created at the Life Enrichment Center, he found even more ways to express his enthusiasm for people, for the community and for life in general – including the generations that followed him.
“Partnering with Legacy Preparatory Academy has given its students opportunities many of them haven’t had before,” Murphy said. “Heywood supported efforts like this, and he would’ve gotten a huge kick out of seeing the kids perform and share their amazing art.”
Make TECO Plaza’s towering atrium part of your Fourth Friday destinations on Feb. 23 and experience charming art in a setting that itself is a work of art – in the heart of the community and with a legacy spanning generations.
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