ALLAN PITHER

May 1, 2019

What follows is a sparse account of this generous, gentle, gracious man’s life. Should you have additional information, please, forward it to the Cedar Key News, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Staff will amend this informal obituary.

It is with deep regret that the Cedar Key News reports the death of Cedar Key and Gainesville resident Allan Walter Pither. Allan passed away in Gainesville, Florida, on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019, at 7:20 am after several bouts with lung cancer.

Allan graduated from the University of Florida. While there, he was a wrestling team member and a champion pole vaulter.

It was at the University of Florida that he met his long-time, dear friend Dr. Earl Starnes, another Gainesville/Cedar Key icon. Earl, his wife, and Allan were known to have a glass of scotch on Earl’s back porch at sunset in Cedar Key for years; it was a ritual. Many in Cedar Key were invited to the ritual and considered it an honor; the conversation hovered among architecture, structures, data, friends, the ecosystem, and ways to strengthen this community.

An earlier resident off Miami, Florida, Allan worked with the University of Miami’s National Hurricane Center in its formative years. There he built a trove of hurricane tracking data which he shared with the Cedar Key Library Lecture Series audiences in approximately 2015.

Allan retired to Cedar Key in 2014.   He soon became an integral part of the community, known by all and helpful to many of them.

Florida’ Nature Coast Conservancy was dear to Allan’s heart. He functioned as a board of directors member, vice-president, and as president. Allan was always finding ways to further, deepen, and strengthen partnership ties with the City of Cedar Key, the University of Florida, its new Nature Coast Biological Station, and the Friends of the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges, and the Refuges themselves.

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