'Sanibel Sam' Bailey dies at 86

 
'Sanibel Sam' Bailey dies at 86
Island native, fixture bridged gap to past
http://www.news-press.com/article/20100923/NEWS0116/9230381/1002/NEWS01/-Sanibel-Sam--Bailey-dies-at-86
 
BY GLENN MILLER • GMILLER@NEWS-PRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2010  

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Sam Bailey always liked to say - and even wrote in his 2008 book, "A Sanibel Son Looks Back" - that he may have been the last person living who was born on Sanibel Island.
 
He grew up long before a causeway linked it to the mainland. As a boy in the 1930s, he played football with coconuts on the island. When it was time to attend Fort Myers High, he took a ferry to Punta Rassa and spent school weeks staying in Ma Alderman's boarding house, where breakfast cost 25 cents and dinner was thrice that.
Bailey, who died Tuesday in Tampa at 86, lived to see the island and all Southwest Florida transformed.
Following high school graduation in 1942, he left for new places. He became a three-sport athlete at the University of Georgia, knocked around pro football for a while and then settled into a 60-year relationship with the University of Tampa.
"Whatever he did, he went at it whole-hog," said his older brother, Francis, 89.
All that time, though, he never forgot Sanibel. Now, the island is remembering Bailey, who was known as "Sanibel Sam."
Former Sanibel mayor Marty Harrity said every year, Bailey gave every island teenager graduating from high school a check for $100.
And wisdom.
"He would tell them this is your home," Harrity said. "This is always going to be your home. Be proud of your home. Always be proud of it."
When The News-Press in 2009 named 125 influential people in local history, Sam and Francis Bailey were on the list. ...more...