Senate Bill sb2790

    Florida Senate - 2005        (NP)                      SR 2790

    By Senators King, Villalobos, Pruitt, Clary, Miller and
    Campbell




    41-2380-05

  1                    Senate Resolution No. ____

  2         A resolution recognizing Lucy Morgan, Capital

  3         Bureau Chief and Associate Editor of the St.

  4         Petersburg Times, upon the occasion of her

  5         retirement following a distinguished career.

  6  

  7         WHEREAS, Lucy Morgan joined the St. Petersburg Times

  8  staff in 1968, beginning an eventful career during which she

  9  risked an 8-month jail term in 1973 in order to protect the

10  identity of confidential sources and won the Pulitzer Prize in

11  1985 for investigative reporting, and

12         WHEREAS, Lucy became the Tallahassee Bureau Chief for

13  the Times in 1986 and has covered the Senate a decade longer

14  than any current incumbent Senator has been in the Senate, and

15         WHEREAS, Lucy always favored covering the Senate over

16  the House - particularly since she shattered her ankle in the

17  House press gallery in 2000, and

18         WHEREAS, reporters who have learned about Florida

19  politics and government working under Bureau Chief Lucy Morgan

20  have gone on to The New York Times, Los Angeles Times,

21  Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and

22  Boston Globe, and

23         WHEREAS, in the era before cell phones and e-mails,

24  Lucy Morgan researched her stories the old-fashioned way:

25  tracking lobbyists and legislators through the Capitol

26  hallways, into hideaway offices, over to Clyde's, and on to

27  the Silver Slipper, and

28         WHEREAS, Lucy is particularly adept at conning Senators

29  into giving her budget documents and proposed bills they

30  haven't read, and then turning the documents and bills over to

31  her reporters so she won't have to read them either, and

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CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.






    Florida Senate - 2005        (NP)                      SR 2790
    41-2380-05




 1         WHEREAS, many a legislator has felt a mixture of

 2  anticipation and dread upon seeing a message that "Lucy Morgan

 3  from the St. Pete Times called," and

 4         WHEREAS, for many legislators, nothing has been more

 5  frustrating than to arrive at a secret meeting only to look up

 6  and see Lucy sitting in the room, holding a yellow legal pad,

 7  and taking copious notes, and

 8         WHEREAS, Lucy has been a powerful force for public

 9  records and open meetings in this state, and has helped set a

10  standard for reporting that keeps Floridians informed and

11  holds public officials accountable, and

12         WHEREAS, this is Lucy's last Regular Session of the

13  Legislature before she retires in November, NOW, THEREFORE,

14  

15  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:

16  

17         That Lucy Morgan, Capital Bureau Chief of the St.

18  Petersburg Times, is commended for her service to the State of

19  Florida and for her commitment to a free and independent

20  press.

21         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, in honor of her retirement

22  from the Capitol Press Corps, the Senate Press Gallery is

23  hereby designated as the "Lucy Morgan Senate Press Gallery."

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