Hannibal Square Historian Honored

Fairolyn Livingston Receives Cheney Award from Central FL Historical Society

November 5 was a great day for Winter Park when the Historical Society of Central Florida bestowed the 2019 Cheney Award on Fairolyn Livingston, Chief Historian at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center.

The Cheney Award is named for Judge Donald A. Cheney (1889 – 1983) who founded the Orange County Historical Society and the Orange County Historical Museum, predecessors of the current Historical Society and the Orange County Regional History Center. History Center Spokesperson Amanda Henry explained that The Cheney Award was created, “to recognize and honor those who have not chosen between the past and the future – but who understand the two are inseparable.”

“The award,” said Henry, “reminds us all of our champions of the Central Florida community who embody a love, reverence and unfailing dedication for our area’s history.”

Past Cheney Award recipients include the Orlando Sentinel’s Joy Wallace Dickinson (2013), Joseph Wittenstein of Rollins (2017) and James W. “Chief” Wilson (2018).

Fairolyn was honored for her work as Chief Historian at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center, where she has used her extensive research to enhance the permanent collection there. She has conducted interviews and written text for numerous exhibits, including the Center’s unique timeline installation, which juxtaposes significant events in local and national African American history.

She is a founding member of the team of documentarians, scholars and residents who in 2002  established the award winning show, The Heritage Collection: Photographs and Oral Histories of West Winter Park. This museum-quality documentary about the residents and history of Hannibal Square has been on permanent display since 2007, when the Heritage Center was established.

Fairolyn now devotes her time to the ongoing expansion of the Hannibal Square Heritage Center’s permanent collection, which includes “The Heritage Collection Phase IX: Hannibal Square Heroes (2017) and two phases of “The Sage Project: Hannibal Square Elders Tell Their Stories.”

The Cheney Award is only the latest in Fairolyn’s list of honors. She has received numerous awards and has shared the Hannibal Square community’s vibrant history with audiences across the state. In 2018, Winter Park Magazine recognized Fairolyn as one of Winter Park’s “Most Influential Citizens” for her contributions to understanding and preserving Central Florida’s history.

“Fairolyn Livingston’s invaluable research and outreach work have filled in many once-overlooked and under-appreciated chapters about a vital, important community centered around Hannibal Square in Winter Park,” said Orange County Historical Society Executive Director Michael Perkins. “We’re honored to present her with this award for her many contributions.”

 

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    By: Anne Mooney

    Anne Mooney has assumed the editorship of the Winter Park Voice from founding editor Tom Childers.

    Mooney got her start in New York as a freelance line editor for book publishers, among them Simon & Schuster and the Clarkson Potter division of Crown Books. From New York, she and her husband and their year-old toddler moved to Washington, D.C., where the two ran a newswire service for Harper’s magazine. “We called it Network News,” said Mooney, “because it was a network of the Harper’s writers, whose work we edited into newspaper style and format and sold to papers in the top U.S. and Canadian markets. We were sort of like a tiny UPI.”

    The newswire ceased operation with the death of Mooney’s first husband, but Mooney continued to write and edit, doing freelance work for Williams Sonoma cookbooks and for local publications in D.C.

    In 2005, Mooney moved to Winter Park, where she worked as a personal chef and wrote a regular food column for a south Florida magazine. She took an active interest in Winter Park politics and was there when the Winter Park Voice was founded. She wrote occasional pieces for the Voice, including the Childers bio that this piece replaces.

    The Winter Park Voice is one of a large number of “hyper-local” publications that have sprung up across the U.S. in response to the decline of the major daily newspapers and the resulting deficit of local news coverage. The Voice’sbeat is Winter Park City Hall, and its purpose is to help the residents of our city better understand the political forces that shape our daily lives.

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