When I was a child, I had the good fortune of
growing up on the Indian River.
It was the playground of my childhood. My
best times were spent on the river, whether it was fishing,
motor boating, skiing or, my favorite, sailing. Back
then we called it the Indian River or simply “the river.”
Today, it is commonly referred to as the Indian River
Lagoon, a term scientists began to use several decades
ago to more aptly describe it as a largely enclosed waterway
more like a lake instead of a free-flowing river
with headwaters. Old habits die hard, so forgive me if
I continue to refer to this grand waterway as the Indian
River or “the river.”
At about the age of 12, some of my siblings and I
found a shrimp net on the river bank. The net was
hand-made, with a square of hardware cloth framed
by 2-by-4s and a longer 2-by-4 running up the middle
and about 3 feet above the frame.
We’d push the net through the sea grass and caught shrimp, ostensibly for fishing, but we’d also
learn about the incredible marine life the river held. Only as an adult did I learn that the waterway
I was dredging my net through was North America’s most diverse estuary.
We’d catch pipe fish, baby sheepshead, stone crabs, horseshoe crabs, sea horses and a small baitfish
we called pogies, all of which we would turn back unless we could use it for bait. Our success
prompted me to begin to hold some of the marine life in a small 10-gallon aquarium.
I would also cast net for mullet and found a spot in the river where a freshwater stream flowed
and caught baby snook. Not knowing it was illegal to hold them, I put a few in my aquarium. It
was incredible to watch the snook gobble up the shrimp when dropped in the aquarium.
When my seventh-grade science fair rolled around, I put the aquarium on exhibit in our school
auditorium and created a poster showing the marine food web I witnessed in the river. I put the
snook at the top of the web.
But there was a problem.
About a day after the fair began, a schoolmate told me that a game officer was looking for me. He
said the officer told him holding the baby snook was illegal. The game officer, apparently a parent
visiting the fair, never caught up with me, but the snook quickly went back in the river. Nevertheless,
I was one of the fair winners and went on to the district competition in West Palm Beach.
At about the same time my dubious but brief life in marine research played out, a few miles up
the river, an actual marine biology concern was sprouting that would become the Harbor Branch
Oceanographic Institute.
While initially founded as a research group, it gained an additional mission as an education
institution in 2007 when it came under the umbrella of Florida Atlantic University. That same year,
Harbor Branch partnered with the St. Lucie County School Board to create the Marine and Oceanographic
Academy, a school to improve scientific literacy of high school students.
Which brings us to our cover.
For each issue of Indian River Magazine we produce, we consider many photographs. When the
decision was made to focus on Harbor Branch for the cover, we looked through hundreds of photos
in their archive and ours and assigned some current photos of our own.
In the end, we decided on the photo of former FAU student Amanda Alker diving into a sea of
crevalle jacks in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary off Texas and Louisiana on
behalf of Harbor Branch during a federally funded research expedition. Alker had grown up in
Jensen Beach and was a student in FAU’s Wilkes Honors College. After graduating from FAU, she
received a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship and today is nearing completion of
her Ph.D. at San Diego State University.
Alker, who lived near the Indian River growing up, says her interest in marine biology started
during a summer camp in elementary school at which she learned about the effects of freshwater
discharge from Lake Okeechobee on the river. Later, at FAU, her research focused on the effects
of freshwater discharge on the St. Lucie Reef, the most northern tropical reef documented on the
Florida Reef Tract.
“Ms. Alker epitomizes how FAU undergraduates can become involved in marine research
through Harbor Branch and use that experience and relationships here to launch their scientific
careers,” said Joshua Voss, Ph.D., who oversaw Alker’s work as a researcher in his lab from 2013 to
2016. “Students of her caliber drive innovation, exploration and research success at FAU.”
Not every student who comes through Harbor Branch becomes
an Amanda Alker, but the exposure for anyone who comes
through the institution’s doors undoubtedly fosters a love for the
Indian River and a respect for the global marine environment. For
me, the interaction with the Indian River prompted me 15 years
ago to name a magazine after it.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Publisher & Editor
Gregory Enns
772.940.9005
enns@indianrivermag.com
Associate Publisher
Allen Osteen
Associate Publisher
Kim Capen
Assistant to the Publisher
Lauren Shott
Design Editor
Michelle Moore-Burney
Associate Editor
Judith Collins
Copy Editors
Pattie Durham, Gaettane A. Paul
Writers
Susan Burgess, Donna Crary,
Rick Crary, Rachel Cuccurullo,
Pattie Durham, Kerry Firth,
Ellen Gillette, Janie Gould,
Catherine Enns Grigas, Mary Ann
Ketcham, Fred Mays,
Danielle Rose, Anthony Westbury,
Bernie Woodall,
Suzanne Dannahower
Cover Photo
Joshua Voss, Ph.D
Photographers
Robert Adams, Rob Downey
Rusty Durham, Jason Hook,
Anthony Inswasty
Advertising Representatives
Sunny Gates
772.204.5043
sunny@indianrivermag.com
Ellen Contreras
772.925.4557
ellen@indianrivermag.com
Distribution
Wes Holloway, Kirk Jones
To Reach Our Office
772.466.3346 or office@
indianrivermag.com
Our Motto
‘We fly our own mission’
— Ed Drondoski, Founding
Photographer
To Subscribe
Visit IndianRiverStore.com
or send $20 check with
recipient’s mailing address to
Indian River, 308 Ave. A,
Fort Pierce, FL 34950
All address changes must be made
in writing to the above address or by
e-mailing subscribe@indianrivermag.com
On the Web
www.indianrivermagazine.com
Indian River Magazine is published by
the Indian River Media Group, a locally
owned company based at 308 Ave. A
in Fort Pierce, FL 34950. Indian River
magazine publishes five times a year:
early October, late November, mid-
January, early March and early May. All
material contained herein is copyrighted
by the Indian River Media Group.
‘The river’ flows on, continuing its teaching ways
Amanda Alker, who grew up near the Indian River
and studied at FAU Harbor Branch, is now a doctoral
student at San Diego State University. She is the diver
seen in this issue’s cover of Indian River Magazine.
8
Signatures:Signatures 2/25/13 4:25 PM Page Reach Publisher Gregory Enns at
enns@indianrivermag.com or 772.940.9005
/www.indianriverstore.com
/www.indianrivermagazine.com
/indianrivermag.com
/IndianRiverStore.com
/www.indianrivermagazine.com
link
link
link
link
link
