Coast Guard Archives: One of our ongoing projects is working on the files at the Coast Guard Archives office at the Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, DC. Several members have gone on one day projects, but Joe Kiebish, has been spending part of almost every Friday there straightening up the lighthouse files. Dr. Browning says he is doing a wonderful job and making good progress. Once the files are in order, there will be future stages to the project.  

Lightship Chesapeake: The Lightship Chesapeake, on exhibit in Baltimore Harbor, was our first group project of 1998. The Living Classrooms Foundation currently maintains a Coast Guard Cutter, a submarine, a lighthouse (Seven Foot Knoll), and the Lightship Chesapeake. The ship is in good shape, but we were given an opportunity to help do some maintenance such as painting, polishing the brass, some repair work and swabbing the deck. Our first work date on this project was in February to take  
advantage of the "slow" season. Due to the very mild weather this turned out to not being a slow day. The curator, Pam Overmann, made this project one of the easiest to coordinate. All I had to do was get a list of interested volunteers, give them a time, a place, the direction and have them show up. The Living Classrooms Foundation provided all the equipment we needed. We sure kept Pam busy getting materials for us to use. She also gave us a tour of the entire ship (even the off limits areas) AND a tour  
of the lighthouse. We made reasonable progress for one day's worth of work and we look forward to scheduling future days on both the Lightship and the Lighthouse.  

Lens Cleaning and Repair: Another project that we have started is lens cleaning and repair. Training was held at the Coast Guard Exhibit Center in Forestville, Maryland, where we do the work. We got a nice tour of this unique facility and then watched a film on how the lens repair is performed. The project proved so popular that I had to turn some folks down due to space limitations (sorry). If you are interested however, I do have a copy of the training video or you can also accompany someone who has been trained. Once trained, volunteers will schedule work days individually through me. We have already opened one crate and begun work on two panels of a light that may be from Key West. The Chapter's HELP fund will be used to purchase equipment to help with the cleaning and repair process. In addition to lens repair, there is other work available at Coast Guard Exhibit Center. They need for someone to construct crates so that the lenses can be shipped safely. This Exhibit Center project is a way the Chapter can make a positive contribution to lighthouse lovers all over the country. I know the training has affected me: I was in a museum in Florida and I was inspecting the lenses they had on display their lenses are in need of a bit of caulking, if you ask me! Ft. Washington Lighthouse: By the time you read this, we will hopefully have finished our first 1998 work (part one of phase two) on the Ft. Washington Project. Last October Jerry Waters and I met with Mark Sala, the Coast Guard Engineer from Curtis  
Bay Activities office. We inspected the light to determine the scope of the remainder of the project. The Coast Guard will be providing us with scaffolding, as well as all the other supplies we will need to get up to the top of the light. They will also provide the material we will use to shore up the structure. For those of you that remember, I did confirm that they want the day marker back up on the right side of the lighthouse when we have completed the project each day (picky lot, these coasties!). 

In Summary: It has been a lot of fun working with both the volunteers and the various organizations on these projects. It is gratifying to see the caliber of people that are involved in maintaining the artifacts and structures that represent the history of lighthouses. It is nice to know there are dedicated people out there. It is even more fun to be involved in helping them preserve the exciting history that lighthouses represent. So if you would like to be more involved and have not yet done so, fill out the volunteer  
form found in the trip registration section of this newsletter. 

Volunteer Acknowledgments: Special thanks to the volunteers on the Lightship Chesapeake Project: Bob Kaminski, Henry Gonzalez, Tony Pasek, Barbara and Lawrence Witucki, Anne Wright, Hobie Statzer, Upton Jenkins, Ruth Rosenthal, Dave and Marilyn Savedge, Dona and John Glenn, Don & Sandy Bruening, Rebecca Puppa, Pam Overmann-Curator Special thanks to the volunteers on the Coast Guard Exhibit Center Project(S): Chuck Huffman, Upton Jenkins, Hobie Statzer, Bob Kaminski, Joe Kiebish, Henry Gonzalez, Robert Puppa, Karin and Larry Fountain, Ralph Feaga, Tom Wade, Jerry Waters, Marie Vincent, Paula and Lauren Liebrecht, Father William Simms, Jerry Zaccaria and Gail Fuller-Curator. 
Special thanks to the volunteers on the Coast Guard Archives Project: 
Joe Kiebish, Chuck Huffman, Dr. Bob Browning-Coast Guard Historian 
Special thanks to the volunteers on the preparation for the Ft. Washington Project:  
Jerry Waters, Mark Sala-Coast Guard Engineer 
Special thanks to the following volunteers in the Ft. Washington Project Phase 2 Part 
1: Leslie Casconi, Robert Kaminski, Lauren Liebrecht, Puala Liebrecht, Rebecca Puppa, Robert Puppa, Ruth Ann Risinger, Hobie Statzer, James Waters, Terri L Weick, Marie Vincent. 
Also special thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard Engineer Mark Sala and the crew at Curtis Bay for getting all the supplies and equipment down at the light. 
(A complete update on this project will be in the next newsletter) 
I apologize to anyone I have inadvertently omitted. It wasn't intentional. 
Find out more about the Volunteer Preservation Program. 
All volunteers are appreciated!

Lighthouse Day at Calvert Marine Museum. The Calvert Marine Musuem in Solomons Island, Maryland hosted a "Lighthouse Day" on January 17th. Representatives from several Chesapeake Bay area lighthouse-related organizations set up information stands in the main lobby of the museum, and several renowned authors, including Ross Holland (no introduction necessary!); Candace Clifford and Mary Louise Clifford (Women Who Kept the Lights); and Pat Hornberger and Linda Turbyville (Bay Beacons and Forgotten Beacons) were there autographing books. The event attracted over 300 people (they  
normally only get about 100 visitors on a typical winter Saturday) and was such a success that the Museum has already decided to hold another one next January! Thanks to Tony and Alma Pasek, Jerry Waters and Marie Vincent, Anne Puppa, Bob Kaminski, Bill Simms, and Maria Alvarez (and Carl and Jessica) for coming down to help out at the Chapter's stand or to just have fun. We recruited several new members on the spot and got several more membership applications in the mail afterwards!  

National Historic Landmarks. Candace Clifford, consultant to the National Park Service, is working on nominations to have four additional lighthouses designated as National Historic Landmarks in the near future. The four lighthouses are Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; Ponce Inlet and Key West, Florida; and Grosse Point, Michigan. It was hard to believe that Cape Hatteras had not yet achieved this honor. Candace is also working on a nomination to bestow this same title to our "very own" Thomas Point Shoals lighthouse in the future (after these four make it). Candace gave me the privilege of reviewing and commenting on the draft nomination, which Ralph Eshelman (former Director of the Calvert Marine Museum, and current President of the National Lighthouse Museum Steering Committee) was also deeply involved in preparing. In my (unbiased??) opinion, the Thomas Point nomination should not have any problems getting approved; after all, it's the last remaining in-situ and operational screwpile  
lighthouse in the country! 

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse "Listserve". If you want to stay up-to-date with what's happening with the move of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society (OBLHS) has set up an email "listserve". Whenever the OBLHS issues some news about the move, you'll automatically get it by email, and you'll be able to respond to it and post messages to everyone else that's on the list. 
In order to subscribe a user must:  
1) Address e-mail to listserv@outer-banks.com; 
2) In the body of the message, the user must enter the following words 
(ignore quotations) "subscribe beacons first_last_name"; 
Note: an underscore must be placed between the first and last names.