Avery Speagle was born in the small town of Flowery Branch, Georgia with a population of nearly 1,000 people.
Growing up, Speagle was challenged with a constant change of scenery due to his father’s security business which travelled all around Georgia and later to Florida. He has seen the inside of eight different classrooms in his 23 years of life.
Speagle claims that his most unwelcome obstacle with this constant change, was the ability to develop friendships. To his credit, this never hindered his involvement and passion for team sports and social opportunities which included, wrestling, cross country, and weight lifting among others. He was later challenged with the tearing of his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) which halted his ability to run.
Speagle joined theatre as well, and was often chosen to be in the ensemble that carried the actresses around because of his strength. This did not exclude him from gaining a leading role as the main alien in a show called, “Twitch” which was performed at Pinellas Park High School.
Speagle feels that he is equipped for a career in the field of mass communications because of his experience with speaking in front of large crowds due to his theatre involvement. He eventually published stories in the esteemed Midtown newspaper “The Weekly Challenger.” He has also done work for his media and elections class at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa where his professor, Robert Hooker was a large influence on him.
“He actually helped me to publish five stories so that makes me feel more confident in my writing.” said Speagle.
After taking a news editing course with Professor Bernardo Motta, Speagle quickly realized his goal in life.
“I want to host a show like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, but I realized I just don’t want to be an opinion and I don’t want to spread fake news. I want it to be educational but in an unconventional sense.” he said.
Speagle is prepared to make a splash in this new form of news and he even has a back up plan if all else fails.
“If I ever did have a fall back I actually would like to be a traditional style teacher,” said Speagle.
Recently, Speagle set out on his first assignment for Neighborhood News Bureau (NNB), where he attended a Martin Luther King day event which hosted a fun day for foster children.
Unfortunately, Speagle was misinformed about what the event actually entailed, and was directed by the wrong person over a series of phone calls. He quickly proved his persistence when he set out to do an observation project instead where he attended the Mercy Keepers Food Pantry in Midtown. Speagle’s time at the food pantry allowed him to reflect on what he saw.
“They open two times a week and they actually ran out of cans for the week before they could open for the second time. It definitely impacted me.” said Speagle.
Speagle believes that this course will bring him the opportunity to help the community and help him to gain the experience to know that he is making a difference for the people.
After reading the first part of the book, “African American Neighborhoods,” Speagle retained that there is a vast history he did not know about in St. Petersburg’s Midtown.
Speagle had this to say about his takeaways from the book, “I guess what I learned the most about it is just how much we think integration is supposed to be a good thing but when put in the wrong hands integration can destroy communities not help it.”