If you put together all the cups of coffee and pieces
of cake that Len Jadrych has served to the flotilla, they would probably reach
from Clam Pass to Matanzas Pass.
Len is king of the kitchen, a job he took over years
ago because, he said, “no one else was doing it.” He makes sure that all the supplies are ready
and available for flotilla meetings and public education classes, and that he
is there to dispense them.
It’s a far cry from the successful printing business
he owned and operated for 25 years in Cleveland. Len’s biggest customers there were baseball
teams and racetracks, where he printed daily programs in the basement before
computers revolutionized the printing business.
His racetrack connections earned him free trips to Las Vegas, where he
hobnobbed with the rich and famous.
In his younger days, Len graduated from high school
and spent two years on a scholarship at the Cleveland Institute of Art. He learned the printing business by working
for his brother. He joined the Army
Reserves for six years in 1959 and was a musician in the Army Band. He married Natalie in 1963 and they moved to
Florida full-time in 2006. A few years
ago he won a jaw-dropping jackpot at the Seminole Casino. Today he says he’s “living happily ever after,”
and Flotilla 96 feels lucky to be a part of it.
