Rep. Corrine Brown: “in closing, when I think of Doug, I think of Paul and his great work. He has done great work for the people of Florida…”

“in closing, when I think of Doug, I think of Paul and his great work. He has done great work for the people of Florida, and we will truly miss him. Jamerson won a national humanitarian award for helping St. Petersburg recover from racial violence in 1996, when he walked the streets, helping cool emotions. It was a natural extension of his years as a school security guard in the early '70s when he spent hours counseling teens going through desegregation at a Pinellas high school. His parochial school education taught Jamerson the integrity of discipline and one of his first acts as education commissioner was to advocate the socially leveling effect of wearing uniforms in public schools. The idea sank, but Jamerson's reputation rose as a public servant not given to predictable solutions. He was against both paddling and prayer in schools but said both had a place in a loving home. He was a Democrat who oversaw reduction by 50 percent of the state's education bureaucracy. Jamerson will be remembered as a gifted man whose genial disposition made it hard for even staunch opponents of his causes to dislike him. He will be missed.”