I have lived in Lake County for one year. I chose to retire in this area after a 31-year career in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve which allowed me to live across the country and in Europe. In some of the places I was stationed, I lived on military installations and it wasn’t uncommon to live on a road named after a heroic military figure. For example, my last military address was on Jerstad Court in Maryland, named for John Louis Jerstad, a United States Army Air Forces officer who was posthumously awarded the United States military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. He received the medal for his actions as a B-24 pilot during a raid on Ploieşti, Romania, in World War II, on August 1, 1943.
I now live in the Village of Dabney in The Villages. I was heartened to learn that the Dabney family was the first Black family to settle in Leesburg in 1857. One of the sons of that family, John Morgan Dabney, became the first Black teacher in Leesburg, and later, a school principal.
Amanda Bertrand
Names matter. The names we choose for buildings and roads and bridges inform members of the community, as well as those who are passing through, what our values are as a community. That’s why I oppose Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini’s proposal for a Charlie Kirk memorial on Wellness Way.
Whether taken out of context or not, the rhetoric of Charlie Kirk does not, in my opinion, reflect the values of our communities within Lake County. While the circumstances of his death are tragic and I do not condone them, how one dies does not redeem how one lived and what one said about Americans and America.
Kirk cannot speak for himself any longer, but others can speak in support of what he stood for. One of those surrogates is Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the United States Homeland Security Adviser. Miller spoke at the memorial for Kirk on Sunday:
“The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing, you are nothing, you are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing, you can build nothing, you can produce nothing, you can create nothing.”
My question is, who are “they”? Citizens of Lake County who are not supporters of the current administration? Am I, a retired member of the United States Armed Forces, wicked and evil? Are we nothing? Is this what a monument to Charlie Kirk stands for, moving forward?
If we are in search of people to honor with memorials and signs who have “achieved significant recognition historically on the county, state, national or international level,” look no further than Emogene Stegall, as one example, the longest-serving elected official in Lake County history.
I would proudly drive down Emogene Stegall Way with all citizens of this county, regardless of our individual political or religious beliefs. We are not “nothing” and the decision to reject hate and division is something we can do to refute Stephen Miller’s divisive rhetoric in the name of continuing Charlie Kirk’s divisive message.
Amanda Bertrand lives in The Villages. This column is adapted from remarks Bertrand submitted to the Lake County Commission before its Sept. 23 meeting.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/25/commentary-names-matter-dont-honor-kirk-in-lake-county/
