People of St. Pete: Lauryn Latimer

Photo by Brian Brakebill

By Tina Stewart Brakebill

St. Pete is celebrated for its fabulous weather, beautiful vistas, world-class food scene, and thriving cultural atmosphere but the people of St. Pete truly make this city something special. In appreciation, each month Green Bench shines a light on one of the many people who make St. Pete unique.

This month we celebrate University of South Florida student and St. Petersburg native Lauryn Latimer.

Finding Her Path

Latimer’s Sunshine City roots were planted by her great grandfather, the Rev. Frank Cubby, who organized the Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in 1940. Her parents were aware that Latimer might face undeserved obstacles because of the color of her skin. Knowing education could play an important role in overcoming those challenges, they sought a spot for her in Pinellas County’s magnet school program. Her successful application and subsequent early education (and good grades) at Bay Point Elementary and Middle magnet schools led her to the Advanced Technologies STEM-based program at Lakewood High School. Her outstanding performance opened college doors, and she worked and applied for scholarships to help finance her college dreams. Now, thanks to financial help from the Woodson Warrior Scholarship Fund and her salary as a licensed pharmacy technician at Publix, she’s on track to finish her undergraduate program in communication science and disorders a year early (spring 2022), then enter a graduate school program for speech pathology.

Giving Back

In addition to time devoted to work, school, and family, Latimer has directed energy toward community involvement. As a first-generation African-American college student who spent years in predominantly white institutions and programs, she understands the challenges of being a minority. While still in high school, Latimer noticed that some of her fellow students and their families lacked basic necessities. In collaboration with another student and a faculty member, she organized a campus food pantry sponsored by Feeding Tampa Bay that is still operating today. She also served as mentor for Campbell Park Elementary School girls and volunteered every week in the children’s play center for patients and their families at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. When she returned to campus in August, she took on a new role as an on-campus housing Resident Advisor (RA).

Looking Forward

As part of her application for the Woodson Warrior Scholarship, she wrote about role models. For Latimer, Georgia politician, voting rights activist and author Stacey Abrams offers an example of persevering “no matter what obstacles are placed in our way.” Like Abrams, she is determined to be a positive role model and demonstrate that even if the “odds are against you, you have to keep fighting for what you believe in.” She wants to help people, especially children, to overcome obstacles. She knows through personal experience and observation that kids don’t always feel as though they are understood. She’s also aware that minority children, in particular, don’t always receive the attention or treatment they deserve or need. Her goal as a speech pathologist is to be a bridge for those children and help them move past that disconnect so they believe, as she does, that “all things are possible.”