Scott Atwell

In Key West, Florida, grown men can live their entire lives answering to names like Mockingbird, Jungle Rat and Bow Wow. Stroll the city’s venerable cemetery, perched on the island’s highest peak—Solaris Hill—at 17 feet above sea level, and you will note that many have carried nicknames to their graves, a small slice of the town’s culture etched in granite. The southernmost city is a city of nicknames—or least it was. Scott Atwell earned his moniker as a teenager in the mid-1970’s after volunteering to work for a sports news program on hometown radio station WKWF (call letters that stand for Wonderful Key West Florida). The young lad’s penchant for efficiently gathering final scores along the little league baseball circuit impressed one of the official score keepers, who likened him to a “news flash.” Presto, the “Flash” was fixed into the Key West vernacular. Atwell continued to pursue sportscasting and eventually became an anchor for Tallahassee, Florida’s CBS affiliate, where he covered many of the legendary Florida State athletes and served a fill-in co-host of the Bobby Bowden TV show. Later, Atwell went to work for Florida State University in public relations and then served a decade as chief alumni officer. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Miami (where he was drafted from the sports information office in 1980 to suit up for three games as the junior varsity’s back-up quarterback) and a Master’s from FSU (where he was not asked to suit up). After a 35-year hiatus the, “Key West Flash” returned to his island home and the local radio airwaves, hosting a program of exclusive Jimmy Buffett music, where each week he illuminates the origins of one song. Atwell gathered those stories in book form and on the 50th anniversary of the singer’s arrival in Key West, self-published “Buffett Backstories—Fifty Years, Fifty Songs,” available through Amazon. One day he will be buried in Atwell family’s cemetery plot where you will find him listed under the nickname “Flash”.