Eleven Years Ago, St. Augustine Residents Defeated 7-Eleven at May & San Marcos

 We, the People helped our City of St. Augustine to halt a greedy, Japanese multinational corporation from erecting and inflicting a 7-Eleven store at May & San Marco in our historic downtown. Thanks to local leaders like Mayor Nancy Shaver, Captain Lee Geanoleas (U.S.N., Ret.) and Melinda Rakoncay, we won. Result: There's now a roundabout at that location. Diverse residents united to save our historic downtown from an inappropriate development, I reached out and asked our U.S. Ambassador to Japan, President John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, to help save St. Augustine from greedy corporations. As JFK said in his January 20, 1961 Inaugural Address, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." I fondly remember hearing those evocative words on our record player at age six. As President Lyndon Baines Johnson to our Nation said after Selma in 1965 "And we SHALL overcome!"