Gulf winds blow through canopy roads all the way to Thomasville.

The native names written on the land echo through the red clay hills.

Where the scent of long leaf Florida pines reach up on past that Georgia line.

Stroll through Tallahassee town or southern Apalachee bound.

Take the local routes and journey down the roads we call our home.

Take the local routes and journey down the roads we call our home.

Welcome to Local Routes.

I'm Suzanne Smith with WFSU Public Media.

And today I'm at Cascades Park in Tallahassee.

History tells us that at this location, there was once a natural waterfall that helped inspire two men to choose this as the location for the territorial capital of Florida.

2024 marks 200 years since that decision was made, and events and activities are already being planned to celebrate this bicentennial year.

One of the first events is being put together by Theater With A Mission.

WFSU's Mike Plummer brings us their story.

Tallahassee has a birthday coming up and local theater troupe.

Theater with a mission has big plans to commemorate the event.

We█re a troupe of actors, performers, researchers, community activists who really enjoy seeing how history connects to today.

The cast of historical actors is highlighting the series transition from Spanish Florida to Florida's territorial capital with a series of public performances.

In 1823, commissioners set out from Saint Augustine, Dr. William Simmons, and from Pensacola, John Lee Williams, to find a place for a new capital.

History and historians write dow magnificent facets of the life from the past.

But we get to go in and create the context and context makes things so rich.

Theater with the mission is performative.

Yeah, it's performative.

They put on historical reenactments.

They put on historical pageants and so forth, but it's also ritualistic.

Here's an idea.

Yes.

aunt Rachel, let's.

Start our story with the change of flags.

The Spanish style here descended a half mast.

Stars and stripes rising to meet it has Florida becoming U.S. territory.

That's where this habeas corpus fracus really begins.

More right here.

Ladies and gentlemen, damas y caballeros Mesdames et Messieurs Floridamos and lovers of liberty everywhere.

One of the things that Ben does, and I think it's very important, is that he is that he reenacts those rituals, whether it be the ritual of a territorial ball, for example, which was one of the things he was going to do, whether it be the ritual of the Spanish dance, which he has done, whether it be the ritual of reenacting the territorial legislative debates, which he is going to do, even even if you're a historian of the old South, the ritual of killing each other in the duel, you know, where there were very specific rules involved.

You didn't just you didn't just, you know, start shooting.

You had to you had to follow certain societal rules.

And if you didn't, you were essentially banished from essentially banished from the community.

And that's what Ben reminds us of.

I mean, he's fun.

I mean, the stuff that he does is fun and it's entertaining, but it's also very important in reminding us of of of the ritualistic aspects of creating a community from the wilderness.

2021 gave us the bicentennial of Florida becoming U.S. territory.

So we started investigating stories that connect people to history there, too.

And we found some wonderful ones.

Most recently, we've been dramatizing the run in that Governor Andrew Jackson had with the outgoing Spanish governor in Pensacola, Jose Maria Cavour, Because liberty is the legitimacy of law, and liberty governs Florida now.

Ha ha ha.

And that brings us to Williams, Simmons and the beginning of Tallahassee.

Their instructions were to come find a territorial capital that's midway between Pensacola and Saint Augustine.

So we don't have to travel, you know, over the state, you know, half all the way across the state every other year and so forth.

We're trying to dramatically reconstruct historical events.

And that does give us a framework.

It does give us some artistic restraints.

So it also sets us up to imagine very specific things.

Williams came by water and and came, you know, right in the middle of hurricane season and apparently got shipwrecked on Saint George Island, from what I understand.

And Simmons came came by horseback from Saint Augustine.

And from our reading of the chronicles John Lee Williams's journal he was not a very forth thinking kind of man.

He was not tremendously organized.

He's leaving from Pensacola, which has been a major port for years and years and years, centuries by that time.

And he says in his journal, I didn't have any charts, any nautical charts with me because there just weren't available in Pensacola.

So here is where 1823 Pensacola meets 1632 Spain, and we take la capiadora and make it into the cape snatcher or dressing for success.

So our reading of that is John Lee Williams was a party boy.

And so.

He was charming.

The ladies all loved him and he was too busy having parties saying, I'm about to go.

Won't see you for a while.

Must, must have a party.

He was too busy with his send off to prepare himself for the journey.

And so, you know, it's interesting.

I mean, we're sitting there doing this in Myers Park, and they came here under the under the orders of the then territorial governor, William P Duvall.

And of course, when they got here and decided on this place.

Why why do we get Williamson summons and why did we not get somebody else?

They were commissioned to write journals.

They wrote the journals, the journals got published.

The journals are the official record.

Look for public performances by theater with a mission now through 2024 and Happy 200th birthday, Tallahassee.

For WFSU Public Media, I'm Mike Plummer.

