- October 7, 2024
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Norman Watkins is a local celebrity in his Dr. Phillips neighborhood.
The former coach and environmental science teacher is famous for keeping the lake behind his home, Lake Odell, clean. The lake is situated within unincorporated Orange County and is located within the Shingle Creek Watershed.
What started as a simple workout for Watkins has turned into him cleaning up thousands of pounds of debris out of the lake.
He records the changes of the lake throughout the years in his treasured photo albums, which document the lake’s color, treatment received from Orange County, and the animals and plants that call the lake home.
Watkins keeps track of every can he fills with debris, and he even has kept a collection of the most interesting items he has found in the lake throughout the years.
“I was living here for a couple of years but was never doing anything except enjoying the lake,” he said. “Then, the growth and development started taking over, and I saw it impacting the lake. One day, I decided I was going to go outside and just pull the grass along my backyard at the edge of the lake. I cleaned up my area, and then I decided to clean one of my neighbors’ areas. I did another, and then I decided I would just go around and clean up the whole lake.”
For his initial clean up project that ran from April 12, 2011, to April 18, 2012, Watkins filled 1,050 cans with debris from the lake, and he hasn’t stopped since then.
ENVIRONMENTAL PIONEER
Watkins moved to Orlando in 1975 and lived in a cabin off the Butler Chain of Lakes for about 29 years before he moved to his current home in 2003.
He worked for Walt Disney World in a variety of capacities for 46 years. Throughout his time with the company, he helped to run the train, ferry, monorail, river boat and golf course.
He also served as a teacher for 36 years.
A natural born leader and coach, Watkins led wrestling, football and golf teams over the years.
Teaching was never something Watkins saw himself doing, but his passion for coaching students led him into the classroom.
Watkins always had an interest in the environment, and when he became a teacher he approached the principal at his school about starting an ecology or environmental class, as there was none in the county at the time in the early 1980s.
The principal told him if he could get enough students to sign up, he would allow him to teach the class. With the many relationships he had built through coaching, Watkins filled the class easily.
He became the first environmental science teacher in Osceola County.
HISTORY OF THE LAKE
Watkins first started pulling weeds in the lake from his canoe on April 12, 2011.
He places one large dot for each can filled on every individual day on his calendar to keep track. He also has an index card, where he writes down the number of cans he fills each month of every year.
The lowest number he has filled in a single year since starting is 92, which he said was a year he fell behind from his surgery. He said he has started to slow down over the years due to the physical strain of the work. Because he collected so many cans placed in front of his house, Watkins began to receive notices from the county about having too many heavy cans in his front yard. So, his neighbors chipped in to help distribute the cans in front of their houses scattered throughout the area.
Watkins keeps a steady collection in his garage of all the interesting items he finds in and around the lake, such as bottles and cans, fishing hooks and lures, toys, stuffed animals, tools, balls, and many other trinkets.
After a while, he said the county began to come to help clean the lake.
With photos, Watkins documented changes in colors, treatments, plants and animals that he observes, and the lake’s overall cleanliness.
In addition, every Friday, Watkins turns on his Roomba to clean his house. While the vacuum runs, he has a dolly he hooks up to a trash can, and he walks around the neighborhood for about an hour picking up trash while the Roomba runs.
“It’s another great workout, and it makes you feel good when people do take notice,” he said.
‘IT’S NOT A TRASH CAN’
One of Watkins’ favorite places is his couch that directly faces the lake. He has two sets of binoculars he keeps on the table next to the couch to observe the lake and its inhabitants.
He sees all kinds of different birds enjoying the lake area, including kingfishers, green herons and anhingas. Although there are lots of different kinds of fish in the lake, Watkins said people mainly fish for bass.
Watkins has attached chicken wire to both sides of a surfboard his neighbor gave him that floats in the lake, which he has seen both turtles and otters enjoy.
Although he said the lake quality has improved over the years, it still isn’t clean enough that he has seen anyone swim in it, including himself.
Lake Odell connects and flows also into Lake Cane, which is used for the famous local Lucky’s Lake Swim.
Founded in 1989, Lucky’s Lake Swim is a daily, one-kilometer open water swim hosted by Lucky Meisenheimer at his home, which is across the street from Watkins. The two have nurtured a steady friendship throughout the years through their mutual love for the lake.
“If you want to have good water quality and you want to have clean air, then this is just something we’ve got to do,” Watkins said. “Fertilizer is terrible for the lake. Everyone waters their yards during the hottest times in the middle of the day at full speed. You should be doing a light sprinkle at night. I’ve seen people throw all sorts of things in the lake, including dog poop. I’ve seen someone’s washing machine flow into the lake or someone cutting branches and other debris into the lake. It’s not a trash can. We can’t treat it like that. We don’t want to poison ourselves, and we want to keep enjoying lakes just like these in the places we call home.”
