Archive for January 2025
Silhouettes profiles Angelique Lenox
January 22, 2025 | 
Author 
Angelique Lenox
By Tiffany Razzano
Published Jan. 17, 2025
Born in the Bronx, Angelique Lenox was raised in a large family in York, Pennsylvania. As a girl, she dreamed of attending Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, D.C., but she knew it would be difficult to find the money for it. “It just didn’t seem like it was adding up for me,” she said.
So, she eventually turned her sights on joining the military after high school graduation. “Education wasn’t cheap and I came from a big family and I knew my family wasn’t going to be able to really pay for that education,” Lenox said. “I had to look at other options and the military seemed like a great way to get that education.”
Initially, she enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, but the process was taking too long for her and she was eager to leave her small town. At the time she signed up, her recruiter told her it would take about a year-and-a-half years until she could leave for boot camp.
Then, one day, she happened to walk by a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter. He told her that if she wanted to leave sooner, he could make that happen for her. Lenox was sold on making the switch when the recruiter took her to see the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon, a 24-person precision drill team. “I was like, ‘Sign me up,’ oh my goodness,” she said. “It was just so impressive and so regal and I just thought, ‘I need to be a part of that.’”
She left for boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina in August 1987. From there, she was assigned to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, also known as 29 Palms and eventually, Camp Pendleton in California. Among her duties were serving in communications support as a radio operator and an embarkation non-commissioned officer.
She was based in San Diego with the marines for five-and-a-half years and lived there for 15 years total.
After leaving the military, Lenox attended San Diego State University, where she studied speed communications. “I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do, I just knew that some form of communication was in my future; but I didn’t have it all figured out,” she said. “I gravitated to things that had to do with people. I liked communicating with people and I always wanted to leave people better off than when I first encountered them.”
Her time in the Marines prepared her well for entering the workforce, she said. “I got my work ethic from the Marine Corps, most definitely, because it taught me dedication. It taught me commitment. It taught me how to focus. It taught me how to dig in. It taught me mission. That work ethic from the military still serves me today.”
Lenox dreamed of being an actress, which also factored into her choosing to serve at Camp Pendleton. “San Diego is one step closer to Hollywood,” she said. She pursued entertainment after leaving the Marines, including community theater, extra work and roles in commercials. “I was even chosen to be in a well-known movie, but I was not able to do it because of some family commitments,” she said.
At the same time, she pursued her career in communications. Her father, a pipefitter, always told her, “Never do anything without a job,” she said. “Make sure you have a job. It’s all great to pursue your goals and dreams, but being a starving artist, I don’t think I could be that. Still, I never gave up on my dreams.”
She worked as a server at a restaurant and as a recruiter for a modeling agency. Lenox went on to work for a small independent news station in San Diego as a camera person on the 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. news programs.
From there, moved into producing news and marketing for KGTV, the local ABC station and started her own production company.
Lenox moved to Florida in July 2001 and continued to work in TV and radio, including MOR-TV in the Tampa Bay area and WESH in the Orlando area. She decided to go back to school in 2016 and earned a master of business administration from Argosy University while working full time for WFLA as a senior multimedia account executive.
After earning her MBA, she wanted to “put it to good use” and accepted a job with Vistra Communications, a marketing and public relations firm, as senior director of business development, a role she started in January 2020.
It was through this position that she got involved with the North Tampa Bay Chamber. Lenox, a member of the executive leadership committee, is in her fifth year serving on the board and earlier this month, started her term as the first Black woman to chair the chamber, a feat she’s incredibly proud of.
“What an honor to be the first Black woman to chair the North Tampa Bay Chamber and to know that I’m opening doors, opening awareness to show that we’re all human, all part of the community and we live our core values,” she said.
During her year leading the chamber, the organization will “stay committed to our core values,” she said. “We focus on collaboration, innovation, inclusivity and integrity. Those are our core values and we want to stay true to those. They’re also important to me.”
She hopes to focus on the entrepreneurial business community by creating a mentorship program for small business owners and start-up companies.
She also wants to get more nonprofit organizations involved with the chamber. Lenox feels that for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations can better support each other and form mutually beneficial relationships.
This interest in area nonprofits led her to discover Tampa Family Health Centers, which serves “the uninsured, the underinsured and the underserved,” she said. She joined the organization’s team as vice president of marketing and new business development in December 2023.
