Show Notes
On this special episode of the Nuance podcast, join Case at The Collaborative’s 6th Annual Labor Day Prayer Breakfast for a conversation with Dr. John Thrasher, former president of Florida State University. Dr. Thrasher, joined by host Diana Morgan, speaks about aligning our life and work to our greatest priorities – faith & family. He also challenges us to live out our faith boldly in the workplace and engage others with love, compassion, and understanding. With confidence and diligence – and with the anchor of our loving Father and supportive family – we are to lead in the places where we live, work, and play.
We are to be a beacon of light and unity in the places where God has set us.
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website 👉 https://collaborativeorlando.com/
Get to know Case 👉 https://collaborativeorlando.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
Well, friends. A bit about our speakers today. John Thrasher was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and raised in Jacksonville. After graduating from Florida State University…hey, what happened this weekend? Of all people, Georgia Tech? Well, he graduated in 1965 and then served in the US Army, earning an Army Commendation Medal and two bronze stars for his service in Vietnam. Following his military service, John went back to FSU to earn his Juris Doctorate and began his law career in private practice and then served for 20 years as general counsel with the Florida Medical Association.
John’s political career began in 1986 with his election to the Clay County School Board, leading then to his role as state representative in 1992 and later as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. He continued his public service as a Florida State Senator, then chaired the Republican Party of Florida in 2010. In 2014, John returned to FSU as its 15th president, focusing on elevating the university’s reputation, leading a $1 billion fundraising campaign and championing diversity and inclusion. Now my son, Charles the fourth, just began his freshman year at FSU, and yesterday he texted me, “Just had a custom made omelet from the dining hall. So good.” So John, thank you. Thank you for great omelets.
He now lives in Winter Park with his wife, Jean, and consults with the southern group. He has three children, eight grandchildren, and the rumor is he’s been seen about around First Presbyterian on a few Sunday mornings. Well, interviewing John today is long-time friend of mine and his, Diana Morgan.
Diana’s career spans an impressive 30 years with the Walt Disney Company at Walt Disney World. She started there as a tour guide for the Magic Kingdom’s construction site. Right? People paid money to see dirt being moved. And she rose to Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and human resources. That’s a pretty impressive run. After retiring in 2001, she’s continued to apply her leadership skills to various organizations, including the Board of Trustees for the University of Florida, the board of Orlando Health and of the Children’s Miracle Network. On all three, she served as chairman. In the fall private sector, Diana has served on the boards of CNL healthcare properties, CNL bank shares, Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, and Hersha hospitality trust. Her deep faith is evident through her longtime service here at this church and as an elder, especially with her role in launching the grace medical home, which has led to the alleviation of ailments for 1000s in our community. Diana and her husband Chris have two children and four grandchildren. Now, did you know today is Diana and Chris’s 53rd wedding anniversary. So Chris tonight for dinner, if you need to know where to get a good omelet, I’m your man.
Diana Morgan
Thank you, Case. Thank you, it is. It is such an honor to be here with all of you and with my friend John Thrasher. I can’t tell you how nice it is to see a little more of you in Orlando as you’re spending more time here. I know that brings great joy to this table right over here, and I’ve just been one of those people who admired you from afar. I had the opportunity to work closely with the legislature in your days there and your leadership role. And I just always looked up to you and even though I was a Gator, I cheered you on as you went on to your role at FSU. So this is a particular honor for me today. So we have about five or six questions that we talked about and thought about, and so I thought we would just do this in an interview format, and then you’ll have plenty of time at your tables for some smaller group discussion. Sound good?
