Frank Cerabino
COLUMN WRITING
Palm Beach Post

His five years as an officer in the U.S. Navy seem to reflect at least a degree of authoritarianism in his background. Yet Frank Cerabino now writes humorous columns about offbeat aspects of life, for example a large bunny sculpture that nobody wants.

"You see, the Navy as a large institution does nothing but sharpen one's sense of humor," Cerabino said. "The bigger the organization, the more silly things get."

As a public affairs officer aboard the U.S.S. Constellation, he made three deployments to the western Pacific and Indian oceans.

"It cured me of ever wanting to go aboard a cruise ship," Cerabino said. "I'm probably the only one here who doesn't want to. I know how they smell. I'm a diesel-fuel sailor. You know they say, 'Your nose has a memory.' "

And how does that nose smell out columns in south Florida?

"It gets easier to write as you go along," he said. "At first you have to do all the work. Then once people see the kind of column you write, they call you and help you with it."

Cerabino grew up on Long Island and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1977. After five years of service, he earned a Master's in journalism from Northwestern University and joined the Miami Herald.

He covered police, government, education and federal courts before moving to the Palm Beach Post in 1989. Like the Iranian hostage crisis created ABC's Nightline, the William Kennedy Smith trial launched Cerabino as a columnist in the Post. He went on to be named the paper's full-time local news columnist in 1992.