Nancy Parrish is the former chair of the Ringling Museum Foundation.
But years before that, she was a St. Petersburg kid who loved visiting the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota with her family.
"As kids, we used to climb those banyan trees before there was security around," Parrish said. "It's really part of our growing up."
Parrish said this nostalgic sentiment toward the museum is something she shares with many in the greater Tampa Bay region. It is also one of the reasons why more than 2,500 people joined the non-profit group Citizens to Protect the Ringling.
"It was because of their own personal feelings toward the Ringling and what it means to us individually and to our community," said Parrish, the group's president.
A proposal to transfer control of the Ringling Museum from Florida State University to New College of Florida was not included in this year's legislative budget.
Gov. Ron DeSantis had proposed the transfer in February, and Citizens to Protect the Ringling formed in the same month to advocate against the move.
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Parrish said the group watched the session closely to see if the proposal ended up in the budget. Lawmakers finally approved the spending plan this week, about six weeks after the originally scheduled end of session.
"We were sure that the Ringling transfer was not included in the final legislative budget," she said. "And so once it passed and the legislature ended their session, we were aware."
Parrish said members were excited that the "iconic" cultural institution would remain independent. Many of them had worked daily since mid-February, when they learned there would be an attempt to slide what Parrish called a "harmful transfer" into the budget process.
"It was a great victory for the Gulf Coast community, from Tampa Bay down to Venice and beyond," she said. "And so it was quite a relief."
Parrish said when nine former board chairs, donors and community leadership got together to write an open letter back in February, most of them had "little hope" they could succeed.
They weren't sure they would be able to prevent the takeover. Still, Parrish said she knew they needed to do everything possible to prevent it from happening.
"We were surprised at the community response," she said. "It was absolutely heroic when thousands of community members came together, wrote letters, made phone calls, visited our legislative delegation and packed a town hall meeting."
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But Parrish believes DeSantis and New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran will try to transfer control of the Ringling Museum in the future.
So she said her organization will remain active, continuing to communicate with legislators about where the community stands on the subject.
Parrish hopes this will prevent future action and make sure that the region's interests remain in their hands.
"It is a little frustrating and disappointing, I must say, that we as a citizenry have to work so hard to convince our legislators that our economic and community priorities must take precedence," she said.
Parrish attributed the victory to the citizens who refused to let a world-class cultural institution be put at risk through a "backroom deal."
"There's work ahead, and I think donors are reasonably also concerned that this is a temporary situation and that we've got to be concerned about the future and be aware," she said.
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