I’m sitting at a Brooksville City Council meeting, waiting for Citizen Input so I can talk.

In 2021, Dr. Dennis Wilfong, a longtime resident and community volunteer, passed away unexpectedly. A famous inventor and philanthropist, Dennis had spent many years volunteering on both city and county boards. He even worked as the City’s Economic Development Ambassador, and traveled the country (at his personal expense) to recruit businesses to our community. Dennis also worked fiercely to keep businesses we already had. When I became Brooksville’s Mayor, one of the first “field trips” I had was traipsing the city with Dennis, meeting our businesses and finding out how we could help them.

It wasn’t my first experience with the Wilfongs. Jason and I met them in 2000 when our oldest son, Andrew started in kindergarten at Hernando Christian Academy. Their grandson, Jay, was in Andrew’s class and the boys were in school and social functions for their growing up years. Dennis and Pam were involved, loving, grandparents and my husband and I learned a lot from them about how to love your family well.

What many people did not know about Dennis and Pam was the amount of time and resources they invested in making Christmas special for families in need. They would have fun shopping then show up at people’s homes, with Dennis as Santa delivering the gifts.

So when Dennis died in 2021, it was a natural decision to create a fundraiser to place a Santa sleigh at the Courthouse in his honor. The community quickly raised the needed $6000 to buy a genuine, hand crafted sleigh designed to be pulled by horses and run over snowy terrain. We didn’t have the horses or the snow, but we sure had lots of people who wanted to take their yearly family Christmas photo in the sleigh. We tearfully unveiled it to the Wilfongs (and ten thousand onlookers) at the 2021 Christmas Tree Lighting. It’s one of my favorite memories of our beautiful county honoring a man who so thoroughly deserved it.

This afternoon I drove by the Courthouse. In the place where the Wilfong Sleigh should have been, there were cheap plastic decorations instead. I contacted the Brooksville Main Street (BMS) Executive Director and Executive Board members from the fundraiser time with the following email:

I received the following back from BMS President Christopher Rhodes.

He (in what reads as great hubris) “considers the matter resolved” but I do not. There are falsities that need to be cleared up and the public who donated to the memorial deserve accountability

1. “The Ornament Structure” he refers to is completely independent of the sleigh. The sleigh is a real-live, pull-it-by-horses-and-run-over-snowy-terrain sleigh. It doesn’t require the protection of the light up ornament. If anything, we found the ornament made the photos in the sleigh harder to take.
2. If they are genuinely worried about “Sun” damage to the outdoor sleigh, they could have put something else over it.
3. If the “ornament structure” is genuinely damaged, why didn’t they use the last 10 months to repair it? Christmas comes predictably every December.

I’m just not buying it.

Neither do I subscribe to his false opinion that my voice doesn’t matter. I pay taxes, I have given BMS LOTS of money over the years as well as volunteer time since they incorporated in 2016, I’m President of the oldest non-profit in this county, I’m a voter, and I live in this community. The organization Mr. Rhodes runs is supposed to build collaborations and make everyone feel they are part of it. Instead, his email says no one’s opinion matters except his board. That feels like a rather foolish position.

I have been pretty quiet the last couple years, but this disrespect to the Wilfong Family and to the community who bought his memorial sleigh has made it imperative I speak. Honoring members of our community is part of what makes Brooksville special. We need to keep up that tradition.

A handful of people should not be able to override a gift the community made to the Wilfongs and to itself.

P.S. I spoke to the City Council. They were not aware of the situation and seemed glad I had brought it to their attention.

P.P..S. I wanted to post photos from the night we unveiled the sleigh, but the BMS Facebook page oddly no longer has a photo album from the 2021 Tree Lighting.

P.P.P.S. Mr. Rhodes said the City Council and BOCC have a tiny bit of authority over the decorations, though the final say is Chris and his board. If you would like to be able to take your photos with the Wilfong Sleigh per usual at this Saturday’s tree lighting, please contact the City Council and County Commissioners:

Mayor Tanner ctanner@cityofbrooksville.us

Vice-Mayor Bronson tbronson@cityofbrooksville.us

Councilman McKethan jmckethan@cityofbrooksville.us

Councilman Hallal lhallal@cityofbrooksville.us

Betty Erhard berhard@cityofbrooksville.us

Chairman Campbell jerryc@hernandocounty.us

Vice-Chair Amsler ramsler@co.hernando.fl.us

Commissioner Allocco jallocco@hernandocounty.us

Commissioner Hawkins bhawkins@hernandocounty.us

Commissioner Champion schampion@hernandocounty.us