June 17, 2010

The Ocracoke Preservation Society  Museum staff are gearing up for a summer season of historic and cultural presentations – family-friendly porch talks and, during the month of July, backyard kid talks for children.

All are invited to come and learn more about Ocracoke’s island heritage at these free events held in the yard of the Ocracoke Museum.

The story of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and island photography are examples of the topics planned for the porch talks.

The kid talks – which are funded by the North Carolina Arts Council, the Beaufort Arts Council, and the Ocracoke Arts Council – will include such topics as decoy painting and a pirate show.

The porch talks are scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11 a.m., and the kid talks for Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. Check at the museum gift shop or on the local bulletin boards to learn more about upcoming talks.

 Also on the schedule are presentations by participants in Donald Davis’ storytelling workshop at 10:30 a.m. on June 23 and 24. Davis, whose home is on Ocracoke, is an award-winning, internationally known storyteller who has shared his stories many times at community events.

While at the museum, you can view exhibits on a traditional, late-19th century island home, the Ocracoke "brogue," island seashells, and well-known African-American Ocracoke resident, Muzel Bryant, who celebrated her 103rd birthday a year before her death in 2008.

Also on display are two new exhibits. "Amid the Cedars and Salt Marsh" is a photographic journey to old Portsmouth Island through the work of renowned Carteret County photographer Frances A. Eubanks. Eubanks visited her grandparents, who lived in Portsmouth village as a child, and she captures those memories on soft-toned, black-and-white, Giclée prints. The artwork will be on display through the 2010 season.

 World War II and the U.S. Naval Base on Ocracoke Island form the theme of another new exhibit. Former OPS board president Janey Jacoby and her husband Dick were instrumental in getting this exhibit together.

Before leaving the museum grounds, you can visit the traditional fishing boat, the Blanche, located in the backyard. The boat is an exhibit in process, as restoration work continues on this historic dead-rise boat.

Recent OPS news includes the hiring a new office manager, Chrisi Gaskill, a native of Ocracoke who graduated from Brevard College in 2007 and returned to the island to work. Other news includes the upcoming release of a new CD on the Ocracoke brogue by North Carolina State University professor Walt Wolfram, who has worked hard with OPS staff and island residents to compile this new work.

Ocracoke historian and island author Earl O’Neal, who has worked hand-in-hand with OPS and regularly presents porch talks on island history, recently received North Carolina’s highest civilian honor. He was named to the "Order of the Longleaf Pine."

O’Neal, who has written more than 20 books on Ocracoke genealogy and history, was instrumental in getting a Civil War marker placed at Ocracoke in 2000 and in getting a Navy Beach Jumper’s monument built in 2009.

OPS is accepting bids for a historic property, the Emma and Simon O’Neal house, which it purchased last year through the "Save an Old House" committee. The historic island home was the subject of a story published in the Island Free Press several months ago.  For more information, visit http://www.ocracokepreservation.org/

Comments are always welcomed!      Subject :      Name :  (required)      Email :  (required, will not be published)      City :   (required)    State :   (required)      Your Comments: May be posted on the Letters to the Editor page at the discretion of the editor.