John Thrasher
Great. Can I just say a couple of things? Just my family and I, first of all, want to thank Case for the opportunity to do this and all the pastors. Jean and I have loved coming here to First Pres and hearing all the great ministers here who really do speak the gospel and tell the truth. And that’s, I think, part of what we’re talking about. But I’m proud to, I’m not trying to one up, you, Diana, but proud to have my wife Jean here, and in December we’re going to celebrate our 60th anniversary. Yeah, I know I don’t look that old, but I am. I am. Two of our daughters are here. Our two daughters are here, who both live here, and Jennifer, my daughter there. Thank you for being here, and Julie, thank you for being here, and her husband. Mark is a gator. I’ll just throw it out there. I’ve got these fantastic two daughters, and then both of them have affiliations with people who went to the University of Florida or care about them. Mark and Julie have two boys there right now at the University of Florida. So I am really becoming part of the Gator. I don’t see anything changing dramatically. And then last but not least, the one Seminole I have left in the Weinberg house is my main man, Mason. Weinberg, yeah. Mason graduated from high school a couple of years ago. He was king of homecoming for Winter Park High School. He works at Publix. He’s a valued employee there, and has a busier social life than any of us in here. I promise you that. Thanks for being here. Mason, my man. I appreciate it. There you go one more time.
But I thank you all for being here. You know, when you’re President, Diana, as you know, presidents get a lot of invitations, you know, and after being no longer president of FSU for the last three years, frankly, the number of invitations has declined. So I really appreciate this, and I’ve really kind of studied it, because I found out when you can’t give out, you know, seats to the box in the President’s box for football games, things really start going downhill. They really do. And the other reason I’m happy about it is, I guess some of us, I can see, there may be a few out there that are in their 80s, 80 year old guys have been getting bad names lately, you know. And some of those guys need to get off the stage. That’s what I said. But that’s another reason I’m happy to be here, and I appreciate it so much.
But like I said, we love, we love First Pres, if any of you are not members or that attend here. You ought to. You ought to. It’s as simple as that. It’s a place where God is worshiped the right way. And the ministers here are just fabulous. And I just thank them for their gift to what they do here in this church. And Diana, one more time, thank you for doing this to the long time friend, long time, and I, by the way, my daughter Julie, not when Diana was there, but also worked for the Disney company before she and Mark started having their family. And I’m told she did pretty good. Yeah, she did pretty good. But thank you. Thank you all for being here. Really appreciate it. I know it’s early in the morning and tough to get anywhere in Orlando at eight o’clock. I promise you that. Yeah, so you get to it, Diana.
Diana Morgan
Well, thank you for that. Thank you. Well, let’s just start with kind of a broad question to just share a little bit about your faith journey and how it’s impacted all of your good works.
John Thrasher
Well, first of all, let me just say this, it’s impacted everything I’ve done, and probably, like a lot of you, faith has grown over a period of time. I’m 80, and I can tell you that I know a lot more about my faith today than I did 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 30 years ago, because I know the things that have occurred to me in my life have really, really been guided by the Lord, and the intervention of Jesus in my life is, I know it’s been very positive. You know, I grew up in Jacksonville. I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, where there was, it seemed like at that time, there were nothing but Gators, you know, by the way, but in spite of that, I still did all right, I went to Lee High School in Jacksonville. Wasn’t a great student. Tell a lot of the kids this, so don’t repeat it. Any of you, even a C student from college and high school can become president of a good university. I mean, somehow.
But one thing about my parents, neither one of them went beyond the eighth grade, and so my father was out of work a lot. My mother never worked, never drove a car. I. But I had an aunt in Jacksonville who introduced me to a church in Jacksonville, Riverside Presbyterian, a big, big church. And I started going there. I did my Confirmation there when I was 12 or 13, and I really, really felt…and I went to Sunday school. And believe it or not, I always tell young people, go to Sunday school. It makes a difference. I tell you, it really does make a difference. But I had a Sunday school teacher who happened to be the Sheriff of Duval County, Dale Carson. And I can tell you, when I saw a guy like that, as prominent as he was, professing his faith in Jesus Christ and his faith in the young people who were in his class. It made a difference.