The Tampa Family Health Centers work closely with local businesses, particularly in fields where many workers are uninsured, such as the hospitality industry. “So we support business communities by collaborating with them and educating them about our services,” Lenox said. “A lot of people don’t have insurance. They can come to us as a community health center and receive everything from family practice, senior care, dental services, pediatric care, women’s care. We do it all.”
She added, “We’re federally funded and we don’t turn anyone away.”
Community engagement is also key to her role with the nonprofit. “We try to get out there and let people know about our services, and see how we can collaborate and partner with (other businesses and organizations,)” she said.
The Tampa Family Health Centers has seen continued growth in the community since forming in the early 1980. The health care organization opened its first infusion center at the end of last year. “We’re always looking for how we can better serve the community,” she said.
Lenox is also involved with the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, serving as the first vice president for the Tampa Bay chapter.
She loves being so involved in the community and is proud of her adopted home. “Officially, I’m a Floridian. It’s the longest place I’ve lived now,” she said, adding, “Tampa Bay is home to me.”
Posted in 
Saundra Weathers’ Christmas Memories
Saundra Weathers
“When you work in news that means you have to work holidays. Christmas included. At the beginning of my career, if I was off for a holiday, I would only be off for one day and had to get right back to work the next day,” Saundra Weathers, Bay News 9 reporter said.
Because of her difficult schedule, her mother and sister started a new holiday tradition for the family: traveling Christmas decorations.
They shared a storage bin of Christmas decorations that would go home with the person hosting the holiday gathering the next year.
“This all depended on my work schedule and the holidays I was going to be assigned to the following year. We would add to the décor throughout the year and sometimes change up the theme and colors. They would show up to either a fully decorated tree at my house or I would come to their house, welcomed by a beautiful tree,” Weathers said. “Since I’ve progressed in my career, we each have our own decorations now, so there’s no more traveling Christmas decorations. But it was a beautiful tradition of my family sacrificing for me every year so I could live out my dreams.”
Dec. 20, 2024
Dontrel Hall’s Christmas Memories
Dontrel Hall
One of Dontrel Hall’s earliest Christmas memories is decorating the tree with his parents and brothers – complete with the lights and putting the star on top. Then, “while watching the presents under the tree, (I) eagerly waited for Christmas morning so we could unwrap them together,” the Hillsborough County educator, YMCA staff member and author said.
Another memorable holiday for him was when he played football at Concordia University in Wisconsin. “We made the NCAA playoffs (in) back-to-back seasons and it was always in late November before Thanksgiving, so the games were cold and it was Bowl season for college football,” Hall said.
During his senior year, he played in the All-American Bowl in Minneapolis at the Metrodome, home of the Minnesota Vikings. “This game was in late December and the best players in the region for Division II and Division III competed. The next week I graduated from Concordia … with my bachelors of science in business,” he said.
Dec. 20, 2024
Silhouettes profiles Allison Crume
By Tiffany Razzano
Allison Crume knew how important the access to education was even as a toddler. She credits her parents, who were both educators, for this. Her mother retired as a math teacher after more than 30 years, and her father taught in the school system as well before taking a position with Frito Lay, where he still focused on professional development and training.
“Education has always been a big part of my life,” she said. “When I was little, I would have my mom’s teacher edition books and I’d teach my stuffed animals, making up tests for them and all that stuff. I always understood education should be as accessible as possible.”
After graduating from high school in Warner Robins, Georgia, she went on to earn a bachelor of science in history from Georgia College & State University. She also earned a master’s degree in teaching there.
Crume started her career as a high school teacher in Crawford County, Georgia, where she coached soccer and taught history. “I just really had a great time working with students and started to get interested in what happened after graduation and wanted to learn more about how to support students after high school,” she said.
The school was in a rural area and many of her students “didn’t have as many options.” She began to research various options to share with them. “We were always looking at what are those different pathways, but it wasn’t always clear for the students,” she said.
This is how she decided to pursue her doctorate degree in higher education. When her now husband got a job in Tallahassee, the couple became engaged and she applied to Florida State University, where she earned a Doctor of Philosophy in higher education administration
“I’d always been really working with students not only on academic pursuits but their whole development,” Crume said. But she was also concerned about what they did outside the classroom. “What kind of things were they involved in in the community? Just all the different aspects that could help them be successful.”
