Roat: a voice and a vision for Sarasota County

Bonner Joy first heard the news on the radio — a freighter had collided with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, collapsing a section and killing 35 people. On that morning, May 9, 1980, she was driving on Anna Maria Island on her way to breakfast with Paul Roat, who was in another car. Joy honked her horn to get his attention, pulling alongside Roat to tell him what had happened.

“He told me to call the publisher,” Joy said, recounting Roat's actions that day. “Then he grabbed all the film he could and was on his way to the bridge.”

Roat, a journalist for The Islander newspaper at the time, was one of the first journalists on the scene and took iconic photos of the tragedy from the top of the ruined, remaining span of the bridge. According to Joy, this was classic Roat behavior — dropping everything at a moment’s notice to report the news. 

“Paul was the kind of guy that if you were sitting on the beach and he heard a siren, he would go off to chase it,” Joy said, recounting her memories of Roat, whom she has known since the 1970s. “If a fire truck drove by with its lights on, he was known to just turn around right in the middle of the road to find out what was going on. He just had a real passion for community news.”

Roat, who was an editor at the Anna Maria Islander for 17 years and a contributor to the Pelican Press died Saturday, Feb. 15. He was 56.

He was a lifelong resident of the Sarasota-Bradenton area whose passion for community news was a product of his fondness for the area in which he grew up and his love of storytelling.

“It all started very young,” Joy said. “He was just an incredible, avid reader. Instead of being in the Boy Scouts he was reading — or fishing.”

Roat’s interest in the area spurred him to author two volumes of “The Insider’s Guide to Sarasota & Bradenton” guide book and various other guide publications over the years.

He also worked outside of journalism to fight for what he considered to be critical political and environmental issues.

From 1984 to 1987, Roat served as a legislative aide to District 70 state Rep. Jim Lombard, R-Osprey. In 1989, he became the first staff member for the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, contributing to the fundraising effort that enabled the program to flourish as well as numerous publications related to the group’s environmental advocacy work.

Roat’s colleagues praised him for the high standards he set for his work as a journalist, as well as his passion for and dedication to the community in which he lived and worked.

“He was serious about everything island related, poised to speed off to the next incident, meeting or noteworthy event that popped up on our long spit of sand,” wrote Joe Bird in a comment on Anna Maria Islander’s website. “His appreciation for his island and state had him traveling and writing wherever a relevant topic needed to be put out into the sunshine, in words and pictures.”

“He was the consummate one and we all looked up to him,” Joy added. “His influence was to maintain the standards that he learned in college. News was at his core.”

Roat graduated from Manatee High School and earned a scholarship to the University of Florida from then-publisher of The Islander, Don Moore, who gave Roat his first job out of college.

Roat covered some of the area’s most notable moments during his career, for which he was recognized and honored by the Florida Press Association.

His work for The Islander newspaper in the 1970s and 1980s included his photos from the Skyway Bridge disaster and photos in August 1993 from a small craft shortly after a three-ship collision, which resulted in fire aboard one ship and the release of 30,000 gallons of crude oil from another ship into the Tampa shipping channel.

He was recently instrumental in derailing a developer’s plans for Long Bar Pointe.

Roat was also a founding member of Mystery Florida, a nonprofit group that sponsors an annual gathering of mystery writers and aficionados in Sarasota.

“He was raised on the waters of Sarasota Bay, and he liked to often write from his perspective as a ‘little Roat,’” Joy said, recounting one story of Roat harvesting sand dollars and selling them to tourist shops for 3 cents each.

The Islander is planning a memorial at the Tingley Library in Bradenton Beach, where Roat served many years as a board member, as well as a journalism scholarship and a mystery book sale to benefit the library.

Memorial donations may be made at The Islander, 5604B Marina Drive, Holmes Beach, FL 34217.
No services are planned.

Roat is survived by his aunt Margaret Roat of Ludington, Mich.; several cousins in Michigan and Colorado; and Kendra Presswood of Holmes Beach and Damon Presswood of Bradenton.

Asked what inspired Roat’s dedication to community news, Joy said: “He just found something he loved, and he was dedicated to it.”

Contact Nolan Peterson at [email protected]