It probably started that faith journey I went to FSU. You know how I got in? You never, I never know. I think back then, if you had a pulse, you basically could get in. So I did get in, even with the grades I had in high school. But I lived in a little house down the street from the Methodist Student Union. And I used to walk by that on the way to classes and to eat. Case, I loved the food place out at FSU. Also think I gained about 30 pounds that first year, but it was fantastic. It still is. But I walked by the Methodist Student Union, and I started going there. I started going there. Sunday morning, I started praying. I started understanding about the power of prayer. And I can’t tell you enough about that. I hope all of you understand, you still need to pray. You need to pray every day. God is good. Does he answer all your prayers? Not every day, not every time. I didn’t pray for A’s, by the way, I just prayed for the ability to get through the classes. In that first semester, I made a 2.0, which I was very happy about, I really was, and I did a little bit better later on. But that kind of started that, that faith journey. And then I think, my junior year, I met my wife, and without going into a lot of detail about all that, we got married my senior year and she really became my faith partner, and my faith journey with her and with our family has been the most positive thing in my life.
We went to, you know, we went in the Army. Case said, during the Vietnam era, came back, went to law school. I started law school, by the way, four days after I left Vietnam, literally four days, got back in the country, drove to Tallahassee. Jean was there. She’d already met me, and we started law school. And I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, to be honest with you, but I knew that a law degree would probably be something that would open some doors, and believe it or not, I wouldn’t be president or wouldn’t have been president of FSU had I not gotten that law degree. So it was a very positive thing. So all through that life and business, and every step along the way, I know the Lord has either guided me or probably done things I didn’t even know about. And that’s one thing for you all to think about today, I think, is, you know, think about your timeline of your life, and where the Lord has intersected with you and helped you make a choice or make a decision. Particularly young people, God’s great, and you just have to stay in communication with him, I think. And if you stay in communication with them, I promise you good things are going to happen. So that’s a real short summary of a lot of positive things in my life, but everywhere along the line, when it was making a choice about where we lived, what we did, whether we went in to to take the job at FSU…there are a lot of issues about that maybe we can talk about in some others, but that’s basically where I am. And this I will say, the basis of our faith has always been our church that we’ve attended. This church is certainly enhanced in the times that we’ve been here, and I’m very appreciative of that.
Diana Morgan
That’s so beautiful. And yet we all know, even as believers, we encounter rough patches from time to time. And so are there any that you might want to share where you really felt your faith, you had to lean more heavily on His presence?
John Thrasher
Two issues, one’s in politics, obviously there. There are a lot of rough patches in politics, and I was, and I’m not being partisan, by the way, when I say anything here, I promise you that, because I’ve become kind of a, kind of gone underground about all that stuff today, but I was, I was a Republican. I was a second Republican Speaker in the state of Florida, and at the time, my partner in the Senate, Tony Jennings, who many of you know, I’m sure, from here in Orlando. And our governor was Jeb Bush. First time in the history of Florida that all three of those major elected offices were held by Republicans. And so Republicans came with a real feeling of drinking out of a fire hose. And so there were a lot of things that were put out there that were good, I think, some not so good. And telling people no, in a spiritual way, even in the law legislature, you can do that. And I did it several times. I remember that’s not a hard patch, because, you know, when you’re the speaker, you kind of control what goes on there. But telling people in a gracious, respectful way was always sometimes tough, but sometimes necessary.
