Yeah, my spider sense was totally right on this one.
The boys of ‘Old Florida’ make way for the women
https://floridaphoenix.com/2019/02/27/t ... the-women/
Florida Blue Key, the 96-year-old honorary society at the University of Florida, has long been a springboard for successful political and business leaders in the state.
The organization can claim governors, U.S. senators, state Supreme Court members, legislative leaders, law firm partners and prominent business executives. But for decades the beneficiaries of the friendships and networking built on the Gainesville campus were men.
That’s changing. Florida Blue Key, long an effective “good old boys” network, has finally morphed into an equally effective “good old girls” network.
Blue Key women’s growing success culminated this year with the ascension of three new state officials: Attorney General Ashley Moody, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, and Secretary of State Laurel Lee. Moody is a former Blue Key president. Fried and Lee are Blue Key members.
“We have known each other for many decades at this point,” Democrat Fried said, referring to Lee and Moody, who are both Republicans. “To have three strong women who were taught about politics and leadership skills at the University of Florida and are now able to take that experience and skills and bring it to the state of Florida – I think will serve (the state) well.”
A 2003 graduate of UF law school and a former student body president, Fried is the first woman ever elected as the state agriculture commissioner. She is the only Democrat currently serving in a statewide office.
“It taught us how to be good leaders,” Fried said about her experience in Blue Key. “It taught us how to work across aisles, to have consensus on policies, and to put ourselves out there and to step up.”
Florida Blue Key’s Wikipedia page lists 46 “famous alumni,” ranging from governors, like Spessard Holland and Lawton Chiles, to U.S. senators, like George Smathers and Bob Graham, to athletes like Tim Tebow and Steve Spurrier. But it only lists one woman: Julie Brown, a member of the Florida Public Service Commission and a former Blue Key president. Over time, Brown and other women began playing a larger role in the organization. Blue Key admitted its first women members in 1974 and a woman was elected as president for the first time in 1990. Kylie Werk, a second-year law student, is the current president.
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The Blue Key connections are evident in Moody and Lee’s careers – they were UF sorority sisters, and both graduated from UF law school.
Their paths continued to cross. Early in her legal career, Lee was a law clerk for Blue Key member U.S. District Judge James Moody, Ashley’s dad. When Ashley successfully ran for a circuit judgeship in Hillsborough County in 2006, Lee was her treasurer.
[snip]
Moody and Fried both worked as Holland & Knight lawyers. Barnett said both followed “the traditional path” to leadership while developing their skills.
[snip]
While Blue Key has had many successes, the organization has faced criticism over the years. Some call it “the system,” because of the group’s control over student government and campus elections at the University of Florida.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Broward County Democrat, is a University of Florida graduate who operated outside the Blue Key network during her time as a student leader in the 1980s.
In a 2012 interview with student newspaper The Independent Florida Alligator, Wasserman Schultz said a Blue Key member told her she would never have a future in state politics because the organization would never accept her.
“I’m not in Florida Blue Key, and it seems like I did OK,” Wasserman Schultz told the student newspaper. At the time, she chaired the Democratic National Committee.
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Yeah, there were a whole bunch of other and different bizarre "theories" about you, Debbie, but I suspected that.
Fried campaigned and donated to Moody not just because they were friends ... they were both FBK alumni. (This is no conspiracy. Now look, I gotta be honest on this. Bob Graham, who I worked for many moons ago, was also a FBK alumni. And a good legislator and a good man. I also supported his daughter Gwen. I'm not claiming this group is something like skull & bones. BUT, it IS the UF establishment. Fine that it's finally opening up to Jewish broads as well as WASP men, but still.)
Donated to Ashley Moody 
)