At FSU, her dissertation focused on student government as a subculture with a focus on campus engagement and how involvement in the organization could lead to greater success for students. “From there, I became really immersed in higher education” with a primary interest in access and equity, she said.
Crume found that one of the best ways to bring access and equity to more students was through student engagement outside the classroom. Organizations like student government leveled the playing field and engaging with students of other backgrounds allowed them to learn from one another, she found.
After earning her doctorate, she took a position with the Board of Governors, State University System of Florida. She worked with the Division of Academic & Student Affairs doing “the same kind of work I was doing in the classroom,” she said, “just different policies and practices that impacted all public universities across Florida.”
One of her main focuses was on the K-20 initiative, which looked “at students right as they’re coming into VPK all the way through graduation from college,” Crume said.
She also served on the State of Florida College Reach-Out Program Advisory Council, a program for low-income and educationally disadvantaged students.
In 2006, she took a position at FSU as assistant director, later becoming associate director, of the Oglesby Student Union, where she focused on identifying opportunities for campus engagement and ways to connect with students. These initiatives were across various departments, including health and wellness, counseling and mental health, housing, and activities.
During her 15 years at FSU, she held various roles, including director of research and programs, assistant vice president and associate vice president for student affairs, interim director of university housing and childcare. No matter the role, they each were “vehicles for providing access and equity for student success,” she said.
A new opportunity came across Crume’s path during the COVID-19 pandemic and she joined the University of South Florida in Tampa as dean of undergraduate studies and associate vice president for student success in August 2020. “What was so exciting about this … was that it brings together that academic focus and support and student services,” she said. “We’re looking at the whole student. I work with all academic colleges to provide that to students.”
The move to USF was “a full circle” for her, she added. “Even when I think about my work as a high school teacher, talking to students and working with them to identify what their needs are and how to improve supporting faculty and supporting the overall university in a welcoming and positive way (that) allows for that space for success.”
The position taps into her true passion for working closely with students. “The other night I was at a late night breakfast hanging out with students,” Crume said. “And the cycle of a semester is just so exciting and helping them achieve their goals and to be a small part of that and being part of commencement (the) next week. It’s very fulfilling.”
Though she joined the university at the height of the pandemic, the transition was easy as USF “had a strong system in place for collaboration.”
“In some ways, it was a little easier to onboard,” she added. “Meetings were happening and everybody was at the table … (to) solve new ways of doing things. I was thrown into a really collaborative group of people who were all working for the same goals in a student-centered way.”
There are several recent initiatives at USF that she’s especially proud of. The university, long known for its support of veterans, was just named as a Purple Star Campus, a state designation for its support of military families. The university has nearly 1,400 student veterans, one of the largest populations for a state university in Florida.
To earn this designation, USF has named a military liaison, has a student-led program to help veterans with their transition at the university, offers professional development training opportunities on how to better serve military students to staff members, and provides web resources and priority course registration for student veterans.
USF has also been recently designated as a First Generation Campus, a national designation. “We worked hard to get that,” Crume said. The university offers programming, support and resources for first-generation students attending college. It also provides a “space for people to come together and celebrate being first generation,” she added.
The university helps to make the transition for first-generation students a little bit easier. For instance, when applying to and attending college, “certain language” and acronyms they might not be familiar with is used. “We break it down and talk about it. We demystify a lot of those things,” she said. “It’s not basic knowledge for everyone.”
The university also recently opened a new Transfer Center, which focuses on transfer student success. “We have a large population of transfer students at USF and many commuter students, and we didn’t have a dedicated space for them,” Crume said.
Outside USF, she’s also involved in the community, especially in areas that involve her family. She and her husband have three children, one a freshman at USF and the other two attending Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel.
The family attends St. Mark the Evangelist Church, where her kids participated in the youth group and Boy Scout Troop 148. She’s been involved with the scouting group, as well as the marching band at the high school.
Crume also serves as a member of the New Tampa YMCA Board and the Pasco Education Foundation Board, which provides support to K-12 schools and teachers in Pasco County.
Much of her community work intentionally involves students and education, as it relates to her work and her greatest passion. “I want to give back and invest in students, who are our future,” she said.