So that was that, and then I just switch real quickly to FSU. I appreciate the doctor designation, but I’ve never called myself a doctor, juris doctorates, lawyers, country lawyers like me, most of them, but when I applied to be president for State University, I was not the most popular choice among the faculty. That’s an understatement, I mean, there were lots of loud people out there shouting, hearing placards when we did the interviews and all of that. And I’ll be honest with you, but for my faith, and for a couple of people who, including my wife Jean, obviously, and some others who kept me in the right, I guess, in the arena. And it took, by the way, from like March when I applied of 2014 to September of 2014. March to September before I was selected; it took a lot of effort, and a lot of people, you know, praying for me, and I knew they were, just to give you an example. And this is kind of funny. I had a guy that was part of our athletic team coach. His name was Monk Bonasorte, and he called me one day and says, you know, in the summer, we had to kind of stop the process. Said, I just want you to know a lot of people in the university want you to continue on this. There were a lot of people out there concerned. And I said, Okay, I’ll think about that. And appreciated it. So that was a monk calling me a monk, it was. And then I had a lady call me who was an African American lady, and I had interviewed with the FSU National Black Alumni Association, and she called me and said, we love you. We want you to stay in there. We don’t want you to quit. Want you to continue to do that. And she said, and I want to be your second angel. I know who your first angel is, but I want to be your second angel. And I still hear from her today. Her name is Connie Jenkins. She said, we’re going to support you no matter what. And then I had a lot of other friends who kept us in and it turned out all right, but that was a challenge. That was a challenging time. We got the job, first year, you know, I devoted myself to fundraising, as Diana said, I devoted myself to the students and to the faculty. And it turned out all right. I had a lot of people who were against me, who came back during the course of those years I was there, the seven years we were there, and so they apologized for the way they acted and what they did. So stick to your guns, I guess. But believe in that, you know, there’s somebody behind you and there are other people behind you who also are believers, who care. And that’s kind of what happened then, we, you know, there were a lot of other things we had while I was there. I mean, Diana’s been involved in university, you know, had a little room next to my office.
And I never will forget the first time that I found out Jimbo Fisher was leaving our head football coach, I went in that little room and looked for a book. How do you hire a new football coach? We hadn’t hired one in 40 years, so I did hire one. That didn’t work out, and I hired another one. His name is Mike Norvell, and I think it’s worked out all right, but every single day in a university, and I’m sure it’s true of this church, also you go in, you have a calendar, you have things you’re going to do, and then all of a sudden, something happens. We had three hurricanes while I was president. We had two. A shooting on campus. We had a shooting off campus. We had a death of a young lady in a terrible traffic accident right off of campus. Things like that happen, and I will tell you without, without a foundation of Jesus Christ, without a foundation of people that love you and care about you, you can’t deal with those situations. There are no books to deal with, by the way, other than your beliefs and how strong you have in that foundation. And we found that out because of those many things that happen like that. So there are probably others, but those are the ones that come to mind right now.
Diana Morgan
John, I have a room full of leaders here today, and probably if we went around every single person, particularly those who are still active in their careers would say this question of balance is my my biggest challenge, and just how do I balance all my priorities and so no doubt in the roles that you had, balancing your personal life, your career and all those things that were pulling at you, might share a little bit of what you learned along that waves.
John Thrasher
Well, I’ve learned a lot from a lot of people when I was growing up and well, you know, and there are a lot of young people in here, a lot of middle aged folks, and some who are, who are more seasoned citizens. But that you learn this, I think, over a period of time. Is it, you know, set your priorities? What ought they be? Well, I’m proud to say both of my son-in-laws have done this in their families, and they’ve set their priorities in spite of their careers, and they’re doing extraordinarily well. They set their priorities to taking care of their families. And Mark and Julie are here, and they’re an example of that. Mason’s example, the goodness of what they’ve done. Jennifer and her husband, Don have done the same thing. My son, John, he’s got a young boy. Our youngest grandson, youngest grandchild, who’s doing wakeboarding. Probably don’t know what wakeboarding is, but it’s a sport where you have to go around the country. Basically, John has been very helpful in getting Jacob to those events. But family, don’t ever forget is your first priority, and it ought to be your family. It ought to be your family. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s hard as you go up in the opportunities that are presented to you by the Lord, I think you gotta make some decisions. Sometimes they’re tough. Sometimes it’s maybe relocation. Sometimes it’s changing jobs, whatever it is, those priorities about your family ought to come first and then your faith. Faith maybe before your family in some ways, sometimes faith helps you with your family, but those are the things that I think are important.
