Cynthia Handley, Brevard's Bush campaign chair and homeless-youth advocate, dies at age 81
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Outspoken. Opinionated. A daughter of a small-town Ohio mayor who became a passionate political proponent and Brevard County's campaign leader for Republicans Jeb Bush and George W. Bush during the 1990s and 2000s.
And a longtime advocate for Crosswinds Youth Services, where she and her husband, Jim, spearheaded construction of their namesake $3 million Cocoa center that provides services for homeless and runaway children.
Cynthia Handley died Wednesday, Jan. 4, at age 81 after a short battle with cancer. A celebration of life is scheduled from 2 to 5 p.m. Jan 22 at the Cocoa Beach Country Club dining room. The event is open to the public. In lieu of flowers, her family requests donations in her honor to Crosswinds Youth Services, where she served as a board member from 1999 to 2013.
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Among her career highlights, Cynthia and Jim chaired Brevard's campaigns for Republican Jeb Bush governor in 1994, 1998 and 2002. The Cocoa Beach couple served similar roles during George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, then expanded to co-chair a multi-county region in and surrounding the Space Coast for his 2004 re-election campaign.
Jim recalled a California radio host who interviewed Cynthia amid the 2000 presidential election vote-counting cliffhanger controversy — she was one of Florida's 25 Republican electors who had pledged to vote for Bush, should he win the state's popular vote.
“The guy said, ‘Would you consider changing your vote and voting for Al Gore?’ And she said, ‘I wouldn't vote for Al Gore if he was running for dogcatcher,’ “ Jim said, laughing.
“And of course, they loved that controversial statement. So that made her popular. She and Carole Jean Jordan were kind of the two spokespeople for the Florida electors, because both of them were on either television or radio all the time," he said.
Jim is a retired IBM executive who worked on the Cape during NASA's Apollo program, managing a group that developed software used by Saturn V rocket launch-complex personnel. Afterward, he moved to California. He met Cynthia over Thanksgiving 1987 while visiting his sister in Shelby, Ohio — his sister and her best friend fixed them up.
Cynthia was born and raised in Shelby, where her father served as a judge and mayor. She flew to California to visit Jim in January 1988 — "her mom and dad were very upset because she was going to go out to visit a single man," he recalled — and they married a month later.
Jim owned a vacation condominium in Cocoa Beach, which he had put up for sale. But that changed the first time Cynthia visited the Space Coast as a newlywed.
“I said, 'Let's go down and check out the condo and make sure it's in good shape.' So we drove down. We're coming across the causeway at 528 — and Cynthia says, ‘Maybe we don't want to sell this condo.’ And that was it," Jim said.
"She fell in love with Cocoa Beach. And so, we came down every year from ‘88 to ‘92. We moved here permanently in 1992," he said.
Cynthia became heavily involved in Brevard politics and ranks among the founders of the Republican Club of Brevard, North Brevard Republican Club and the Cape Canaveral chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
After Jeb Bush won the 1998 gubernatorial election, Jim said Cynthia joined the Crosswinds Youth Services board. During the next decade, they co-led fundraising to build the nonprofit's $3 million facility serving at-risk runaway and homeless kids, which opened in July 2008 and is named The Handley Center.
The couple also co-chaired Brevard Zoo's Safari Under the Stars fundraiser, among numerous other community endeavors.
“During the period when we were young enough to be pretty active, it was pretty much always politics and going to meetings of our clubs. And we just made thousands of friends. I think I’ve got a list of names and addresses of about 4,000 volunteers. So we were very social in a lot of activities around Brevard," Jim said.
His son, Chuck Handley of Santa Barbara, California, remembers Cynthia as a strong leader who enjoyed cooking.
“Real social. She liked to put together big gatherings. She had a really good memory. She had the ‘Jeopardy’ game on her computer. It's like, the question wasn't even done being asked" — and Chuck slammed his palm on the table, laughing, as if pressing an imaginary button to signal a ready answer.
Jim still serves on the Crosswinds Youth Services board, as does Susan Hammerling-Hodgers. She is a former vice chair of the Brevard Republican Executive Committee and previous president of the Trump Club of Brevard.
“I met Cynthia in 1994 during the Jeb Bush campaign as a volunteer. And through the years till now, she's helped to influence me on being the person I am. By being able to voice my opinion and speak up on what is right in the community, even if it's quote ‘not popular,’ “ Hammerling-Hodgers said.
“One thing about Cynthia, she was always active. She never expected anything in return. She raised millions of dollars for Crosswinds, and then she was on the King Center board of trustees as well. She wore a number of hats in the community because she wanted to help others and promote the community, and help people that were not as fortunate," she said.
"She'll be missed in Brevard County," she said.
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard's campaign chair for George W. Bush and Jeb Bush dies at 81
