[1] Around 1957, Thurston and three fellow members of the Florida Capital Press Corps wired the state House and Senate chambers for sound so that broadcast reporters could include original audio in their newscasts.
His over 50-year-long career in journalism included covering local, state and federal government, as well as politics, crime and corruption, genealogy, amateur radio (his call letters were W4MLE, which he clarified by saying "Washing 4 Muddy Little Elephants," referring to his four children), and camping, canoeing and fishing.
[2] While pursuing his journalism career, Thurston became a well-versed genealogist and conducted extensive research about his family's ancestry, eventually keeping track of it in a computer program called AskSam.
[6] He also loved talking about his own ancestors, including those who immigrated from England to America on the Mayflower; his distant relative, Prudence Crandall, who was the first in the country to establish a private school for black females;[7] and how he was the fifth consecutive generation of journalists in the Thurston family tree.
During Thurston's last few months of life, he and his youngest child, Karen, finished "Hopa | Memoirs of a German Immigrant to America," a journal by William Mohrmann, who escaped the Great Chicago Fire, worked as a railroad freight clerk, saw Abraham Lincoln often along Lincoln's presidential campaign trail, learned English by attending political rallies and prayer meetings during a feverish presidential election year, was naturalized on election day so he could vote, and then fought the Civil War wearing a blue uniform.