By Kent Donahue

For a short period of time, the water skiing world was not centered around the professionals at Cypress Gardens. That honor belonged to a small group of friends, cousins, and an attorney who crafted a show that would rival the decades-old tourist attraction that television personalities and Hollywood stars routinely visited. The attention and the imagination of spectators throughout Central Florida and tourists alike were redirected away from Winter Haven and fixed upon the Halifax River in Port Orange, Florida.