Daytona reporter Dotti Lewis who met Elvis, JFK, and advocated for mentally ill dies at 93
The discriminatory ban on Black people using the beaches was up for discussion and government leaders wanted to talk about it.
Knowing how sensitive the issue might be, on July 8, 1955, they held a secret meeting at a Daytona Beach hotel, away from the chambers where they conducted official business. A reporter for The News-Journal caught wind of the meeting and covered it the only way she could: By climbing onto a fire escape near the window where it took place.
"I couldn't see anyone through the window, but I knew their voices. I was taking notes like crazy," said the reporter whose byline was Dorothy Einhorn but later came to be known by her married name, Dotti Lewis.
The enterprise Lewis showed that day didn't just help her get the story, it carried her through a remarkable life beyond newspapering that ended at age 93 on Nov. 19.
"She was very short, not even 5 feet tall, but she wasn't somebody to be blown off. She stood her ground about things," said Kathy Kelly, a former News-Journal editor and reporter who met Lewis when she started at the newspaper as a high school senior.
Despite being "the lowest form of humanity, the copy kid," Lewis became Kelly's friend and mentored the burgeoning reporter in understanding what's news and how to make the rounds on the police beat.
The news staff was mostly men, but Lewis worked her way to the Daytona Beach City Hall beat and later served as an editor. Her work as a journalist led her to cover and meet some of the 20th century's most influential figures: Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley. Yet after 22 years, she left the newspaper.
“I wasn’t so much burnt out," Lewis told the Orlando Sentinel in 1987. "It was just the thought of getting a 25-year pin from anywhere that horrified me."
Lewis worked in public relations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and at a firm she cofounded with the owner of Daytona Budweiser. In 1977, she and her late husband Gordon started Einhorn and Lewis Inc., a public relations and public opinion research firm.
That led her into political campaign advising, where her work helped the Volusia County School Board win bond referendums to build new schools. Kelly said Lewis also engineered Evelyn Lynn's first victory, catapulting Lynn into a career that included eight years in the Florida House and 10 in the Senate, and Dick Graham's 1988 upset victory over Sam Bell, a longtime legislator who was set to become House speaker had he won.
Lewis earned a doctorate in education from the University of Florida in 1984, decades after attending that school as an undergraduate from Rhode Island.
She taught as a visiting professor at Stetson University as well as what's now known as Daytona State College and Bethune-Cookman University, where she also helped with public relations.
Lewis and her sister, the late Salty Leatherwood, were inspired in 1988 to start Project Care Inc., a nonprofit that raised money to help homeless people and people with mental illnesses and other disabilities by providing household appliances, dishes, clothing and holiday gifts.
In 2009, Lewis and Leatherwood were honored, along with their late sister Sandi Parker, as siblings of the year by Daytona Beach-based Neighbor To Family, a foster-care agency.
In her elder years, Lewis remained engaged in the community, writing many opinion pieces for The News-Journal. One she wrote in 2013 advocating for more mental-health resources sparked a response from Graham: "Dotti and the caring professionals she acknowledged have done wonders in this community to recognize and deal with this important issue. And Dotti has done so without compensation or self-promotion. She goes down as a real hero in my book."
Lewis is survived by her step-children, Rebecca Lewis, Marsha Lewis, and James Lewis; three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to: Project Care 25 Heather Cove, Boynton Beach, FL 33436.
Obituary: Dorothy G. Lewis
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Remembering Dotti Lews: Former Daytona reporter, political consultant
