H C B A P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S A G E J a c q u e l i n e A . S i m m s - P e t r e d i s –
B u r r & F o r m a n , L L P
hCbaCommunity : thankYoufora greatYearofteamworkandsupport !
manyofusmaynotrealizethatwetoohaveastagetocreatechange inourprofessionandinourcommunity , andiencourageyoutofind yourvoice .
By the time this edition of the Lawyer magazine reaches your desk , my time as President will have come to an end . Hopefully many of you were able to attend the swearing-in at the Bar building to meet your 2023-24 HCBA and HCBA Young Lawyers Division Boards . They are already hard at work planning another year of being the best Bar association in Florida !
For those of you who followed along with our magazine covers this year , my theme focused on our local community of sports and diversity . Sports brings us together , creating teams and fans from all backgrounds and walks of life . Our first cover highlighted the great Jackie Robinson , the first African- American player to break the color barrier and play in
Major League Baseball . Next we had one of the world ’ s best women athletes , Babe Zaharias , who broke records in multiple sports and retired in the Tampa area . Then we moved to Hall of Famer , Tampa Bay Buccaneers legend , Lee Roy Selmon — a true icon in our community . Then to Al Lopez , Tampa native and baseball great , and last month we featured Judy Alvarez , a star tennis player , highlighting photos from a local tournament held on Davis Islands .
We end the year highlighting my favorite sport and my favorite athlete , although admittedly not a Tampa native . The cover features two photos of the 2012 United States
Continuedonpage7
6 J u l - A u g 2 0 2 3 | H C B A l A W Y E R