Burning Spear Society

Infobox Organization
name = Burning Spear Society

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formation = 1993
type = Honor Society
headquarters = Tallahassee, Florida
location = flagicon|USA United States
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website = [http://www.burningspear.org/noles/noles.html Official website]

Burning Spear is a leadership honorary society at The Florida State University, created in 1993 and originally named the "Charlie Ward for Heisman Coalition".

History

Burning Spear was founded on July 14, 1993 by three student leaders who recognized an opportunity to unite students, faculty, alumni, and community members who all shared a desire to make Florida State University one of the world's leading institutions of higher education. The founders believed that leadership and character of exceptional quality should be recognized, and that all Seminoles should meet and work together on a basis of mutual interests, ideals, and love of their alma mater. By August 1993, sixteen diverse student leaders joined together to charter this new organization, and within one year's time seven additional students would be initiated into membership.

Burning Spear is fully integrated and has a strong history of inclusion of persons of different gender and race. Burning Spear was rated the Best New Campus Organization for the 1993–94 school year in the State of Florida by the Florida Leader Magazine.

Events

Burning Spear serves as the host of the Clock & Seal annual homecoming banquet at FSU. Former keynote speakers of Clock & Seal include:
* Florida Trend publisher Lynda Keever
* Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero
* Former Florida Senate President John Thrasher
* United States Senator Bill Nelson
* Governor Charlie Crist
* Seminole Boosters Director Charlie Barnes
* NFL All-Pro Derrick Brooks
* Representative Ray Sansom
* NFL All-Pro Marvin Jones

Burning Spear also sponsors the Seminole Spirit Drum, which beats nonstop outside of Doak Campbell Stadium for 72 hours prior to a football game against a major rival.

Controversies

Burning Spear has claimed existence for only thirteen years, but there are dissenting opinions that say the society has operated in one form or another for a much longer time. Their control of campus and state politics has been compared to Florida Blue Key at the University of Florida, The Machine at the University of Alabama and the Skull and Bones society of Yale University.

There are a large number of Burning Spear alumni from Florida State now in the legislature, including Governor Charlie Crist, Lieutenant Governor Jeff Kottkamp, former Senate President Jim King and speaker designee of the House of Representatives Ray Sansom. The organization is also said to control a political action committee that gives campaign contributions to candidates that attended Florida State.

There are rumored to be two levels to Burning Spear: a highly competitive student level and an alumni level. Student membership consists of the most elite of student government and fraternal/sorority leaders on campus and never exceeds twenty members. Most are current members of the Insight Party, the FSU political party that has been sweeping university elections for several years.

Burning Spear is also reputed to have secretly worked with fraternities and sororities to control strategic positions in student government, the student newspaper "FSView and Florida Flambeau" and other key student organizations.

External links

* [http://www.burningspear.org Burning Spear]
* [http://media.www.fsunews.com/media/storage/paper920/news/2004/11/18/Lifestyles/noles.Beat.The.Drum.Before.The.Gators-2357788.shtml?sourcedomain=www.fsunews.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com Noles beat the drum before the Gators: Burning Spear's Drum Tour promotes Seminole spirit with 72 hours of continuous drumming]
* [http://espn.go.com/page2/s/rivalries/harvardyale_miamifsu.html Harvard/Yale vs. Miami/Florida St.]
* [http://www.fsu.com/pages/2006/11/08/homecoming_2006.html Clock & Seal Homecoming Banquet]