Satellite Beach’s ‘Pepper Tree Man’ dies at age 93

INDIAN HARBOUR BEACH — After flying combat missions over Europe during World War II, John Baker spent a quarter century engaged in hand-to-limb combat against beachside Brazilian pepper trees between the Eau Gallie and Pineda causeways.

Baker, the Space Coast’s pre-eminent pepper-tree buster, passed away July 6. He was 93.

Since the 1990s, Brevard County barrier-island leaders advertised Baker’s pepper-tree removal service and home phone number in Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach and South Patrick Shores community newsletters. He labored and sweated in the hot sun, chopping up the exotic invaders free of charge.

“He had his own war, I think with the Brazilian peppers,” Harry Holloman, senior pastor at Satellite Beach United Methodist Church, said Monday during Baker’s memorial service at Beach Funeral Home in Indian Harbor Beach.

“Just that image of him still out there, 90 years old, in some ditch with a chainsaw — about falling over with a chainsaw. I’m not sure how he didn’t hurt himself,” Holloman said.

A decade ago, the Marine Resources Council gave Baker the 2007 Pepper Buster of the Year Award, noting that the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel outworked volunteers who were a quarter of his age. That was when he was a youthful 84 years old.

During a May 2015 FLORIDA TODAY interview, Baker fired up his orange Stihl chainsaw and carved up a 25-foot Brazilian pepper tree just north of the the former South Patrick Hardware & Lumber in Indian Harbour Beach.

At that time, his spiral-bound logbook revealed that he had cleared pepper trees from 1,084 beachside properties. That doesn’t count the who-knows-how-many Brazilian peppers he chopped down across 52-acre Samsons Island, where the vegetative ecosystem has since rebounded as a nature preserve.

“John was an amazingly giving and caring person who did so much for our department and for the surrounding community, dedicating his life to eradicating Pepper trees until retiring two years ago at the age of 91,” Satellite Beach Fire Department officials posted July 11 on the agency’s Facebook page.

“He will be missed tremendously, but his memory will live on forever in the hearts of all who knew him!” the post stated.

Baker was born in 1923 in Carey, Ohio. After serving as an Air Force navigator in World War II and the Korean War, he was transferred to Patrick Air Force Base in 1958.

After retiring from the military in 1963, Baker moved to Satellite Beach, worked as an engineer for Boeing, and founded PolyOleum Rustproofing in 1969 in downtown Melbourne.

Dubbed Schinus terebinthifolius, the Brazilian pepper tree is related to poison ivy and poison oak. The aggressive pest plant has infested more than 700,000 acres in Florida, shading out surrounding vegetation and creating a poor habitat for native species, the University of Florida/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants reported.

After Monday’s memorial service — which drew an overflow crowd — mourners attended a reception at the Satellite Beach Civic Center.

“There was not a pepper tree he liked,” Mayor Frank Catino said.

“He was really kind of one of the first individuals that made an effort towards (eradication). Not only talking about it: He actually went out and removed the trees. He didn’t charge people for it,” Catino said.

City Manager Courtney Barker said Baker spearheaded Satellite Beach’s 2015 noxious-plant ordinance that outlawed Brazilian pepper trees, Australian pines and melaleuca trees.

“This is one thing about John: When he came into my office, he came in with not only the complaint, but the solution in his hand,” Barker said.

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