- November 7, 2024
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Local residents and officials unveil a new sign honoring the memory of former Palm Coast City Councilman and Flagler County County Commissioner Frank Meeker. The city dedicated a soccer field to Meeker at the Indian Trails Sports Complex.
Frank Meeker's wife Debbie Meeker speaks at a ceremony Sept. 27 to dedicate a soccer field at the Indian Trails Sports Complex in her husband's memory. (Photo by Jonathan Simmons)
Frank Meeker's son Joshua Meeker speaks at a Sept. 27 ceremony to dedicate a soccer field at the Indian Trails Sports Complex in his father's memory. (Photo by Jonathan Simmons)
Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts speaks at a Sept. 27 ceremony to dedicate a field at the city's Indian Trails Sports complex in the memory of Frank Meeker, a former city councilman. Meeker was serving on the County Commission at the time of his death in July.
Kayla Klufas spent four years as a player for the Flagler Firestorms, a girls soccer team coached by Meeker. (Photo by Jonathan Simmons)
Frank Meeker made the Latin words "carpe diem" — "seize the day" — a slogan for the soccer teams he coached. At Mayor Jon Netts' urging, attendees at the Sept. 27 ceremony joined hands and shouted out a unison "Carpe diem!" in Meeker's honor.
Frank Meeker loved a good cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, and the placement of this one on the podium was “not an accident,” Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts said. “Those of you who knew Frank know that this was an ever-present part of his habitat,” Netts said.
The new sign marking Frank Meeker Field was unveiled Tuesday, Sept. 27. (Photo by Jonathan Simmons)
Local residents and officials crowded around the sign marking the newly designated Frank Meeker Field at the Indian Trails Sports Complex Sept. 27, joining hands and then raising their arms to shout out the Latin slogan that Meeker — a longtime youth soccer coach who served as a city councilman and who was a county commissioner at the time of his death this past July — always taught his players: Carpe diem! Seize the day.
Speaking to the crowd from a podium to which was affixed, with masking tape, a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup in honor of Meeker’s love of the coffee brand, Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts turned to the youth soccer players who’d come to the event in their jerseys, and said he’d wondered what Meeker would say to them if he were there.
Netts listed some of the life lessons that can come from playing the game: Understanding the value of practice and hard work, being a team player, winning and losing with equal dignity, contributing 100% and always continuing to learn.
“I hope it’s not lost on anyone here this afternoon that if you look closely at these soccer life lessons, each one of them describes Frank’s approach to his own life,” Netts said. “He practiced his skills to make himself better. He valued being a team player. He won and lost with dignity. He continued to learn in every facet of his life. Soccer was truly a metaphor for Frank’s life, and it’s a fitting tribute that we honor him here today by dedicating this soccer field.”
Meeker’s wife, Debbie, recalled that her husband didn’t know much about soccer when he began coaching. But that didn’t deter him.
“He just studied … and researched everything, anything he could get his hands on,” she said. “He just studied and practiced and he just always pushed the girls to always give their best. And it was amazing how they would come to him and talk to him, whether it was school issues, boy issues, if it was family issues, because they felt that they could come and talk to him. … And they still, when they go off to college, they would come back.”
Meeker’s son, Joshua Meeker, who works for emergency services in Volusia County, said after the ceremony that he was moved by seeing the faces of so many people whose lives his father had helped shape.
He recalled how hard his father had pushed the girls on his soccer teams to work hard and succeed. “What he expected from his biological kids, he expected form the girls,” he said.
Kayla Klufas played for the Flagler Firestorms, a youth soccer team coached by Meeker, for four years. She told the audience at the dedication ceremony that she would always remember Meeker “as the happy-go-lucky coach, mentor and friend with a huge laugh and a signature smile.”
“For over a decade, he coached hundreds of girls and inspired us to be better sportsmen, while teaching us bits of Latin, world history and of course football,” she said. “I’m just one of the many people who was inspired by Frank through soccer, through church or through his time serving on our local government.”
Meeker was first elected to the Palm Coast City Council in 2007. He was elected to the Flagler County Commission in 2012.
