- April 25, 2024
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He sat in the dim radio booth, his thick notebook in front of him, pages full of handwritten notes concerning only “local stuff.” It’s where Big John spent his weekday afternoons during the last couple of decades – inside the mustard yellow 1,500-square foot radio station at 432 S. Nova Road in Ormond Beach.
It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it type of building, depending on how fast traffic is moving along the busy road, but the same could never be said for Big, a man who inspired a variety of adjectives about his personality: cantankerous, gruff, meticulous, kind, intelligent, philanthropic.
And he loved Volusia County.
His GovStuff Live forum (he never called it a “show”) was a “strenuous two hours” of radio, he said, and always opened by saying it was an “educational, informational, inspirational local forum.” It was the only one of its kind in the country, he boasted, because he was trying to teach his listeners about the place they lived.
“He was motivated by his love of people and his curiosity about people and our institutions, and his love for this community,” said Jeff Boyle, who co-hosted “GovStuff Live” with Big during the last few months of his life. “I think he realized he was providing an important public service ... It was almost like a powerful love for the community, and that kept him going. I think also, in terms of his health and longevity, I think it was the juice that kept him alive for all these years.”
Big died the morning of May 15, at Halifax Hospice. He was 76 years old. Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 21, at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church at 201 University Blvd.
Born on Nov. 20, 1945, and given the name John Walter Brower, the New Jersey native was raised in Asbury Park. He graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in political science, and went on to work for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. before he moved to Florida in 1972.
Many in the community likely remember his “lubritorium,” what he called his tire and oil-change shop with its “penthouse” apartment on Mason Avenue in Holly Hill, where he lived before moving to the “Big House” at 120 State Ave. — a house that has its own website. Through the years, Big John’s WholesaleTire and Muffler Co. had stores in Holly Hill, South Daytona, DeLand and Orange City. He opened his first business in 1977, and was known in the community for his outlandish TV commercials, where he would dress up in costumes and say things that wouldn’t be socially acceptable in today’s society.
He legally changed his name to Big John in 1979, further cementing the larger-than-life persona he cultivated for himself in the community.
Mark Barker, author of the local political commentary blog barkersview.org, remembers the first day he met Big. As written on his blog, Barker, a former Holly Hill police chief, was a police officer at the time and was responding to a call from Big after he discovered someone was trying to steal a set of shock absorbers via a string running through an open window of a storage room.
Barker caught the suspect, one of Big’s employees, that night. Big, he writes, was more interested in understanding why his employee was trying to steal, and how he could help him.
“He had this innate goodness,” said Barker to the Observer. “This kindness that was often hidden behind a gruff or cantankerous exterior — this person that he created.”
In 1984, Big ran for office. He won.
He served two terms, during which he served a year as chairman in 1991 before he lost the 1992 elections. But he came back to the council six years later after winning the 1998 election, this time serving until 2002.
Big was an enigma behind the dais. Rather than show up in a suit, he wore his work uniform — a blue collared shirt emblazoned with his name on his breast. Underneath, he had a tattoo of his name tag in the same spot.
Seemingly the definition of “appearances can be deceiving,” he proved adept at local government from the moment he was elected.
According to a 1984 news article in the Orlando Sentinel, prior to his time on the council, Big served on the Local Government Study Commission of the Halifax Area, the group that reviewed the idea of consolidating services in Volusia’s 16 municipalities. He was the chairman of the commission’s transportation committee, a member of the County Affairs Committee of the Daytona Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, and served on boards for organizations including United Way and the Daytona Beach Symphony Society. The article also notes that he and his then-wife had sponsored a student art show, Volusia Students Create, that year, as well as the Miss Black Daytona Beach Beauty Pageant.
A May 13, 2001, column from the Orlando Sentinel described a joint meeting between the County Council and the School Board where Big “couldn’t sit still.”
“Less than an hour into the meeting, he was walking around the room, chatting with audience members, perusing the snacks and yukking it up with a clerk,” the column reads.
And when interrupted by a County Council member asking if he had lost his seat, Big “simply replied ‘no’ and went back to chatting.”
Former Volusia County Council member Pat Northey served alongside Big during his second run on the council. Behind his blue work shirt, she said, was “a heart that beat for the people of Volusia County.”
“Big was independent, but he also recognized that there was a need to be part of a greater team,” she said.
He was instrumental in some of the most significant regional projects in the county: the construction of the Daytona Beach International Airport; creation of the Ocean Center, into which, he said, he once rode on a Barnum and Bailey elephant; and the expansion of Votran, to name a few.
On a personal level, Northey said she and Big connected. They didn’t always agree, but she said they did find themselves on the same sides of issues often, especially when they involved the environment.
Northey first met Big prior to being on the council herself. She was working on the campaign for Roy Schleicher, who was also elected in 1984 and served until 1990. She recalls having two reactions to Big.
“I was in awe that somebody could be politically powerful, and walk and talk and dress like Big,” she said. “He was very down to earth. The other part of me was that I thought he was a bit arrogant back then.”
Big would make remarks like “you’re pretty smart for a girl,” and she initially took offense to that. As she got to know him, though, she said she recognized that it was his way of complimenting her without being effusive. He nicknamed Northey “Princess Patty.” She never did find out why in their decades of friendship, but she embraced it.
Northey saw him on the day before he died. Big’s eyes were closed and he wasn’t speaking, but she wanted him to know that she was there.
