The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • F1

Orlando Sentinel: PRODUCT: LIV DESK: LIV DATE: 06-27-2004 EDITION: FLA ZONE: FLA PAGE: F1.0 DEADLINE: 12.2 OP: walden COMPOSETIME: 13.35 CMYK life Times Orlando Sentinel OrlandoSentinel.com Sunday, June 27, 2004 Section INDEX DINING FISH IS THE FORTE Seafood and the scenery are the stars at Pisces Rising. PageFS MAN IN THE MIDDLE INTERFAITH ADVOCATE Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf closes gap between the Middle East, America. Page F7 BOOKS 'FROM WALT TO WOODSTOCK' Did Disney set the stage for the countercultural revolution? Page F8 Gallery F2 Visual Arts F4 Best Sellers F9 DearAbby F12 JULIE FLETCHERORLANDO SENTINEL He's branching into Florida. Standing under a banyan tree, Kent Buescher checks on renovations at Cypress Gardens, which is among the state's oldest attractions. The entrepreneur, who pilots his plane to Winter Haven 3 days a week, is no stranger to theme parks he built and still runs Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Ga.

GREEN THUMB FOR SUCCESS Since he was a boy, Kent Buescher hasn't shied away from taking risks in the business world. Now he has taken on the challenge of putting the bloom back on Cypress Gardens. By LINDA SHRIEVES SENTINEL STAFF WRITER Kent Buescher plows his golf cart through a jungle of vines, bounces over wooden footbridges in various states of disrepair, and pauses at the famous Florida-shaped pool, now green with algae. His new project, the world-renowned Cypress Gardens, looks tattered and forlorn. "What I inherited," says the park's new owner, "was a run-down place with run-down buildings and run-down everything." Yet Buescher is what many would call a cockeyed optimist.

Though some people think he's nuts for pouring millions of dollars into an old theme park off the beaten path, Buescher is a true believer. He believes in history and in himself. He believes that if he rebuilds one of Florida's oldest attractions, tourists will come. Now Buescher, the consummate salesman, must persuade everyone else to believe it too. Hands-on style With his boyishly flushed cheeks and wireframe glasses, Buescher, 48, looks like a nice accountant.

Yet he wears a cell phone on his belt and carries a large flashlight for poking into the dark, damp corners of his new playground. PLEASE SEE PARK, F6 The blurry beginning of local TV Fifty years ago, Central Floridians finally tuned in an Orlando station. And, though the TV reception wasn't great, public reception was enthusiastic. Anything that went wrong on the air, the audience could see it. But the audience was forgiving.

They were feeling their way along with the people working in it." Back then, television rearranged household furniture, personal schedules and the cultural landscape. If the small screen is less transfixing today, the nostalgia for it never goes out of style. WKMG will mark 50 years on the air with five historical vignettes to debut during broadcast of the Lake Eola fireworks show July 4. The spots will play through the PLEASE SEE TV, F3 By HAL BOEDEKER SENTINEL TELEVISION CRITIC In pop-culture lore, the 1950s stand as the Golden Age of Television Drama. For the Orlando market, the reality was primitive: more Bronze Age than golden.

The drama came in making television happen. In the early days, just watching was a technical challenge. Viewers struggled with their antennas to pick up a Jacksonville station. Other people simply read about Milton Berle and I Love Lucy; it was like hearing about Tony Soprano today without subscribing to HBO. Orlando finally gained its first television station when WDBO-Channel 6 (now WKMG) signed on 50 years ago this week on July 1, 1954.

Channel 6 ushered in an era of broadcasting marked by bad reception, technical difficulties and flimsy sets. Fans of high-definition television, VCRs and DVDs would be appalled. Viewers then were easily dazzled by the blurry, black-and-white beginnings. "None of the people who came to work for me at the station had been in television," says Mark Barker, 78, Channel 6's first production manager. "They had to learn on the job.

rZ. 1 in WKMG-CHANNEL 6 In the '50s. Started by the owners of WDBO radio, the original WDBO TV station (known as WKMG today) was on Texas Avenue at the edge of a swamp. COLORSTRIP: I.