John deGroot's end game sits on three legs:
   (1) To play with stuff you won't find in the local media.
   (2) To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
   (3) It takes a narcissists to raise a stink.
   Those looking for his Rosebud are urged to consider John's Quaker childhood where he was shamelessly brain-washed by well-meaning idealists who convinced him things should be better.

   During his working days, deGroot wrote for a number of newspapers including the Akron Beacon Journal, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Bulletin and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

   His happiest times were with the Philadelphia Bulletin during the Golden Age of American Journalism in the 1970’s – while his worst times were spent with the Sun-Sentinel in the 1990's after the newspaper chose to put the needs of its stockholders ahead of its readers as a corporate cash cow for the Chicago Tribune (TR.
   As a journalist, deGroot covered major news stories ranging from the War-Without-End in Israel, to earthquakes in Peru, Mother Teresa in Scranton and murder-by-police in Philadelphia.

   Other high points in his life include:

    -    Conducting day-long seminars on storytelling for groups of working journalists
     throughout the United States and Northern Europe.
-    Creating “Papa,” a one-man play about Ernest Hemingway which ran for six months in   
     New York on 42^nd Street and was read by James Earl Jones to commemorate
     Hemingway’s 100^th birthday at the Smithsonian Institute.
-    Serving as a writer-in-residence at Boise State University.
-    His marriage to the former Donna Foxworthy.
-     Being grandfather to the amazing Jack Williams, the one and only son of the equally 
      Jordanna and Rob Williams.
-     His many years with Friends of Bill.
-     Collecting signed first editions.
-     Being uncle to  the amazing Annamarie Orsi.
-     Playing a key role in former Florida Attorney General Robert

      Butterworth’s successful court battle to prevent the closing of St.

      Mary’s Medical Center, the second oldest and only safety net hospital

      serving low income residents in Palm Beach County. 
      -    His exclusive coverage of the Ohio Governor’s key role in shooting deaths of four
           students at Kent State University in 1970, which became part of the breaking news 
           package that resulted in a Pulitzer Prize for the Akron Beacon Journal.
   

   At 72, deGroot believes South Florida's best days lie ahead -- as the rising seas spawned by global warming turn today's hi rise and parking lot infested wasteland into the submerged ruins of a 22nd Century Atlantis fit for the fishes.
   If money's wasted on his tombstone, John would like it to read: "Devoted to Hope and Hoot."

 You can email John at – johndegroot@live.com