Stewards of the Keys: New Friends to Meet
What makes someone a Steward of the Keys?
Stewards are people who make it a priority to conserve, preserve and protect the precious natural resources of the Florida Keys.
They’re people motivated to care for the fragile environment — through fisheries management, artistry, eco-tourism, coral conservation and animal protection — of the unique 125-mile-long island chain.
And for visitors who value that environment, they’re like-minded new friends to encounter and get to know. Here are just a few interesting Keys Stewards to meet during a visit:
Allison Delashmit. Executive director of the Lower Keys (Fishing) Guides Association, Allison Delashmit is a natural-born storyteller. The vivacious, petite woman uses her organizational talents to be a big voice for the association, which has more than 100 vetted guide members and about 200 angler members.
Delashmit’s work includes helping to protect and preserve the Keys fishery and provide a voice for future fisheries management in the Florida Keys and Florida.
You might run into her in Cudjoe Gardens in the Lower Keys, where she lives with husband Drew and young sons.
Taylor Hale. Florida Keys native Taylor Hale lived elsewhere for a time, but recently came home to paint and to raise his two daughters with wife Kelly. He’s known for stunning ethereal works of clouds and surreal scenes of the Keys’ natural world: waterscapes, cloudscapes and landscapes.
To Hale, a graduate of the Upper Keys’ Coral Shores High School, the most important aspect of the Keys lifestyle is the water and all of its memorable beauty surrounding the island chain.
Taylor might be found in Islamorada at his gallery, The Hale Gallery at Ocean Sotheby’s International Realty, featuring curated shows; or at his Morada Way cottage studio, located behind the Florida Keys Brewing Co. beer garden.
Bill Keogh. Naturalist and eco-guide Bill Keogh, a photographer/writer and paddling guidebook author, provides kayak and low-impact motorboat excursions throughout the Lower Keys’ remote wilderness of the National Key Deer Refuge and Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge.
He typically leads daily eco-tours and, as a member of the Florida Keys Wildlife Society, leads the organization’s full moon kayak tours.
Keogh can often be tracked down on Big Pine Key around his fleet of nearly 70 kayaks, based at the tucked-away Old Wooden Bridge Marina that offers cottage, “aqualodge” and floating cabin rentals.
Cindy Lewis. Cindy Lewis directs and oversees operations of Keys Marine Lab — operated by the Florida Institute of Oceanography, a consortium under Florida’s State University System — serving as a land-based refuge with temperature-controlled seawater tanks for corals.
To help protect Keys coral’s genetic diversity, practitioners and scientists nurture the corals placed in flowing seawater tanks maintained at a typical 84 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
A new state-of-the-art Keys Marine Laboratory is being planned on Long Key, where Lewis is based when she’s not out diving, traveling or playing the French horn with the Keys Community Concert Band.
Jeanne Selander. A lover of all animals, Jeanne Selander tends to about 150 of them at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Animal Farm at the Stock Island Detention Center — billed as the United States’ only facility of its kind on jailhouse property.
She’s also mentored more than 1,500 low-risk inmates who assist with care and feeding of the animals at the Keys facility, a USDA-certified zoo and also a sanctuary for abused, neglected and abandoned creatures.
Selander grew up on James Island near Charleston, South Carolina, and is descended from two of its 12 founding families. Today she lives on the island of Key West and personally cares for senior Chihuahuas, providing them with a safe “forever home.”
“Farmer Jeannie” oversees public tours of the Animal Farm, slated for 1-3 p.m. on the second and fourth Sunday of each month.
'Steward of the Keys Through Art' Taylor Hale works on one of this expansive paintings showing the dynamic interplay between the water and sky throughout the Keys island chain.
Delashmit works to protect and preserve the Keys fishery and provide a voice for fisheries management in the Keys.
Keogh is dedicated to educating visitors about the fragile Keys ecosystem during guided kayak eco tours in the Lower Keys' Key Deer and White Heron National Wildlife Refuges.
Farmer Jeanne Selander shares her love of animals with inmate caretakers at the Stock Island Detention Center and the public, who can visit the second and fourth Sunday of each month.