Gaulden Reed Photo Album

Local legend remembered where it counts: On the beach

Gaulden Reed memorial draws hundreds to the ocean

By Bethany Chambers

Staff Writer

DAYTONA BEACH - With clouds moving quickly overhead and the surf choppy, local legend Gaulden Reed's memorial - which he planned himself before his death earlier this month - was no sunny day at the beach last week.

But that was not a problem, said his daughter, Rebecca Herrero.

"Gaulden thought about that and said, 'If it's choppy, improvise,'" she recalled in her eulogy. "You know he'd be laughing right now."

Surrounded by sailboats, Ms. Herrero, an ordained minister, memorialized her father Nov. 23 in front a crowd of couple hundred on the beach in front of Sunsplash Park.

Area surfers fought the rough waters as family and friends tossed Mr. Reed's ashes into a floating lei, a Hawaiian tradition Mr. Reed requested before he died Nov. 6 at the age of 89.

A Missing Man Formation of four airplanes - with one plane climbing above the others leaving a trail of smoke - flown by Mr. Reed's friends, crowned the memorial.

The event truly captured Mr. Reed's motto: "Never hurry. Never worry."

"Gaulden really wrote the script," said friend Patti Light, who helped plan the ceremony and braved the chilly waters with his ashes.

"I haven't seen anybody that enjoyed life so much as Gaulden. He used to say, 'You're going to be dead a long time, so live your life enjoying every golden moment.'"

Mr. Reed was, perhaps, best known for his many surfside jobs, including feeding the fish at Marineland, cleaning boat hulls for the Daytona Beach Boat Works, and bringing the first concessions onto the beach.

As a general contractor, Mr. Reed was instrumental in building Aloha Marina in Holly Hill, Sunglow Pier in Daytona Beach Shores and the Ormond Pier. He also helped construct sea walls down the Volusia County coastline.

"He had to have a profession, but he was always looking for ways to be close to the water and share his love of the beach," Ms. Herrero said.

Known by many in the area for his involvement in surfing, sailing, fishing, flying and all things beach-related, Mr. Reed was born in New Smyrna Beach in 1918 and moved to Daytona Beach in the 1930s.

After attending both Mainland High School and Seabreeze High School, he married his sweetheart, Nancy, in 1941.

He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and when he came home to Daytona Beach he raised his daughters, Rebecca, now 64, of San Anselmo, Calif., and Ellen DeVore, 60, of DeLand.

Both daughters followed in their father's footsteps: Ms. Herrero swimming competitively for 50 years and Ms. DeVore still participating in triathlons.

Mr. Reed was also active in local politics and was working to bring a butterfly conservatory to Daytona Beach up until recently.

Neil Harrington, a friend and fellow political activist who met Mr. Reed while guest curating a surfing exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Sciences, said he will fight for Mr. Reed's butterfly conservatory and for a beachfront park to be named in his honor.

"My favorite story to tell (about Mr. Reed) was when he was trying to get the city to permit and sponsor the butterfly museum, and they were constantly dilly-dallying. (The commission was) going to change (the lease), and it didn't fit him. So he tore the lease up and threw it at them," Mr. Harrington said with a laugh.

"They said, 'Do you know what you've done?' and he smiled and said, 'Don't worry; I have another copy!'"

Even as an octogenarian, Mr. Reed still traveled at Christmas to Lake Placid to ski the Olympic trails and spent winters in northern Hawaii surfing the Banzai Pipeline, Ms. Herrero said.

Ms. Herrero recalled her father's final month of life, spent bedridden in his Daytona Beach home.

The picture of the vivacious man at his end drew tears from family - including all six grandchildren and nine out of 10 great-grandchildren - and friends, many of whom were wearing Mr. Reed's hand-made wide-brimmed, woven palm frond hats.

"He paid a very high price for a lifetime in the sun and he kept those dermatologists busy," she said.

Mr. Reed's year-long battle with skin cancer gave his family a private look at the strength behind the colorful character, Ms. Herrero said before the service.

"He had cancer the last year, but even with the complications and the surgeries, he faced his imminent death with courage and good humor," she said.

"That last month when he was bedridden, people visited him and talked to him about what he loved. That kept him going."

Ms. Light said she saw Mr. Reed the morning he died and, though he was unconscious, he was "beautiful as ever."

"I was out in the ocean when he passed, and I could feel it," she said. "It was where he would've wanted to be."

Ms. Light hopes Mr. Reed will live on through his memoir, "Once Upon a Wave," which she co-authored with him. The book will be released this spring.

"I don't think of it as him dying. I think of it as though he left, and he's moved away on to another adventure," she said. "He died with the same gusto with which he lived."

bchambers@hometownnewsol.com