And sometimes, you know, you see young people who I saw this in the legislature. I was pretty old when I first got elected legislature, compared to what today is like. I was 47 when I got elected first time, but I saw a lot of young people, and I have since then. And when you go to some place like that and you’re successful, people start, we use this term in the legislature, from the standpoint of lobbyists, they start blowing smoke at you, you know, you kind of begin to think, Well, man, I’m the, pretty much the greatest thing since sliced bread. And the truth of the matter is, you’re not. You’re not. You may be already your family, but you’re not to them as folks who are false prophets. I would say they’re just simply doing their job many times, but they’re doing their job because they think that’s what they have to do, that you’ve gotta. You gotta draw back a little bit and say, What? What really is it that the Lord has asked me to do? And I think the first and foremost thing is to take care of your family, to involve yourself in the community, to give back where you can give back to the community. Given the blessings that we’ve all had, those are the things I think, that are so important.
Diana Morgan
I’ve always encouraged my children to find mentors, not necessarily Chris or I, but people in their lives who will speak truth and who observe them in their daily walk. And so I imagine you had a few mentors along the way who really supported you and helped you.
John Thrasher
First and foremost, Jean and I were in our young 20s when we went to Germany. It was my first duty assignment, and I see my good friend sitting here. If you all don’t know him, you ought to know Him. General Ron Harrison was one of the adjutant generals when I served at the legislature. This man and this particular when we were in Germany, I worked for was in a headquarters operation. I got to be an aide to a general officer, and I saw what they went through. And so when I got out of the Army, four years I spent, I said, you know, I’m going to do whatever I can to help veterans. I’m going to do what I can to help our military be successful. Whatever that was, I didn’t know exactly where that would lead me, but again, I think the Lord led me to the opportunity to be Speaker of the House. And while I was there, this gentleman right here was a great friend, and I’ll tell you, our Florida National Guard. Here, and the leadership that they have, every single adjutant general that I worked with were amazing people. They cared compassionately about their troops. They cared compassionately about their state and certainly about their country. And Ron Harrison sits here as one of those people who I admire when I was in the legislature, and I really appreciated it. I had some others. I had a first person I worked for as a lawyer, guy by the name of Fred Carl, who served on the legislature and served as a Supreme Court justice. And I know, it was a big impact on me and my work as a lawyer, as well as other things that I did. I was a, when I was in law school, I was in the city, I worked as a, I had an internship in the legislature. It kind of got me interested in it. Now I’ll never be able to do it, because a lot of circumstances, but eventually I did get the merit to be in the Senate, and always thought about him because of the way he conducted himself. He was a Democrat, by the way, and nothing wrong with that. I was Republican, but I learned a lot from him. I learned a lot about how to deal with people on both sides of the aisle, and that, I think is important also, and I know we talk a little bit about some other things, about politics, maybe, or where we are today, but those are just two that jump out. And then my best friend invest advisor Eddie said, right over there, every single day, I still take the trash out. I still do things that she tells me to do, and not only is she my best and most confident friend, advisor, whatever she probably has had the most impact on my wife as anybody.
Diana Morgan
My sense is that this integration of faith and work and how you combine your lives has really given you. It’s particularly at this stage of life, just a sense of peace and satisfaction on how, how the Lord has blessed you and and how you want to serve and and whatever days you have left. And so just speak to that sense of peace that I detect with you as you, as you think back about your career,
John Thrasher
Well, it’s there. It’s there. Particularly now I think Jean and I are enjoying our life more than we ever have to be around our daughters and our son and his family, to be around people we love and care about that ultimately, that’s, I know the older people in here, I think, would affirm this. That’s what we want in life, isn’t it? We want peace. We want a sense of security, that we lived a good life, that we’ve made some differences where we can and that we can continue to do that. I again, I think we live in a…I’ve heard Case say this. I’ve heard David say this from the pulpit. We live in a tough world today. We live in a broken culture in some ways. And so where do you find that peace? Certainly don’t find it in a lot of the things in our culture today, you find it in the belief in Jesus Christ and the peace you get from that. I think that’s one of the advantages for young people here of getting a little bit older. I think you’ll find that as you get older, that that really is what makes a difference, ultimately.
