This year’s significant projects just keep coming. Volunteer Kathy Sanders, who painted the lantern room platform and railing last year, is back at it again with another great project: painting the 1867 lighthouse spiral stairs and railing. Impressive!
The August 7, 2021 Leelanau Enterprise featured long serving volunteers Kathy & Bruce Rollins in an article “Texas couple spends 3 weeks on island.”
Families First Monthly featured an article with a somewhat historical focus. https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=62563&i=716435&p=8&ver=html5
Kathy, Bruce, Charlie, Lorinda, Eric and Gary toasting Joerg and Lightkeeper’s 50th trip to South Fox on Sunday, July 27. This also marked approximately 7500 nautical miles covered by all volunteers boats on behalf of the South Fox Island Light Station restoration project.
Wow, we’re seeing great ink this year supporting the South Fox Island Lighthouse project! The Leelanau Enterprise did articles both on our current activities and captain Joerg. The Leelanau Ticker featured current Vice President Cathy Allchin’s vision for the island. Sandy Bradshaw’s July 15 article in the Glen Arbor Sun (see http://glenarborsun.com/the-makings-of-the-crown-jewel-of-s-fox-island/) captures some of the organization’s early history including the key role played by Northport’s Phil von Voigtlander. Please join us and become part of the next chapter!
Carl & Dori Behrend of Old Country Painting & Restoration completed their engagement on the light yesterday. They were assisted by tuckpointing expert Mark Lee. Over the past two weeks they prepped, primed and painted the underside of the 1867 Lighthouse lantern room as well as the soffits and facia boards on the Lighthouse dwelling. They tuckpointed the entire lighthouse, whitewashed the tower and areas on the rear of the dwelling we had be unable to reach, and did touch up whitewashing where they had tuckpointed. In addition, they secured a temporary cap on the lantern room where the ventilator ball is missing. We’re very pleased with their work and am sure anyone seeing the light will be also. It’s spectacular!
Long term member David Nobles donated a new John Deere S130 lawn tractor to FILA on Wednesday. He also delivered a further gift of a 3000 watt generator. These extraordinary gifts will make our teams more productive. Thanks, David.
(Photo: David with DNR representative Ham Hobson and members Karen & John Wells who assisted with the delivery. Photo credit: Cathy Allchin)
Carl and Dori Behrend of Old Country Painting & Restoration, well-respected lighthouse restoration professionals, headed out to the island Saturday escorted by Lightkeeper and the FILA team of Cathy Allchin, Pete Koeppen, John McKinney, Linda Posler, Kathy Sanders and Captain Joerg Rothenberger. The scope of work includes: prepping and painting the underside of the 1867 lantern room, whitewashing the tower, whitewashing the backside of the Keeper’s quarters over the “lean to” and prepping and painting eaves, soffit and facia boards. Carl had rigged a lake water supply and started work cleaning and prepping as the FILA team returned to Northport.
At approximately 9:30 on Friday, June 11, the outbound crew celebrated Joerg Rothenberger’s 2500th nautical mile on behalf of FILA since he became owner of Lightkeeper and his 37th trip as skipper. Joerg provided champagne in celebration of the milestone.
In total, the organization has logged an estimated 7200 nautical miles across various boats on behalf of the station’s restoration. We have literally come a long way!
Announcing the start to our 2021 season. Captain Joerg reports Lightkeeper was launched today. Looking forward to a trip out next week.
On Friday, May 28, the Michigan State Historic Preservation Review Board approved the nomination of South Fox to the National Register. There’s still a further review at the Federal level before we’re officially on the register, but this is a significant milestone. Great news!