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That's me at my first book signing on June 13, 2026, at Barnes & Noble, in Pensacola, Florida.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

“In the Land of the He-Coon, Blue Angels and Saint Bobby” is a new book about people, places and events that have shaped the modern Florida Panhandle

GULF BREEZE, Florida (April 28, 2026) – Why was Bob Sikes called the He-Coon? What is it like to fly a Blue Angels jet? How did Saint Bobby win his halo?A new book from Palmetto Press answers those and more questions about people, places and events that transformed the Florida Panhandle from a rural backwater into a player on the national and world stages. “In the Land of the He-Coon, Blue Angels and Saint Bobby: Reporting from the Florida Panhandle” was written by retired Associated Press correspondent Bill Kaczor. It is based on reporting by him and other journalists over the past half-century with some flashbacks to earlier times. The once overlooked Panhandle has doubled in that span to 1.7 million residents, more than 11 states and the District of Columbia.

The He-Coon, Congressman Bob Sikes, was instrumental in expanding or creating eight military bases that are pillars of the Panhandle’s economy. They include Pensacola Naval Air Station, which hosts the Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron that thrills millions every year, and Eglin Air Force Base, the nation’s largest. The Panhandle also has made its mark in sports, no one more so than “Saint Bobby” Bowden, who coached Florida State University, a former women’s college, to two of its three national football championships.The 607 pages feature an array of colorful, famous and infamous personalities such as Nobel laureate Paul Dirac, boxing champ Roy Jones Jr., sports Hall of Famers Don Sutton, Emmitt Smith and Derrick Brooks, talk show host Joe Scarborough and serial killer Ted Bundy. Then there’s the Red Barron and his pal, the Banty Rooster; the Blue Wahoos and Blue Ghost; as well as the original Black Panther, the Black Widow and America’s Black attorney general. Others are Reubin the Good, Florida’s Atticus Finch, Trader Jon, Captain Supreme, Pensacola’s Renaissance Man, the “father” of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and Geronimo. You’ll also meet Bubba, Buck, Bo, two Boos (a golfer and a murderer), Boss Hog and Bozo. There are visits to the Miracle Strip, Redneck Riviera, Gay Riviera, Florida’s Big Bend and the Hamptons of the South as well as the Emerald, Nature and Forgotten coasts. Historic events include the 2000 presidential election recount, multiple hurricanes, a devastating oil spill, anti-abortion bombings and murders plus other sensational crimes, wars and battles of the past and present. There also are archaeological discoveries, racial protests and a Panhandle duo’s legislative sneak attack that gave the state a $13 billion windfall.

The Air Force sent Kaczor from Chicago to Eglin in 1970. He has a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Illinois University and a master’s from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Kaczor (Kay-zor) began reporting from the Panhandle with the Playground (now Northwest Florida) Daily News and then the Pensacola News Journal and Gannett News Service’s Tallahassee bureau. He joined AP at Tallahassee in 1980 and became the news service’s Pensacola correspondent in 1984. He retired in 2013 and lives with wife Judy in Gulf Breeze. “In the Land of the He-Coon, Blue Angels and Saint Bobby” is available in hardcover, paperback and e-book versions.

Bill Kaczor

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