When Grace Peery accepted the Voice of the Community Legacy Award on behalf of her late husband at the Apopka Sports Hall of Fame Induction Gala on Saturday, she carried with her far more than a plaque. 

She carried the memory of a man who spent more than four decades chronicling Apopka’s stories, covering its athletes and quietly becoming part of the community’s own history. 

“I wanted to honor him well with what I said,” Grace Peery said. “They only gave us two minutes to speak. I can’t consolidate John Peery in two minutes with everything that I would have liked to have said.”  

John Peery, longtime editor of The Apopka Chief and longtime sports editor, received the Hall of Fame’s Voice of the Community Legacy Award posthumously. The honor recognized not only his journalism but also his decades of service to Apopka and its athletic community. 

To Grace, however, John was first a husband, father, grandfather and man of faith. 

“He was consistent,” she said. “He felt family was important to him.” 

Whether it was daughter Kristin’s dance recitals, youth sports or later spending time with his grandchildren, Grace said John was always present. 

“He was just there,” she said. “He wanted to be a part of kids’ lives and support them in what they did.”  

John’s passion for sports began long before he ever carried a camera or notebook. 

His father operated the clock during Apopka High School basketball games, and as a young boy John would sit beneath the scorer’s table, absorbing every detail of the game. Grace believes that experience sparked a fascination that never left him. 

By the time he retired, many had come to regard him as an encyclopedia of Apopka sports. 

“He had more knowledge than anybody around about Apopka sports,” Grace said. “He could quote statistics from players from years back and tell you what player ran what big play and what game, on what date it was, how much time was left on the clock and how many yards they ran. It was all stored in his brain somehow.”  

Even coaches relied on him. When the high school football playoff system changed several years ago, Grace recalled, John spent hours studying the new format until he understood it well enough to explain it to coaches. His love for journalism matched his love for sports. Community journalism, Grace said, wasn’t simply John’s career — it was his calling. 

“He just really loved what he did,” Grace said. “He was one of the few people that I knew that truly loved what he did.”  

That passion was rooted in faith. 

After finding his retirement column during the interview, Grace read one of the passages that remained especially meaningful to her. 

“As a person of faith and as a Christian, I must thank Jesus for His goodness to me,” John wrote. “There have been times when I have had a hard time balancing my representing the Lord and doing my job… I have always tried to make sure that someone who saw me and dealt with me during the week wouldn’t think less of the Lord or me if they saw me at church on Sunday.”  

Grace said she never fully understood the depth of John’s impact until after his death in October 2023. 

“I always knew that he was respected and loved by Apopka as a whole,” she said, “but I never really comprehended how much until after he died.”  

She recalled how, the day after his death, Apopka High School’s football program painted John’s initials on the field, distributed helmet decals bearing his initials and added commemorative patches to players’ uniforms. 

Now almost three years later, she said, the Hall of Fame recognition showed that his influence had not faded. 

“People are still honoring him and still miss the contribution that he made in his job,” she said.  

Grace believes John would have been humbled by Saturday night’s ceremony. 

“He probably would have said something to the effect that, ‘This is really nice, but y’all really didn’t have to do this,'” she said. 

John preferred to stay behind the camera, she said, never seeking personal recognition. Instead, he wanted each week’s newspaper to be something the staff could be proud of and something that reflected Apopka well.  

For Grace, the award reflects something larger: the lasting impression John left on the community he loved. 

“He isn’t just missed by family,” she said. “He’s missed by a lot of Apopka.”