Howard Fulwood – beloved host at Tampa Electric’s Manatee Viewing Center with a 66-year connection to Tampa Electric as an employee and in retirement – died this past Easter Sunday at age 88. In honor of his legacy, we’re re-running the post below that appeared on our intranet in 2014:
For the tens of thousands of people who visit the Manatee Viewing Center each month during its open season, it’s safe to say many come for the manatees. For others, the appeal is the environmental education, the gardens and the chance to see natural Florida in a unique setting.
Howard Fulwood is there because the center – and by extension Tampa Electric – are part of who he is.
Fulwood, 84, is a host at the center with his 79-years-young wife Jean, a cashier. Howard, a former team member who joined Tampa Electric as a ground man in 1952, said the several days each week he spends at the center are part of his connection to the company that hired him 62 years ago.
“I still want to be involved with Tampa Electric,” he said. “I do a little bit of everything here.”
“A little bit of everything” includes interacting with visitors, directing parking, moving merchandise in the center’s gift shop and many other tasks. While hosts are typically former Tampa Electric team members, docents are educational volunteers, usually without a TECO background. Both tend to be retirees who simply enjoy spending time at the center.
“We couldn’t do it without our hosts, docents and cashiers,” said Jamie Woodlee, senior environmental technician at the center. “They’re the heart and soul of this place, and the enthusiasm they bring to being here, talking to guests and just doing important things that have to get done … it’s really amazing. We have return visitors who come into the gift shop just to see Ms. Jean [Fulwood], who has been here 19 seasons!”
Among the center’s docents is Julie Doble, a retired science teacher from Minnesota and self-proclaimed “snowbird.”
“Here, I still get to teach,” said Doble, who added that over her five years volunteering at the center, she’s seen growing awareness from the public about manatees and their habitat – and how to protect both.
And there are the left-field questions she’s heard, too:
“Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t understand why TECO put a power plant where there’s a manatee sanctuary!’ Not knowing, of course, that it’s the power plant that made this a manatee sanctuary and that gives the manatees a place to stay safe from life-threatening cold water temperatures in the winter.”
Another cashier, Constance Fantow, said it’s the visitors that she loves most about her Manatee Viewing Center experience, which goes back to 2006.
“If you like people, this is the place to be – it’s a chance to meet guests from around the world,” Fantow said, adding a big endorsement she’s proud to have received from visitors: “We have people say they had more fun here than at Disney!”
The ones who handle the center’s behind-the-scenes, day-to-day duties might just say the same. As for Fulwood – who even has a manatee named after him (“They tell me I’m out there…”) – he said he has no plans to do anything other than what he loves doing.
“The Manatee Viewing Center has grown each year,” said Fulwood, remembering the days when the center was little more than a simple wooden platform, a handful of volunteers like him and, occasionally, a guy who showed up to sell doughnuts.
“I hope it keeps growing.”
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