More bicentennial events More bicentennial events can be found at Tallahassee Leon County 200.com.

History can be found anywhere, but sometimes that story is lost in the passing of time.

Take the VA Health Center here in Tallahassee.

It's named after a man from Jeff County and for a very special re Explore more stories about our local history by checking out WFSU.org/localroutes.

In this next story, WFSU ecology producer Rob Diaz de VIillegas takes us into the Flor wetlands after dark.

Camera in hand, he takes us on a search for a special marsh creature known as the Firebird.

Rob Diaz de Villegas: Tall Timbe Research Station is out here ton dragging milk jugs to get the salt marsh to reveal its secrets Heather Levy: Black rails are co be the most secretive bird in No Yellow rails are considered to b most secretive bird in North Ame this is all work done by NOAA Re Science funded project nicknamed Rob Diaz de Villegas: Little is black and yellow rails, and thei is disappearing.

These researche working to learn about these mar their relationship to fire, and they need to survive rising seas Heather Levy: Yeah.

30 minutes a figured Rob wanted to get some p You want to say anything on the Heather Levy: We are at a site i Florida, and normally this area grasses like Spartina patens and with lots of Juncus, or black ne really, really good habitat for yellow rails.

As you can see, th a couple of centimeters tall rig because they just burned this ar Rob Diaz de Villegas: The fire moves slowly, giving birds a chance to get away.

Heather Levy: So in an area like this, there are a sort of low ly wet areas and higher areas.

And the low lying wet areas do not b And the birds have time to crawl out and fly to adjacent marshes.

rare that we're going to walk ar area like this and find bird car They've evolved in this area.

Th when a fire is coming and they'l to adjacent marshes.

And then on habitat becomes suitable again a vegetation grows back, they'll just come right back into it.

Rob Diaz de Villegas: Even noctu have time to wake up and find a Fire keeps woody shrubs in check maintaining a grassy environment for rails.

Rails, like quail, ar Heather Levy: The NOAA Firebird place all along the Gulf Coast, Texas to Florida.

And our team i covering the Florida section.

So parts of the Panhandle and in Bi Rob Diaz de Villegas: The marsh is already green and g of weeks later,.

Within a couple the grass will be tall enough to shelter the secretive rails.

In the meantime, Heather's team the road to another marsh site w had previously found black rails black rail captured in a previou Heather Levy: Black rails were l federally threatened in October and there's really not a lot kno them.

Black rails are considered most secretive bird in North Ame good reason.

They kind of act li they're pretty reluctant to fly, very dense vegetation that can b for researchers and field person access, and they don't vocalize Yellow rails are considered to b most secretive bird in North Ame they're also very challenging to And because they're here in the they're not vocalizing very freq Rob Diaz de Villegas:Black and yellow rails live just off the coast in what is known a Heather Levy: So the high marsh that doesn't get totally inundat basis like your low marsh does.

small birds.

They're not very go And so this is an example of a c centimeters of water that would good foraging habitat, but surro kind of by this higher and drier Everywhere you see a little hook here, you can attach a bottle on What we do in the winter time to find these birds is we conduct dragline surveys in which we tak 15 meter line with bottles conne And these bottles have cat toys, so they make a lot of noise.

And we walk transects up and down habitats to flush these birds.

Rob Diaz de Villegas: 20 minutes in, they find something.

Jim Cox: Virginia rail.

Heather Levy: Oh cool!

Pretty.

Rob Diaz de Villegas: Not one of their study birds, the Virginia trail is slightly l and a little larger than the bla Heather Levy: There are lots of of just zeros, of no data where or see birds.

But then every tim a really novel and unique observ Rob Diaz de Villegas: And then f Heather Levy: It's so cool.

We found a yellow rail.

In this particula this is the first yellow rail we and this is our third visit this we dragged this area three times Rob Diaz de Villegas: They take and ban the bird.

If the bird is a researcher can read its band and find something out about its life history while adding ne Heather Levy:The whole crux of t really looking at fire.

It's a l results, but what we're kind of most high marshes, it's somewher five years seems to produce opti black rails and yellow rails.

So this cool trick.

So nice way to get them acclimated to not being She's already doing this.

Rob Diaz de Villegas: Aside from the regular burning , here benefit from an extensive h Heather Levy: We're really, real panhandle here that we have a re coastline, meaning we have thous thousands of acres of really nic marsh habitat and that is great rails and yellow rails.

It's bee really amazing to be part of thi kind of learning things from fro Rob Diaz de Villegas: For WFSU, I'm Rob Diaz de Villegas.

To learn more about birds and fire ecology in Florida, go to WFSU's Ecology blog.

During the era of quail plantati November was the time of year when Northerners would come down to the south Geo Florida area to enjoy hunting and warmer weat One of those families, the Maclay's, also spent their t creating some amazing gardens.

