News

Thanks to all who came out for our September 21 membership meeting in Morehead City. We counted 55 in attendance and gained 11 new members. Welcome!

Our thanks to Steve Anderson of the Carteret County Historical Society for his presentation highlighting the Carteret County and Portsmouth soldiers who fought in WWI.

We were pleased to announce that Friends of Portsmouth Island will establish a scholarship in honor of Richard Meissner, a past president of FPI and former Volunteer Coordinator for CALO. Dallas Spruill, lifetime member of FPI, presented Richard with the award. More information will be available on the scholarship after the first of the year and we plan for it to be available for the Fall 2020 school year.

Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout, gave a slide presentation showing the damage to Portsmouth Village from Hurricane Dorian. He detailed each of the affected buildings and explained the clean up process that started immediately after the hurricane. Crews from several national parks worked for the past two weeks removing and burning downed trees, cleaning out the mud and debris from houses and buildings and pressure washing them down, repairing floors and blown out walls, and repairing and resetting broken headstones. The damage was great and we are indebted to all the crews who came out to work in the mud, water, heat and mosquitos to help in our time of need. Way to go NPS!

We would like to thank everyone who came out and all our volunteers who helped with the meeting. Thanks to Jan Tugwell, Suzanne McWilliams, Jeanne Robertson, Richard Meissner, Ann Shipstedt, and our great board members. Special thanks to the History Place, Steve Anderson, and Jeff West, and to Frances Eubanks for the photographs.

Please plan to join us at Ocracoke on Saturday, May 18, for our spring meeting.  We regret we had to cancel our fall meeting due to Hurricane Florence, but we are excited to be able to catch up in May!  We will meet at the Ocracoke school at 10:00 a.m. and  will hold our regular business meeting and elections which were postponed from the fall meeting.  You do not have to be a member to attend but we hope you will join us!

Weather permitting, we are planning to offer a trip to Portsmouth after the meeting led by Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore.  Don’t miss this opportunity to tour the village with Jeff.  The cost for the boat ride to Portsmouth is $20 per person round trip, and those wanting to go will sign up at the start of the meeting.  Snacks and water will be available for those going  on the trip.

Further details will be available to all members in the Doctor’s Creek Journal in late December.  See you at Ocracoke!

We are happy to report that Portsmouth Village is open and suffered only minimal damage from Hurricane Florence.  Work still needs to be done, but the village is safe for visitors.  We understand that the church painting will be starting up again this week.