On Thursday, Mike Tolbert, a longtime friend, aide and biographer of former Jacksonville mayor Jake Godbold, was waiting at River City Brewing Company for a lunch meeting with him. Meanwhile, Randy Wyse, the Union President for the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue, was waiting for Godbold to arrive with Tolbert. Godbold is a regular of the restaurant and had called the men to meet that afternoon.
Tolbert said it’s not unusual for Godbold to run a few minutes late, but when he wouldn’t answer their calls, they started to become concerned.
“All of a sudden as we are getting ready to leave, Randy gets a message, and he said I hate to be the one to tell you this, but they just found Jake dead,” said Tolbert.
They immediately sat in silence as they felt a wave shock from the news.
“Through your training and years of experience, it’s best to just come out and say it, ‘one of our great friends has passed,' and there was a quiet moment there where obviously everyone was shocked,” said Wyse.
Tolbert and Wyse said they stayed at the restaurant after that and shared stories about Godbold.
They say the reason Godbold wanted to meet them there in the first place, was to ask Tolbert to write a book about the history of the Jacksonville fire department and include stories from the firefighters, whom he always referred to as “my firefighters."
Godbold fought for first responders his entire life. Thanks to him JFRD became the first department to respond with EMS. He boosted their salary and most recently he went to bat for their pension at City Hall.
“Even after he left office, it was a true friendship with firefighters for many, many years,” said Wyse.
Godbold helped shape much of what Downtown Jacksonville is today, and no one knows that better than Tolbert.
Perhaps his biggest accomplish though, was leading the charge to bring a NFL team to the First Coast because that was ultimately the driving force to build up downtown and bring in more business to the community.
“When the NFL commissioner announced a team was coming to Jacksonville, “he blurted out, oh s*** we got it”,” said Tolbert. “There are many people who are sad today, but he wouldn’t want that, he would want us to celebrate what he has done for this city.”