We can still enjoy them today at Maclay Gardens State Park.

Learn more about the Maclay's and the history of the property by going to WFSU.org/localroutes.

The Leon County School District recently held a special event for high school students who are trying to figure out what kind of careers to pursue after they graduate.

It was called the North Florida Worldsof Work.

and it was held on the campuses and Tallahassee Community Colleg Thousands of students attended the two day event.

All the activities were designed provide fun and hands-on experiences in hundreds of diffe careers including technology construction, health care, public safety and more.

WFSU Public Media is also helping teenagers figure out their future.

For years, we've been part of the American Graduate Project, which initially started out helping students stay on track to earn their high school diplomas.

Now it's expanded to help them figure out career pathways after they graduate.

Here's more about American graduate, Jobs explained What's up?

I am me.

The me is here to help you.

This is Jhori Stallworth.

And she's WFSU's social media specialist, working specifically on the American Graduate Jobs Explained project.

So it's a program almost like an initiative that is supposed to bring aid to Gen Z students, high schoolers.

Listen up.

Lend me your ear.

Are you interested in anything like being a vet tech?

It's our station and nine other stations that are partnered up doing this initiative, and each station was assigned a career path.

So we have anything from transportation to green jobs to aerospace.

And WFSU has health care.

Hey, yo.

Hey.

Welcome to the day in the life of a traveling nurse.

We have two hospitals.

We have three colleges that really focus on medical fields like nursing and health care management and things of that nature.

So we found it best to target that career path and we be able to provide the most resources.

We use Instagram and other stations to use Instagram and TikTok to provide different videos, reels about their particular field.

So we do comical.

I use the comedy route for my content.

I love it.

I mean, I'm so passionate about it and it's what I do.

What's happening?

And we do comical things, informational graphics, pictures, interviews.

We talk to different students.

I got my bachelor's first at Florida A & M as well as my dental assistant certifications through a ten week program.

But there's also programs that are longer or I started here, I was actually working in higher education.

I was a dual enrollment coordinator for Florida A&M.

So many kids, especially with COVID, it's just it's been a lot lost in translation for this new generation.

And I feel like being able to reach them where they're at and tell them how to get into the future that they want and that it is possible.

That's why I enjoy the job and I feel like other people getting behind it would make this initiative huge.

It should be in every school.

Every kid should know about it.

It should be a tool for all students outside of the guidance counselor.

Hey, guys, we're here and we're out of work.

And I'm here with.

In addition to videos on Instagram, Jhori heads out to events like World of Work at TCC, where she can share her own work in technology, in social media, as well as help kids learn about health care careers.

She learned a thing or two as well.

First of all, it was so cool because it had a ton of different stations and activities across the the area, which I thought was awesome.

I became an OBGYN.

I learned how a baby comes out.

I got to deliver a baby.

I got to be a surgeon and use this sort of technology where it's like a robot that you hook your hands in and it can grab the smallest amount of things and do very detailed work.

Follow your health care videos on Instagram at Health Care Jobs underscore, explained, and discover the other career fields by headi In this week's Spotlight, we focus on the local music group called Soul Candy.

Woooo it's not my place to ask.

But how was I to learn why did you hurt why did you hurt hurt me Because when I feel I feel deep, it's no big deal to But it is to me.

And when I love I give my whole soul.

That's not enough for you.

That's not enough for you.

That's not enough for you.

But it's so love me.

It's all of me.

Yeah.

it's not my place to ask.

but how was I to learn why did you hurt why did you hurt why did you hurt... hurt me.

I gave you all my love.

And now there's nothing left ove that you depend on me.

But all you did was waste my time and energy.

Give me back those hours spent on the phone.

Should have known I do better on my own.

and my temperature is rising each day and I .. ooooooh The temperature just stays the s the same.

[music] It's not my place to ask.

but how was I to learn why did you hurt why did you hurt... hurt me.

hurt me.

Wooooooo Hurt me.

You can learn more about Soul Candy and hear more of their mus on our WFSU YouTube channel under our Spotlight playlist and on our WFSU local routes web That's it for this episode of Local Routes You can find these stories and m on our website, WFSU.org/localro And while you're online, follow us on Facebook and Instag Plus, don't forget to sign up for our community calendar newsl delivered weekly to your email.

It is a great way to stay on top happening in person and in the virtual world.

I'm Suzanne Smith for everyone at WFSU Publi Thanks for watching.

Have a great week, everyone.

Magnolia trees greet the Southern breeze in the land where rivers wind.

Seeds that spring up from the pa leave us treasures yet to find where our children play.

Along the land our fathers built with honest ha Take a moment now look around th we have found.

Take the local routes and journe down the roads we call our home.