FRANK STANFIELD,
A 30-YEAR NEWSPAPER VETERAN, HAS HAD TO
COVER A VARIETY OF STORIES IN HIS CAREER. FOR STANFIELD, THE ONES THAT BOTHER HIM THE MOST INVOLVE CHILDREN AND ANIMALS. “THEY ARE SO HELPLESS,” STANFIELD SAYS. “THEY EXPECT US [ADULTS] TO HELP THEM. YOU HAVE TO BE COMPOSED AND TELL THE STORY. THAT’S YOUR DUTY.”
Stanfield, 64,
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released Vampires, Gators and Wackos: A Newspaperman’s Life in October. He talks about “tons of cases” he’s reported on throughout his self-published, 461-page non-fiction work. “Look what I’ve done for all these years. This is why I did it. This is what I saw, and this is how I feel about it,” he says of his career. “It’s been interesting to say this in a book.” Stanfield, a Leesburg resident since 1980, spent most of his professional life in Central Florida—three years with the Daily Commercial, 15
with the Orlando Sentinel and five with the Ocala Star-Banner. Some of the cases covered in the book include the missing millionaire while at the Commercial and the carjacking incident that left Dorothy Lewis, who had been raped, fighting for her life and her two daughters, Jasmine, 3, and Jamilya, 7, dead while at the Sentinel. The latter story stayed with him. It took him two years to write Unbroken: The Dorothy Lewis Story. It was his first book, which came out in 2011 through Kingstone Media Group, a small Christian publishing house in Leesburg.
PHOTO BY BONNIE WICHLER PHOTOGRAPHY