- Announced Annual Awards:
- Large Unit History Award Winner: The winner of the Large Unit award is Training Center Cape May. With approximately 80% of the service’s workforce passing through its halls, Training Center Cape May understands and embraces its important role as keeper of the service’s history. But the Training Center is not just a showplace of the Coast Guard’s past for the recruits, it’s the most-visited unit in the service, hosting more than 40,000 visitors annually. It’s also home to many reunions, as, for example, in 2016, reunion groups from the cutters Bibb, Westwind, and Duane reconnected on the grounds. Buildings at TRACEN Cape May are dedicated in memory of the service’s most widely recognized heroes (Douglas Munro, Ida Lewis, Richard Etheridge, Charles W. David, etc.). Most recently, TRACEN Cape May dedicated its seamanship building in memory of Bernard Webber, the hero of the 1952 Pendleton rescue off Chatham, Massachusetts.
- Small Unit History Award Winner: The winner of the Small Unit award is Aids to Navigation Team (ANT) Coos Bay [OR]. In celebration of their 40th anniversary, ANT Coos Bay dedicated their building on 29 April 2016 in honor of Nils P. Adamson and Chester N. Adamson, civilian United States Lighthouse Service (USLHS) members who ran the unit from 1911 through 1976. ANT Coos Bay invited descendants of those two men to be present for the ceremony and share their family history of working aids to navigation in the area. During the ceremony, historical artifacts were on display, and the crew built a display “visible to all visitors highlighting the activities of the civilian USLHS members that maintained the Aids to Navigation in the Coos Bay area prior to the establishment of ANT Coos Bay.” During the year, members of the crew also began the process of identifying, restoring, and maintaining the gravesites of deceased Life-Saving Service and Lighthouse Service personnel in the Marshfield Pioneer Cemetery. The OIC also joined historian Tim Dring, CDR, USN (Ret.), in compiling a 76-page historical summary of aids to navigation in Coos Bay, forwarding a copy to the Coast Guard Historian’s Office (CG-09231).
- Special Recognition Awards.
- Dr. Sally Snowman. Dr. Snowman is the first female keeper of Boston Lighthouse in its 301-year history. She oversees a staff of 100 volunteer historical site interpreters who welcome approximately 3,000 visitors per year to Little Brewster Island, working with numerous nonprofit and governmental agencies to identify and train those volunteers. Toward that end, she wrote the first interpretive historical guide to train Coast Guard Auxiliarists, Park Rangers, and her army of volunteers. She is also the author of the definitive history of the lighthouse, Boston Light: A Historical Perspective. During 2016, as the lighthouse celebrated its tercentennial anniversary, Dr. Snowman conducted outreach consisting of more than 100 presentations to an additional 2,500 people. She coordinated the safety and education of visitors to the island during CEU Providence’s $1.5 million lighthouse restoration project on the island, helping prepare for the 300th anniversary celebration in September 2016, attended by Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard Paul Zukunft.
- Dr. Richard Zuczek. Responding to the concern of then-Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Robert Papp, among others, that cadets at the Coast Guard Academy were not being taught the history of their own service, Dr. Zuczek in 2012 began development of the institution’s first-ever academic Coast Guard history course. Since that year, 1,241 future leaders of the Coast Guard have taken the course in 60 sections under 30 military and civilian faculty members. Cadets have learned about the well-known heroes of the Coast Guard, but also themes spread across all missions and from the perspectives of all Coast Guard communities, while also “raising important questions about race and gender by examining the experiences of African Americans and women in the service.” The course includes walking tours of the campus, an in-depth exploration of the Coast Guard History Museum, lectures by guest speakers, and more. Dr. Zuczek has expanded the course’s impact by delivering it in shortened form at the Leadership Development Center for 120 Midgrade Officer and Civilian Transition course students, and by speaking to interested public groups about Coast Guard history.
- C. Wayne Ormsbee and PO Keisha Kerr. Civilian Wayne Ormsbee and his daughter, Petty Officer Keisha Kerr, have spent the last five years re-enacting the Coast Guard mounted beach patrol of World War II. As volunteer interpreters, they have scoured the Internet for authentic uniforms and equipment for use in their historical interpretations as parts of parades, civic celebrations, veterans’ events, and horse shows. First Coast Guard District External Affairs interviewed them over a two-week period and produced media that reached more than 29,500 people via the Coast Guard Compass blog, Cape Cod Daily News, CapeCod.com, and NH1 News.
- D. LT Jason Brownlee and LT Amanda Montour. LT Jason Brownlee and LT Amanda Montour served as Air Station Houston’s Aviation Centennial Team in 2016 to develop “a comprehensive public affairs advertising plan to celebrate 100 years of Coast Guard Aviation” in the nation’s fourth-largest city. They coordinated 20 static displays, 24 flight and SAR demonstrations, and 52 speaking engagements, and utilized social media to reach 1.3 million people during their campaign. High-visibility moments included Super Bowl LI and the NCAA Final Four men’s basketball tournament, a “Flight Suit Formal,” a ceremonial cake cutting on the birthday of the Coast Guard’s first aviator, Elmer F. Stone, and more. LT Brownlee and LT Montour arranged for one of the Air Station’s mechanics to fly to the Aviation Logistics Center in Elizabeth City, NC, to assist in restoring CGNR 1426 in preparation for enshrinement in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
- Letters of recognition will also go to the following nominees:
- LCDR Matthew Kroll
- R. Keith Colby, LDCR USCG (ret.)
- SK2 Leander Hicks
- Miss Megan Gimple
- Auxiliarist John W. Keyes
- Continued engagement with the National Coast Guard Museum Association as an active participant in the Museum Exhibition Advisory Panel (MEAP).
- Continued to support the Coast Guard Historian’s Office with their quarterly “Historian’s Coffee.”
- Created a formal “Speaker’s Bureau.” Previously, FCGH Officers and Board of Regents members have spoken at various local events through informal connections. The establishment of the Bureau provides outside organizations a point of contact to request speakers.
- Published the 50th issue of The Cutter, FCGH’s magazine.