“I said, ‘Princess Patty is here. I’m here to say hello to you,” she recalled. “And he just kind of shook and grunted a little bit, so I’m hopeful that he recognized that I was there.”
Big had a heart for philanthropy. An animal lover, he supported the Halifax Humane Society and Sophie’s Circle. A lover of people, he also supported organizations like the Jewish Federation and Habitat for Humanity.
In 2015, he sold his radio station to Bethune-Cookman University.
For $1.
“He didn’t want anybody to know about his philanthropy,” Boyle said. “... There’s probably tons of things we’ll never know about.”
But Boyle, who was on the Ormond Beach City Commission when he first met Big, wanted to share one of those little known instances: For about a decade, he and Big would attend all of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University basketball home games. One night, Boyle remembers they saw a boy playing at halftime who impressed them, and Big went to great lengths to not only find out who the boy was, but arrange for him to attend ERAU’s basketball camp.
That boy is Jordan Sears, a point guard for Gardner-Webb in North Carolina. No one outside Boyle, Big and Sears’ family knew about what Big had done.
“The secret good deeds — gruff exterior, with a heart of hold, an enormous heart of gold beneath that gruff exterior,” Boyle said. “I think only the people close to him understood that.”
Big was a man of many friends. Some of them may even seem odd to those who didn’t know him beyond his radio presence.
Maryam Ghyabi, CEO of Ghyabi Consulting and Management, is probably on that list.
“He was a loyal friend,” she said. “I always told him, ‘Don’t you think we have an odd friendship?’ He said, ‘Absolutely, because you are so and so’s wife, and so and so’s sister.’ So finally, I said, ‘Can you just see me as an engineer and a community advocate and we leave it at that?’ He said, ‘But that’s not fun.’”
They bonded over transportation and local elections. About two years ago, they made a bet that Ghyabi recalls fondly. She doesn’t remember exactly what the bet was about — she thinks it was about betting on who would win an election — but it involved hot dogs.
“He loved hot dogs, and he lost the bet, and he didn’t think I was going to hold him to that,” Ghyabi said. “... But I did. I said, ‘No, this is going to remind you next time not to bet with me.”
So Big bought Ghyabi and her husband hot dogs at his favorite pub.
Many people may not have realized how smart he was, Ghyabi said. If you put information in front of him, be it about water quality or transportation, he would grasp it.
Barker said that Big’s friends ranged from “the halls of power” right down to the homeless who lived near the Big House. People trusted him, both on and off air.
“He was incredibly influential in that he had an encyclopedic knowledge of public policy, the genesis of that policy, who was involved in creating it locally, what need it met,” Barker said. “He also had the ability to almost innately see unintended consequences of bad public policy.”
He had the ear of many in the community, a wide ranging network of people in and out of government. Barker, who was a monthly guest on Big’s forum, said Big could be perceived as polarizing. He abhorred lies, and he hated the pomposity of politics. He liked to put people on the spot and see how they would react.
“He would ask people their sexual orientation, and it was disarming to people, you know what I mean?” Barker said. “And I think he did that to see what type of person that he was dealing with.”
Big leaves behind a deep hole in political discourse at a time where Barker said the public is in desperate need of it. He worries about the future of the county, and he will miss hearing his friend’s voice on the air.
“What I think I will miss also is he had this eclectic wide-ranging group of callers,” Barker said. “Now I will forever wonder what happened to people like Bill in Daytona, or South Daytona Dan, or Geraldo — any of these other folks that would call him just to ask a question or to talk to Big.”
On any given day during his last moments, there was a parade of people coming to see Big, Brower said. Big once admitted to him that his cell phone had over 1,800 contacts.
“He said, ‘I’ve had a good life and made a lot of friends,’” Brower recalled. “And both parts of that statement were 100% true.”
On Oct. 14, 2021, Big lost his Sweetie.
In an editorial to the News-Journal, Big wrote that the luckiest day of his life took place in May 2003 when he met Barbara Ann Kincade. They spent 18 years of their life together.
He was never the same after that, Ghyabi said. Big was struggling. She and her husband spoke with him, and he shared that he didn’t know if he could make it without Sweetie, his nickname for Kincade. It was a love story, Ghyabi said.
The last year had been rough on Big, Northey affirmed. In addition to losing Sweetie, he had lost his dog Major and was dealing with kidney issues and congestive heart failure. But he still made time for others. When Northey lost her husband in February, Big reached out.
“He was reflective on life in general,” she said. “You know, where we were all headed.”
Big had been in and out of the hospital five times since early December 2021. Upon being discharged for the fourth time, he approached Boyle and asked him to co-host “GovStuff.” About six weeks ago, Boyle watched as Big left the station for the last time.
“We finished the program in studio and he wasn’t in very good shape,” Boyle recalled. “It took him 15 minutes before he could leave the studio and get into his car, which was three feet from the door.”
Boyle has hosted “GovStuff Live” since, reducing its frequency from five days a week to three. The forum will shut down permanently on Friday, May 20. There will be two more shows in remembrance to him: One on Wednesday, May 17, and the final one on Friday, May 20, both from 4-6 p.m.
"Big did not suffer fools or pretentious self-promoters," Boyle wrote in a statement. "He dressed himself as a blue collar working man, then as a street person from the underclass, the style disguising a man of enormous intellect and substance. A gruff exterior concealed an enormous, compassionate heart. His intense curiosity about life and people never wavered, absorbing questions and answers with photographic recall. Big loved our community and all who 'live, work and play' here."
