Spend a beautiful day in Mister Rogers’ Florida neighborhood

WINTER PARK, Fla. — Drive into this community northeast of Orlando’s theme park mecca and it quickly becomes clear you’re in a Mister Rogers neighborhood: A mural of Latrobe native and long-time PBS children’s show host Fred Rogers adorns the exterior wall of Floyd’s 99 Barbershop, a few blocks from the heart of Rogers’ alma mater, Rollins College.

“Instead of the classic red sweater, we put him in a Rollins blue sweater,” said Floyd’s of central Florida owner Sarah Sleeth of the depiction, painted by Los Angeles-based muralist Jonas Never. “When we were deciding who to do a mural of, Mister Rogers was a natural choice: Family-friendly, has ties to the school. We wanted it to be, ‘Welcome to Winter Park, won’t you be my neighbor?’ ”

Rogers, who would have turned 94 on March 20, is celebrated year-round at Rollins, and especially in his birthday month of March, even though students may not initially be familiar with the gentle American television icon.

“Because they go here, they learn quickly,” said Dan Crozier, Rogers’ nephew and a professor of music, theory and composition at Rollins. “The students in the music program are asked to perform his music at functions frequently. They see his portrait (in the Fred Rogers lobby of Tiedtke Concert Hall) and they learn about him. Fred Rogers Productions has the new shows, like ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,’ and they’re familiar with those and I think, by extension, with him.”

Crozier said his family has quite a legacy at Rollins. His mother, the late Nancy Elaine “Laney” Crozier (for whom Lady Elaine Fairchilde on the “Neighborhood” was named), attended Rollins and it’s the place where Fred met his future wife, Joanne.

“Another interesting coincidence is that I teach music, theory and composition here, and Fred was a composition major here — so I teach his major,” Crozier noted.

In their later years, Fred and Joanne Rogers would often visit Winter Park for a portion of most winters.

“The place they rented was near my apartment and for Christmas when I would go up north to visit my parents, Fred would use my apartment as his writing place,” Crozier said. “He always liked to have a place he got away to work, whether it was in Pittsburgh or (when at their summer home in) Nantucket or here. So he was writing (‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’) shows in my apartment.”

Every March in honor of Rogers’ birthday month, signs go up around the Spanish Mediterranean architecture-filled Rollins campus as part of the school’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Walking Tour. But really, that tour can be done anytime by following a map on the Rollins website.

Of the five stops on Rollins’ Mister Rogers tour, only pieces of the archive collection are not routinely available to the public, although they will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 21-25 in honor of Rogers’ birthday. The collection includes books, handwritten letters, photographs, yearbooks and a sweater knitted by Rogers’ mother —complete with a Nancy Flagg, for Nancy McFeely Rogers Flagg, label — that he wore on the “Neighborhood” along with a pair of sneakers. (Even these can be seen by appointment in Olin Library year-round.)

Courtesy of Rollins College

Fred Rogers’ sweater and shoes, worn during tapings of episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” are part of the Rollins College archive collection.

Rogers donated the attire and signed one shoe with his name and Rollins graduation year (1951) and on the other inscribed, “These sneakers helped to make many ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ television visits.”

The Mister Rogers tour includes stops at the “Life is for Service” plaque engraved in marble near Strong Hall (he had a picture of the plaque on the wall of his office at WQED-TV in Oakland, and it’s said he carried a photo of the engraving in his wallet). At the Rollins Walk of Fame, in front of Rogers’ old dormitory, Lyman Hall, Rogers placed a stone from his hometown of Latrobe in March 1991.

But the showpiece of the tour is “A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor,” a 3,000-pound, 360-degree outdoor bronze sculpture created by British sculptor Paul Day and unveiled in October 2021 (Crozier wrote a composition that was played by a brass quintet at the unveiling).

Courtesy of Rollins College

British sculptor Paul Day’s “A Beautiful Day for a Neighbor” statue sits between the theater and chapel at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla.

Given his background as an ordained Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor whose ministry was to children and families through his TV program, the statue is appropriately situated in a courtyard between Rollins’ theater and chapel.

The statue features Rogers, seated with the Daniel Tiger puppet on his right hand, surrounded by children. Day added the number 143 to all the figures’ shoes, representing the number of letters in each word of the phrase “I love you,” a Rogers favorite. The back of the sculpture features locations and characters from the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, including King Friday, Queen Sara and Lady Elaine.

Crozier came to Rollins in 1995 as a sabbatical replacement professor and never left. He said he had an opportunity to leave for a position at another school, but he didn’t take it.

“I think (Fred and Joanne) were very happy about that,” Crozier said. “The last conversation I had with Fred, he was in the hospital at UPMC and he said, ‘Please keep raising the level at Rollins in the music program,’ so it was important to him.”

Rogers died Feb. 27, 2003, of stomach cancer, but remembrances of his life — and life’s work — continue 19 years later.

In Western Pennsylvania, Rogers is being remembered with “Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Again?” a programming series by the Fred Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College in conjunction with the Latrobe Art Center, where the exhibit “Being Neighborly: Fred Rogers and Being a Good Neighbor” wraps up March 19 with a 3 p.m. closing event comparing Rogers’ real neighborhood with the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. A new exhibit, “Arts in the Neighborhood and the Natural World,” about how Rogers communicated the importance of art to children, begins with an opening event at 3 p.m. April 23. A final event, “Neighbor 143 (I Love You),” will be held at 3 p.m. May 21.

Just last year, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) celebrated March 20 as the first Mister Rogers Day, a special emphasis day on the church calendar.

“We had some resources last year around what it looks like to reach out into your neighborhood, especially during the time of covid,” said Stephanie Fritz, mission coordinator for Christian formation in the Presbyterian Mission agency of PCUSA. “Learning about your neighbors and getting out in your neighborhood can apply to anybody. That doesn’t have to be anything that’s particular to the Christian religion. Everybody can identify with Mister Rogers. We particularly have a fondness for Mister Rogers because he was PCUSA, but, for most people, it’s a unifying thing. Who doesn’t love Mister Rogers?”

For its second year, Mister Rogers Day includes a liturgy, newly-composed hymn and coloring page all available for free use at pcusa.org/mrogers.

Rogers’ long-time congregation in Squirrel Hill, Sixth Presbyterian, will offer “a simple remembrance,” per Sixth’s current pastor, Vincent Kolb.

“As I hear recollections of his life at Sixth … it is clear to me that Sixth was a refuge from all the fame he enjoyed and sought to avoid,” Kolb said.

Rogers’ legacy lives on through viewers’ affection that crescendoed in 2018 (with the feature-film documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”) and in 2019 (with “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” starring Tom Hanks as Rogers).

Rogers’ attention to the inner lives of preschoolers continues through the programs produced by Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions, particularly the two “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” successor series, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” and “Donkey Hodie.” The latter series has been airing new episodes on Fridays all March, including the March 18th episode (10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., WQED-TV; repeating at 9 a.m. March 20 on Channel 13.5) that features a reimagined version of Rogers’ song, “You’ve Got to Do It.” “Here Comes Donkey Hodie,” a digital album featuring 16 songs from the series — including reimagined versions of tunes created by Rogers — will be released April 8.