Winner- Sarah McCulloch “Everglades City 1985”
Congratulations to Sarah McCulloch from Davie, FL on winning the 2025 Will McLean Best new Florida Song Contest for her song, Everglades City 1985.
“I am so honored to have won the contest,” said McCulloch. “It is one of my proudest accomplishments.” She says the song is a tender and gritty tale of love and loss amidst the drug scandals in a small Florida town that time forgot.
“I grew up in the same county as Everglades City, so we were neighbors, just thousands of acres of Everglades between us. I don’t know exactly what it was like to be a Fisherman’s wife but I know what it was like to be a Sawmiller’s daughter watching my father slowly lose his business because of the national park service moving in and limiting land use.
The song is really about the human toll on the family that occurs when the ability to make a living on the land is lost. My father died suddenly in 1996 of a pulmonary embolism and everyone felt that the stress he was under shortened his life. When I sing the line “I’ll find me a job that won’t disappear, then I won’t have to disappear,” I’m singing about my father’s death. I hope the song makes people think too about what they would have done in that situation, “ … .. if a boat and a line and a fish were your way of life.” It’s raw and edgy and might make a few people uncomfortable but it’s real. I know it cause’ I lived it.”
McCulloch will be performing her winning song at the Will McLean Festival scheduled for March 7 – 9th, 2025 at the Florida Sand Music Ranch near Brooksville.
In 2023 McCulloch placed 3rd with the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest with “Sugartown” from her widely acclaimed album Sawmiller’s Daughter produced by Jim Bickerstaff (Bickerstaff won the contest in 2024).
She released her newest album, “Driving Me Home” in May of 2024. It is a collection of 12 original songs steeped in folk/country storytelling and is available everywhere music is streamed. In February, 2024 McCulloch was selected as one of the winners of the 2024 South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival’s Singer-Songwriter Competition.
2nd Place Finisher – Daniel Stepp- “Goodbye Senator”
The 2nd place finisher in the 2025 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest is Daniel Stepp from Gainesville, FL with a song called, “Goodbye Senator.”
Stepp shared this inspiration for the song. “In 2012 a 3,500 year old cypress tree called The Senator, in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida was burned down. The fire was caused by a woman, Sara Banes, lighting a small fire to assist her in smoking crystal meth beneath the tree and (it) quickly grew out of control and destroyed the tree, the 5th oldest tree in the world, and the oldest tree in the US east of the Mississippi River. This song is about the imposition we place on nature, wonder, and awe, through notions of progress and individualism.” Stepp says he’s honored to place in the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest and will be participating in the Will McLean Festival as a performer for the first time.
He has been writing songs for a new album with his band, The Wire Birds which will focus exclusively on stories and events in Florida. “As a Florida native I have always been interested in the narrative content in our state and how it’s filled with nature, awe and wonder, tragedy and mythologies of progress and utopianism. Some of the songs will include stories of the North Florida Barge Canal, tourist attractions, carnival shows, sugar cane, immaculate conceptions, insurance fraud, and religious movements.” Stepp’s Instagram link is thewirebirds_gnv.
3rd Place Finisher – Bob Patterson- “A Place In My Heart”
Bob Patterson from St. Augustine is the 3rd place finisher of the 2025 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest for, “A Place In My Heart.”
Patterson is no stranger to the contest. In 2019 he placed 1st with a song called “Silver Springs.” In 2005 he placed 3rd with a song called, “Lullabye of the Rivers.” It’s become somewhat of an anthem around the state. More importantly, it’s been used by educators to teach students about the natural history, geography, ecology and the state of health of Florida’s Rivers.
“The idea is if we don’t teach the kids about the environment, we can’t expect them to grow up wanting to protect it,” said Patterson. He hopes to obtain funding to create a DVD that could be used in schools to teach more educators how to utilize music in their science and history classes.
Patterson is the key organizer of a relatively new festival in the St. Augustine Area called “Lullabye of the Rivers.” He was one of the original founders of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival, and functioned as the event’s Artistic Director for 24 years. In 2011 the Stetson Kennedy Foundation awarded him the ‘Fellow Man and Mother Earth Award’ for his work in actively keeping folk culture alive in Florida.
Patterson was a 2011 first place winner in the North Florida Folk Network song writing contest in the category of Best Florida Song. In 2014 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Storytelling Association.
He has been a featured performer at the annual Florida Folk Festival at White Springs for more than 45 years and was recently inducted into the St Augustine Music Hall of Fame. In addition to critically acclaimed CDs, Patterson has authored two books, Forgotten Tales of Florida, and, Dorothy. Both books are loaded with Florida folk lore and history and have become very popular in the folk community and beyond.
