Flagler Beach Attorney Scott Spradley Marks 25th Year With Pier-Timbred Gift to City Commission

Every coastal town has to have its Winslow Homer–an artist who manages to capture sea and surf in their myriad moods and manages to translate that–or digitize it, in this case–for all to see what most can often fail to detect in person. For Flagler Beach, that artist appears to be Scott Spradley, the Nikon-armed attorney who traces his roots in town to a 1965 Thanksgiving trip. That was the year he first fished off the Flagler Beach Pier.

This year Spradley is celebrating his 25th year anniversary as a member of the Florida Bar and a practicing attorney in Flagler Beach. To celebrate the occasion, he’ll be doing the gift-giving. On Oct. 9, Spradley will present a photograph on canvas of the Flagler Beach Pier. The canvas, a pastoral scene of an unhurried beach on what appears to be a languid day, measures 6 feet by 3 feet. It’ll will be on display in the chambers of the City Commission for all to see and perhaps gaze at on those occasions when the chambers heat up from the latest wrangles.

“Flagler Beach is such a special and magical place to me at this stage of my life,” said Spradley, whose photography is on display at the Gallery of Local Art in Flagler Beach and at Bull Creek Fish Camp in the western part of the county.  “I just wanted to share my view of our beach and our pier so that others may appreciate the beauty of it, and felt that a rendering of my photograph would be the best way to do this.”

Just before he turned 10 in 1965 Spradley and his grandparents drove from their Shelby, N.C., home to Florida to spend Thanksgiving fishing from the Flagler Beach Pier. That trip was so enjoyable and productive, Spradley wrote in an announcement about his upcoming gift, that the family returned to Flagler Beach for the 1966 Easter break, and continued the trek every Thanksgiving and every Easter until Spradley was a junior in High School.