Free Preview: Playmate of the Month June 1979 - Louann Fernald

Louann Fernald is proud of her Florida heritage. Her father worked in Satellite Beach, designing guidance systems for missiles. Now he raises oranges. She grew up in a house filled with good books a few blocks from one of the finest beaches in the world. Our Miss June is at home in the world of words and the world of pure physical activity. She divides her time at the University of Florida in Gainesville between studying and running. She almost never watches television. ("My life would have to be pretty boring to plug into the tube, wouldn't it?") Louann considers herself a product of her environment, and when she sat down to talk about a story that would go with her gatefold, the thought of protecting that environment was on her mind. She recalls the rock-climber who scaled a skyscraper and, when the TV crews arrived, unfurled a banner asking the world to save the whales. "Ideally, I would like to do the same thing with the pictorial. You know, 'As long as I have your attention, I would like to say the following.'" While walking along the beach in Daytona, Louann delivers an impassioned plea to save Florida from pollution, unthinking tourists and corporate criminals. She points out the beer cans left, she's sure, by visitors from the North. She points to the surf. "It's beautiful today, isn't it? Well, some days I run on this beach and look at the surf, and it's orange. Tankers dump their oil offshore before coming into port and it turns the surf orange. Don't they realiz...