Five-time Key West mayor Sonny McCoy, who changed city and water-skied to Cuba, has died
Charles “Sonny” McCoy, a political force who served five terms as mayor of Key West and who in 1978 water-skied to Cuba as a global stunt, died Thursday, his daughter said.
McCoy, 92, died Sept. 10 — the same day that in 1978 he made it to Havana from Key West on a single water ski being pulled behind a yacht called Bullwinkle.
“Sonny is finally holding hands with Merili in heaven,” Mimi McCoy Grantham posted on her Facebook page with a vintage photo of her father at a time when he was mayor of Key West.
Merili McCoy, his wife, had been a Key West City commissioner and died in 2005.
Sonny McCoy was born at home on Bahama Street in Key West on Jan. 16, 1928 — 13 pounds and 3/4 ounces, said McCoy Grantham.
He went on to become an architect and engineer.
“He got a six-year degree in three years while working three jobs,” McCoy Grantham said of her father’s time at the University of Florida.
McCoy drove to college from Key West on an Indian motorcycle with a dresser strapped to his bike, she said.
As an architect in Key West, McCoy designed the U.S. Post Office on Whitehead Street, careful to save the trees on the property, his daughter said.
“He did the architecture around the trees,” she said.
His other projects include the Ocean Key Resort at 0 Duval St., the Galleon Resort and Marina, and the “Salt Pond Project,” which includes Ocean Walk apartments and Seaside condominiums. He also restored the structural integrity of Old City Hall, according to his 2012 book, “Key West, the Rebirth of an Island.”
McCoy was Key West mayor from 1971 to 1981, and in the 2000s served two four-year terms on the Monroe County Commission.
“He will always be remembered, not only for water skiing to Cuba, but for his dedication to this community,” the city posted on Facebook.
Boom town mayor
During his tenure, McCoy helped engineer the boom town days of Key West in the 1970s and ‘80s, when shrimp boats and drug smugglers gave way to unprecedented development, strip malls, cruise ships and hotels.
Key West in the mid-1970s was a struggling, fading Navy town as the military had significantly reduced its footprint.
Around 1975, McCoy worked to renovate Key West’s downtown, according to a 1977 Washington Post article:
“Two years ago Mayor Charles (Sonny) McCoy launched a renovation program called ‘Downtown ‘76,’ with the help of some local bootstrap-pulling and federal money. Abandoned or failing businesses along Duval Street, the main drag of the Old Town, were brought up. New streetlights were put in. Trees were planted. And people started buying and restoring those great old houses that give Key West the charm and character so disastrously lacking in the rest of Florida.”
McCoy received an award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for his role in the revitalization of Key West.
McCoy served Key West at a pivotal time for the island and was a good fit, said Wendy Tucker, a former reporter and photographer for the Key West Citizen, who covered McCoy for years.
“He was local and he had the architectural background to know buildings and he knew people,” Tucker said. “It was a good time for him to be the mayor of Key West. He deserves a place in history.”
Tucker, who moved to Key West in 1971, said McCoy was a standout character — on an island filled with them.
“He was a big part of the Duval Street cleanup,” Tucker said. “And he got federal money to do it.”
The county years
After a break from politics, McCoy ran for the Monroe County Commission in 2000.
McCoy said it was his wife’s idea for him to run, so he could help get a new terminal built at the Key West International Airport. The $31 million terminal was built and named the McCoy Terminal Complex.
On the county commission, Sonny McCoy became part of the so-called “Gang of Three,” a voting bloc that also included Dixie Spehar and Mario Di Gennaro They almost always voted in lockstep -- and almost always favored development plans that came before them.
In 2008, at 80, McCoy was ousted from office by the political newcomer Carlos Rojas, who soundly defeated McCoy in the Republican primary, taking 62 percent of the vote to McCoy’s 38 percent.
Skiing to Cuba
McCoy is remembered for many things in the Keys but he made global news in 1978 when, on a dare made by Tucker, he made it from Key West to Cuba on a single ski.
“I figured he would,” Tucker said. “He’s got a healthy ego. I’d known him a long time and his wife, too.”
The feat — a 50- year-old mayor from a small island town crossing the Gulf Stream on a single water ski — took McCoy two attempts, the first in June 1978.
“My hands were bleeding very badly, and it was an aborted trip,” McCoy recalled years later. “Salt water and blood were mixing and running down my arm. We went all the way into Havana, but I had dropped off about 30 miles off of Havana.”
McCoy wouldn’t give up.
“It was so embarrassing that I was being razzed an awful lot,” McCoy said. “I got disgusted, and I said, “Set it up one more time.” They set it up for Sept. 10, 1978. The second time, I wore gloves.”
As for the single ski, McCoy said it’s better to use one instead of two when in rough waters.
“If I had fallen down, I would never have gotten up again,” he said.
The six-hour and 10 minute, 100-plus miles trip to Havana was a success. McCoy was warmly greeted by Russian-built Cuban gunboats and feted at a Havana harbor party — during which he said he had to stand the entire time due to the pain from the water skiing.
In 2003, McCoy commemorated his water ski trip by going down Duval Street aboard a slalom ski outfitted with wheels and dragged by a Conch Tour Train.
Asked then whether his stunt generated tourism for Key West, McCoy replied: “When I was over there at a party at the Riviera Hotel, I said, ‘As mayor, I’d like to invite you all to Key West.’ Well, the following year, 125,000 came. You might have heard of the Mariel boatlift?”
Key West is home to the eight-acre Charles “Sonny” McCoy Indigenous Park, 1801 White St., popular with birders and home to the Key West Wildlife Center, which rescues and rehabilitates injured wildlife.
McCoy’s career was not without some scandal.
In 2007, Celeste Bruno, McCoy’s former executive assistant, sued Monroe County accusing then-County Mayor McCoy of creating a hostile work environment by sexually harassing her during the 13 months that she worked for him in 2005 and 2006.
A jury sided with Bruno and awarded her $48,400 in lost wages and emotional pain and anguish.
McCoy was not a defendant in the case. He repeatedly said he felt he did nothing inappropriate.
Promoting the island
As Key West mayor, McCoy had a gift for generating positive publicity for the island.
In 1977, McCoy signed a proclamation making Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas a sister city to Key West.
“That’s something very special to the community he did,” said Monroe County Commissioner Craig Cates, the only other person elected Key West mayor five times. ‘it was a big to-do back then.”
Cates remembered McCoy as a quick wit and great champion of Key West.
‘He was a promoter,” Cates said. “Just think if he’d had the internet back then or Facebook. Skiing to Cuba — he was quite the character, in a good way.”
Information
Funeral services will be at 3 p.m. Sept. 17 at The Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea, 1010 Windsor Dr. in Key West.
Survivors include six children: Dulce McCoy Arnold, Felicia McCoy, Peter McCoy, Tim McCoy, Sean McCoy and McCoy Grantham.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Five-time Key West mayor Sonny McCoy, who changed city and water-skied to Cuba, has died."
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