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Mermaid Sisterhood Transcends Time

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 28, 2007

Photo Gallery: Mermaid Reunion

Video: Weeki Wachee Mermaids Past And Present

WEEKI WACHEE - The station wagon rolled to a stop at the end of the country road and Barbara Wynns, 13, with big green eyes and shoulder-length black hair, peered out the rear window at a wooden sign hanging over the park entrance. She was mesmerized.

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It was the summer of 1963. Her family was on a tour of Florida's 167 roadside attractions when they found themselves at the sandy crossroads of State Road 50 and U.S. 19.

What became Florida's smallest city wasn't much back then. There was a gas station, a drugstore and a grocery; a few houses nestled between tall pine trees off one-lane dirt roads.

And the theme park.

Wynns packed into a small theater with her mom, dad and younger brother. The lights dimmed. The curtain went up. And the little girl's face beamed with excitement.

Women were riding bicycles.

They were walking on tightropes and twirling in synchronized ballet movements.

They were eating bananas and hot dogs and drinking grape juice from soda bottles.

Underwater.

For her, it was an awakening.

'I knew then,' says Wynns, now 58, 'that's what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.'

'A Fairy Tale Job'

The sisterhood of mermaids, they call it.

It's a title held by a handful of women across the country, and one that comes only from having performed for crowds in the underwater theater at Weeki Wachee Springs.

Wynns was only 17 when she joined the sisterhood.

She rolled into town with a suitcase and a head full of dreams the day she graduated from high school. She performed from 1967 to 1969 and again from 1972 to 1975.

The pay was paltry and the hours long, but she didn't care.

'It was a fairy tale job,' Wynns says. 'We felt like we were working on Broadway.'

The park had opened in 1947. It was the brainchild of Newton Perry, a former Navy SEAL who invented an underwater breathing tube and hired 'pretty girls' to perform.

They came from all over the world for a chance to join the mermaid troupe. When ABC took over the park in 1960, the women became national celebrities, touring the country and attracting show business big-shots like Elvis, Don Knotts and Arthur Godfrey.

Some girls stayed for a couple of years; others never really left.

Wynns married and moved up to Washington, but longed to return to the spring.

'All I could think about during those years was getting back to the water,' she says.

When her husband died last year, she moved back to Florida and into a house down the street from the park. Now she performs once a month.

'I'll never leave this place,' she says. 'Coming back here was like coming home.'

This weekend, Wynns will wiggle into her tail fin for a mermaid reunion marking the 60th anniversary of one of Florida's oldest and most popular roadside attractions.

More than 100 mermaids, past and present, will attend the celebrations; 15 of them, the youngest 22 and the oldest 76, including Wynns, will perform in shows together.

Wynns says it's like recapturing a lost piece of her youth.

'Once a mermaid, always a mermaid,' she says. 'That's the motto of the sisterhood.'

Chasing Dreams Underwater

Younger generations of mermaids share their predecessors' love of the spring.

Danielle DeMonaco, 19, joined the troupe about two months ago. She's tall with long, dark brown hair and a sheepish grin, and is studying for a career in criminal justice.

But for now, she's one of 19 mermaids, and two mermen, who twist and twirl six days a week while spectators sit on the dry side of the glass.

'This is more than just a job,' she says. 'It's a passion. It's a way of life for us.'

The mermaids still use the same breathing apparatus Perry created, but the training is rigorous and the shows, such as 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Fish Tails,' are choreographed.

Most of the mermaids plan to enter careers in the professional world.

Angela Schommer, 23, of Spring Hill, just got her tail. She's a nursing student at Pasco-Hernando Community College and works part time at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point.

Like most mermaids, she visited the park as a child and fell in love with the place.

'I've wanted to do this all my life,' she says. 'When I'm in the water, I'm living a dream.'

Saving A Slice Of Old Florida

The park has seen its share of tough times over the years.

During the early 1990s, it fell into a state of neglect amid a procession of owners.

Buildings became infested with termites and the park's aging sewer plant deteriorated.

'The owners weren't putting enough money back into the park,' says John Athanason, Weeki Wachee's marketing and public relations director. 'It was falling apart at the seams.'

Athanason came to Weeki Wachee five years ago and joined with general manager and former mermaid Robyn Anderson in a campaign to prevent the demise of the 'only City of Live Mermaids.'

Anderson is also mayor of the city of Weeki Wachee, current population: nine.

So far, the duo has managed to keep the park above water.

On an average day, several thousand people will pass through the front gates headed for the water park, the river cruise or animal acts, and to see the mermaid shows.

However, the future of the park is still in jeopardy.

Weeki Wachee has increasingly run afoul of its landlord, the Southwest Florida Water Management District. A flurry of lawsuits has flown back and forth in the past several years, and a judge has set a trial for August to try to sort out the legal tussles.

The park's owners say the water district wants to shut them down; something Swifmud officials deny.

Athanason says he will continue fighting to keep Weeki Wachee running. He wants, eventually, to see it returned to its former glory.

'This is Old Florida,' he says. 'It's a part of our heritage that must be preserved.'

Marriage, College Or Mermaid

Vicki Smith became a mermaid shortly after she finished high school, in 1957.

'You either got married, went to college or became a Weeki Wachee mermaid,' says Smith, now 67. 'So I became a mermaid. It was the best decision I ever made.'

She swam in shows for sold-out audiences until 1961, when she married and moved away. She returned to the park a few years ago and still performs.

On Wednesday, Smith looked down at the hole that leads to the underwater theater, preparing to descend for a full-dress rehearsal ahead of this weekend's reunion.

She felt like a mermaid again.

'It's just like riding a bicycle,' she says. 'Once you learn, you'll never forget.'

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (727) 815-1082 or cwade@tampatrib.com.

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