John Bradford Pekins

John was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1949, to parents who planted the seeds for passions he would carry with him throughout his life. With his father Aaron Pekins, a whiskey sales executive who called him Buck, John began to play golf as a young teenager, kindling a lifelong love of the game. His mother Elva, a piano teacher and devout Catholic, would play Chopin when he was ill as a young child, and helped elders in need as a member of the Legion of Mary. In the 1970s, John began regular visits to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA, where he developed a deep and enduring connection with abbot Father Dom Augustin and Christian mysticism and meditation. In 1974, he and a close friend embarked on a transformative journey along the Appalachian Trail, a “trek of dreams” about which he often spoke thereafter. In the mid-1980s, he became a founding member of Cypress Tree Zen Center as he entered into the study and practice of Zen Buddhism, which would inform the rest of his life. He was a Second-Degree Usui Reiki practitioner for over thirty years. His ongoing spiritual journey was a vital part of who he was as a husband, father, teacher, colleague, and friend.

John moved to Tallahassee in 1967 to attend Florida State University, where he earned a BA in English with a minor in History. After stints as a busboy, janitor, and roofer, John earned an MS in Reading Education/Language Arts and taught for the next nine years at the School for Applied Individualized Learning (SAIL), where he honed his teaching skills in an atmosphere of respect for and belief in the potential of every student, with an emphasis on creativity and fun. Many former students say he made a profound difference in their lives, and former colleagues describe him as an inspiring, brilliant teacher. John loved the lyrical beauty of the Southwest. As a recipient of a 1984 NEA fellowship, he spent two months in Tempe, Arizona to study Latina/o literature. Later, he twice took SAIL students to the Grand Canyon on a weeklong “intensive,” a formative experience for many students, some of whom became his lifelong friends and arranged a reunion trip to Arizona twenty years later.

In 1987, John met Jayme Harpring at an Amnesty International meeting and they fell in love. His car, Old Brown, gave her pause, but a small voice told her it was not important. It wasn’t. They married, and in the years that followed they welcomed daughter Alessandra (Ally) and son William (Will). In 1988, John began his 24-year career as an English and writing professor at Tallahassee Community College, where he would go on to teach over 7,000 students. There, he participated in a Pew Grant to develop ground-breaking educational technology, served as Faculty Senate President, and conducted research and analysis on first-year writing instruction that led to publications in several books and journals. For John, student-centered mentoring was integral to his teaching, and the conferencing and extensive feedback he provided reflected his belief that every student in his classes deserved “first-class treatment.”

Music was important to John. As a high school student, he frequented the music section at Cohen’s downtown department store, where a young saleswoman exposed him to jazz greats like Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans. At a student at FSU, he would go to the library in the Music Building to play Beethoven records for emotional sustenance. Later, with his high school students he would groove to Devo, the B-52s, Parliament Funkadelic, and others. A longtime favorite was Louis Armstrong. John was known to create songs on the spot to suit any occasion, play his “mouth trumpet” with great gusto, and perform signature dance moves. In later years he often listened to chanting by “the girls” – the Benedictine Nuns of St. Cecelia’s Abbey on the Isle of Wight – as he read and wrote stories with his dog Richie by his side.

But his children were the center of his life. He read bedtime stories and sang prayers in Latin, coached softball, attended piano and guitar recitals, soccer games, and theatre performances, told stories of his youth, and built a graffiti wall in the backyard with Will. He delighted in Ally and Will, and they in him. On movie nights they watched the Marx Brothers, and on Saturday mornings it was Bullwinkle and PeeWee’s Playhouse. They laughed to old Allan Sherman bits and danced to Mose Allison. John’s love for his children was palpable, plain to see on his face whenever he talked about them. Most of all, he celebrated their best efforts as much as their accomplishments, and he loved them without reserve.

John retired in 2014 and with Jayme discovered the joys of travel abroad. His favorite spot was Isola dei Pescatori, a tiny island in Northern Italy’s lake region that figured prominently in Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Wherever he went, John sought out bookstores. From tiny used bookstores to the iconic Shakespeare and Company in Paris to the miles of books at the Strand in New York City, bookstores were home. In 2017, with characteristic generosity, John relocated with Jayme to Vero Beach and spent nearly three years helping care for her elderly mother. Upon returning to Tallahassee, he relished renewing old friendships and resuming his regular golf games. His wry delivery would come to the fore when asked to read from the book of golf poems he co-authored in 2002 with P.V. LeForge, Getting a Good Read.

Upon learning of his death, friends and former colleagues and students remembered John as “an incredible man with a big heart,” who was “exceptional,” “unforgettable,” “amazing, sweet, wise, and loving,” “truly special,” “handsome, funny and charming,” “good and kind,” “so spiritual, kind and generous,” and “the coolest.” They described him as “a remarkable person,” “a dear and gentle person,” “a spiritual mentor and inspiration,” “a lovely deep person,” “a beautiful human being, writer and friend,” “an iconoclast,” “a seeker of truth,” “a voice of reason,” “a special dude,” “a great teacher,” “a force,” “a wise Yoda sage and moral compass,” “the nicest and sweetest man who always gave me a warm feeling of comfort,” “a gentle, calm, and attentive father,” “someone who talked to me like I mattered,” “a beautiful being to have blessed this planet,” “a wonderful, sweet man and a brilliant teacher,” “an incredible teacher and amazing human who made the world a better place for all of us,” and “a dear, dear friend” with “a beautiful smile and grounded energy” and “a heart as big as the sky.” He was said to “make everything kind” and to have had “a wonderfully positive influence on countless lives.”

John was a seeker, a writer and poet, a scholar, a teacher, a mentor, a golfer, a baseball fan, and a magnificent husband and father. His was a life well-lived, and he was well-loved. He leaves a singular absence. As Maya Angelou wrote on the death of her friend James Baldwin,

…And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

Slowly and always
irregularly.

Spaces fill with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be better.

For they existed.

John was predeceased by his older brother Tom and his parents Elva and Aaron. He is survived by wife Jayme and children Ally and Will, sister-in-law Lisa McLaughlin, brother- and sister-in-law James and Sandra Harpring, nephew Jack Harpring, nieces Kelsey Lester and Elizabeth Harpring, and cousin-in-law Robert Franco. In lieu of flowers, donations in John’s name may be sent to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in New York City, the Single Flower Sangha in Clay City, Kentucky, the SAIL High School Foundation, or the American Red Cross. A funeral service followed by a reception will be held at Good Shepherd Church at 2 pm on Saturday, December 7th. Interment will be at Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida.