THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 16, 1996 TAG: 9608160545
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: 72 lines
For 20 years retired Coast Guard Cmdr. Robert Gray Williams Sr. remained faithful to his dream of a booming new fishing port rising out of the Wanchese marshes behind an Oregon Inlet protected by jetties.
But the 61-year-old waterfront activist won't see all of his hopes fulfilled.
He died Thursday in Norfolk General Hospital where he had been admitted for heart surgery.
The Wanchese Seafood Industrial Park, so long championed by Williams, has risen out of the marshes but the Oregon Inlet jetties that he said were were necessary remain unbuilt despite his tireless efforts as chairman of the Oregon Inlet Waterways Commission.
Williams, who moved last year into a new home at the north end of Roanoke Island, returned to Manteo after his retirement from the Coast Guard two decades ago. He established Manteo Marine Inc., and operated Dare Haven Motel with his wife.
Soon Williams became so enmeshed in the idea of a deep-water East Coast fishing port in Dare County that he devoted most of his retirement years to the project. Williams jumped into local politics and was elected a Dare County Commissioner, serving from 1990 to 1994. He played a major role in establishing an Outer Banks campus for the College of Albemarle, and was elected a COA trustee.
Williams was rarely called ``Bob.'' It was a mark of the respect the South Carolina native earned in Dare County that he was almost invariably called ``Robert'' even by close associates.
``The death of Robert Williams is a sad loss for Dare County,'' said R.V. ``Bobby'' Owens Jr., a colleague on the Board of Commissioners and a school classmate who described him as ``a perfect gentlemen. He was active in civic affairs and his church, and I never heard anyone say a word against him.''
``During Gov. James B. Hunt's first term as governor in 1976, the earliest plan to develop an $8.1-million commercial fishing complex at Wanchese began circulating and it struck Williams as a viable idea that would need a lot of help.''
Williams argued that a seafood industrial park could not succeed without first making Oregon Inlet an all-weather passage for large fishing trawlers that could bring in tons of fish each voyage. He tirelessly urged ``stabilization'' of Oregon Inlet with two mile-long stone jetties to protect a deep-water channel to the seafood park.
But jetty advocates ran into heavy going after Hunt was defeated by Jesse Helms in the strident 1984 U.S. Senate race. And by then a growing environmental movement had been mobilized to oppose the Oregon Inlet breakwaters.
If political change in Raleigh bothered Williams he never showed it.
He became the first director of the seafood park in the early 1980s and with tactful stubborness got the project finished in spite of the environmental battle that repeatedly scuttled the jetties at Oregon Inlet.
``It's remarkable that even without the jetties, the Wanchese Seafood Industrial Park is operating successfully,'' said Rodney W. Perry, the present director of the commercial park. ``We have 16 tenants paying rent and we're continuing to grow.''
Williams was born in Sullivan's Island, S.C., the son of the late James Manning and Nellie O'Neal Williams, and grew up in Manteo.
Survivors include his wife, Joanne Edwards Williams; a daughter, Jennifer S. Williams of Manteo; two sons, Robert G. Williams Jr. of Manteo and Jacob D. Williams, of Portsmouth, Va.; one sister, Thelma W. Willkie of Raleigh, and a brother, James J. Williams Jr. of Wanchese, and a step-grandchild, Christopher Cahoon, of Manteo.
A funeral service will be held Saturday at 3 p.m. in Mount Olivet United Methodist Church. Rev. Dennis Goodwin will officiate.
Burial with military honors will be in Manteo Cemetery. Twiford's Colony Chapel is handling arrangements. ILLUSTRATION: Robert Williams Sr.
KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY by CNB