Florida Senate - 2024                             (NP)    SR 642
       
       
        
       By Senator Harrell
       
       
       
       
       
       31-00277-24                                            2024642__
    1                          Senate Resolution                        
    2         A resolution commending and celebrating the life and
    3         contributions of musician, environmentalist,
    4         entrepreneur, and philanthropist Jimmy Buffett.
    5  
    6         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi,
    7  on Christmas Day in 1947 and moved to Florida in 1971 at the
    8  invitation of fellow musician and Florida resident Jerry Jeff
    9  Walker, settling in Key West in 1972, and
   10         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett honed his art as a singer-songwriter
   11  in the bars of Key West, and the laid-back island lifestyle of
   12  the Florida Keys was the foundation on which he built his
   13  signature tropical rock sound, and
   14         WHEREAS, in 1973, Jimmy Buffett released the album “A White
   15  Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean,” which included the hit single
   16  “Grapefruit - Juicy Fruit,” and used the proceeds to buy his
   17  first boat, and
   18         WHEREAS, subsequent albums included “Living and Dying in
   19  3/4 Time” (with the hit “Come Monday”), “Havana Daydreamin’,”
   20  “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” (with his mega-hit
   21  “Margaritaville”), “Son of a Son of a Sailor” (with the hit
   22  “Cheeseburger in Paradise”), “Volcano,” and many more featuring
   23  songs that became part of the pop music lexicon, and
   24         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett’s music has attracted legions of
   25  fans who call themselves “Parrot Heads” and who gather at an
   26  annual weeklong “Meeting of the Minds” festival, and
   27         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett was also the author of three books
   28  that placed on the New York Times Best Seller list and the co
   29  author of two children’s books with his eldest daughter Savannah
   30  Buffett, and
   31         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett’s entrepreneurial enterprises
   32  include his own beer brand, LandShark Lager, in partnership with
   33  Anheuser-Busch; casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and
   34  Biloxi, Mississippi; retirement communities called Latitude
   35  Margaritaville in Daytona Beach and WaterSound in Florida, and
   36  Hilton Head Island in South Carolina; and the Jimmy Buffett’s
   37  Margaritaville hospitality company and Cheeseburger in Paradise
   38  restaurant chain, and
   39         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett was an ardent environmentalist,
   40  founding the Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit organization
   41  devoted to raising awareness about the plight of Florida’s state
   42  marine mammal, with former Governor Bob Graham in 1981, and
   43  supporting other causes devoted to endangered and threatened
   44  species and habitats in Florida, and
   45         WHEREAS, as a philanthropist, Jimmy Buffett performed
   46  concerts for servicemembers, headlined hurricane relief
   47  concerts, performed a free concert in Gulf Shores, Alabama,
   48  after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and provided support for
   49  efforts to deliver supplies and relief in the aftermath of the
   50  2010 earthquake in Haiti, and
   51         WHEREAS, in 2015, the University of Miami bestowed an
   52  honorary doctorate in music upon Jimmy Buffett, who spoke at
   53  that year’s graduation ceremony, and
   54         WHEREAS, Jimmy Buffett died of complications from a rare
   55  form of skin cancer on September 1, 2023, at the age of 76 at
   56  his home in Sag Harbor, New York, NOW, THEREFORE,
   57  
   58  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
   59  
   60         That Jimmy Buffett’s free-spirited life and significant
   61  contributions to national and state culture be commended and
   62  celebrated.
   63         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution, with
   64  the Seal of the Senate affixed, be presented to the family of
   65  Jimmy Buffett as a tangible token of the sentiments of the
   66  Florida Senate.