By Matthew Cimitile, University Communications and Marketing
Two books by USF St. Petersburg faculty members were awarded top honors by the Florida Book Awards, the nation’s most comprehensive statewide book awards program
“Florida Springs: From Geography to Politics and Restoration” by Geography Professor Chris Meindl won gold in the Florida nonfiction category, while “John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community” by historian and Professor Emeritus Raymond Arsenault received gold in the general nonfiction category.
The works were chosen among 190 entries across 11 different categories.
“To be awarded gold for Florida nonfiction is such an honor, but it is also a testament to the teamwork and cooperation of so many people who helped me and contributed expertise. Their fingerprints are all over this book and they should feel every bit as proud as I do,” said Meindl, who is also the director of USF’s Florida Studies Program.
Geography Professor Chris Meindl
Established in 2006, the annual Florida Book Awards celebrates literature by Florida authors as well as books about Florida. It is coordinated by Florida State University Libraries, with the involvement of other library, literary and cultural organizations across the state.
“Florida Springs” chronicles the unique geology, centuries of history and the current state of springs in the sunshine state. Florida is home to one of the largest concentrations of freshwater springs on the planet. More than 1,000 springs - openings in the ground where water from an underground aquifer bubbles up to the surface - dot the state’s landscape.
Meindl was motivated to write the book because of how these natural wonders have inspired art, health treatments, roadside attractions and emotional debates over how best to utilize and protect them.
“A lot of people flock to these springs year-round, for the same reasons people have been going for hundreds of years: they are beautiful places and when it’s hot, it’s the ideal place to cool down,” Meindl said. “But that attraction also has an impact on the resource itself, affecting water quality and vegetation.”
Historian Raymond Arsenault
Arsenault’s biography on the civil rights icon John Lewis traces his upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism as a Freedom Rider and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, his championing of voting rights and decades of service as the “conscience of Congress.” It was the first book-length biography on Lewis, who Arsenault got to know personally while writing a history on the Freedom Riders.
“He was beaten more than 40 times, and he was arrested more than 40 times. As I say in the book, he was the one civil rights leader where you would expect to see him with a bandage on his head,” Arsenault said during an interview with WUSF last year.
Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History Emeritus at USF St. Petersburg and the author of several award-winning books on civil rights history.
Recipients of the Florida Book Awards will be recognized at the Abitz Family Dinner, held in Tallahassee on April 3, 2025.