Diana Morgan
I know as those in this room who lead teams or or lead businesses, and think about how you can best integrate faith in this secular world in the workplace, particularly any tips on how you do that, and do it in a way that that respects everyone, but also makes clear who you are.
John Thrasher
Don’t hide it. Don’t hide your faith in the workplace or wherever you are. You know, I just think people want, people want a thirst for wanting to know about people who care about the Lord. And you know, you may have a different group of people that have different faiths, for sure, but listen to them. I mean, that’s a big part of everything we do, I think. And then life is making sure that you know, that we try to listen to other sides. Civility is really particularly in the political square and arena. Civility is about lost, but we can’t afford to let it be lost in our lives. We have to make a difference, and we can make a difference every single one of us, I think can make sure that people understand that we are faithful people, that it does matter in our life. It does matter in the circumstances we live in. And by letting people know that they’ll be afraid of it, it’s not, there’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong. And I think by doing that, you build up a relationship, some prep, one that perhaps you would never make that relationship with but you can’t hide your faith. I think wherever you go, you know faith is not just for your personal life. It’s for all of everything we touch. And we ought to be proud of it, and we ought to convey it to other folks.
Diana Morgan
Alright, one final question, probably the most challenging. I think you have so effectively led people with disparate views, people from both sides of the aisle in all of your roles. Any advice for how we as Christians, as believers, navigate these difficult times?
John Thrasher
Well, let’s be clear, but we have to acknowledge, I think all of us, that we live in a very divided country, we’re opposing views of different issues or out there. And I, all I can say is for us, for Jean and I, we talk about it with our family, that the love and compassion and understanding and listening to other folks is very, very important. We seem to be losing them. There seems to be an echo chamber that we want to throw ourselves in and listen to other people who sound like us, who live like us, who look like us. We need to be people of faith. And people of faith are not afraid to show their compassion, their love for each other, and their understanding and their willingness to sit down and listen. Look, I’m never going to agree with probably some people in certain areas of politics. That doesn’t matter, that doesn’t matter. What matters is, are we willing to at least sit down, look for ways to which we can compromise, perhaps, or listen to other viewpoints and maybe change the direction we’re going. We’re not doing that in America today, and we’re losing a lot, I think, because of that. And I hope that somehow we can have a renewal and doing things like this and having people go out into the community like this church does every single day and try to make a difference in the lives of everybody, regardless of their beliefs, their background and who they are. I will say this about Florida State. When I got there, everybody thought I was a 70 year old Republican who didn’t care about the faculty, who wanted to change the whole atmosphere of what a university was about. I left my politics at the front door and what I tried to do, and I think this is what we need to try to do in America today, is forget about some of that politics, and learn to live with people. Because everybody has a different background. Everybody has a different somehow, belief. But what we have to do is find common ground for some of those issues that are so troubling to us, and then try to work them out. We need to find leaders in America who can do that today. And I’m still optimistic about what we can do. I’m optimistic about this great country, and I’m optimistic about the faith that this country has ultimately, and I think eventually, I think that faith will rise to the top. But the final thing I would say about it is, don’t ever forget who’s in control. It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s God. It’s through Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.
Diana Morgan
Yeah, doing better than that. Well, I just want to thank you. I think you’ve challenged us, you’ve inspired us and informed us, and we just, we just thank you for sharing so honestly and taking time out of out of your I want to say busy life, but life that I know has a lot of joy and and family time to be with us so we’re we’re so very grateful.
