DATE: Friday, June 27, 1997                 TAG: 9706260154

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 14   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BARBARA J. WOERNER, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

LIFEGUARDS RENEW OLD FRIENDSHIPS; SHARE MEMORIES AT ANNUAL REUNION

More than 200 former lifeguards and family members crowded inside the Old Coast Guard Station museum on 24th Street recently to look at the photo displays and artifacts depicting facets of lifesaving activities from the beach's past.

But the real attractions of the fourth annual Lifeguard Reunion? Finding familiar faces and reminiscing about old times.

Mingling with the stories that flowed freely throughout the crowd, were this year's reunion honorees, Ed Stowers and Lee Scarborough, lifeguard supervisors during the 1950s.

Stowers, now retired and still living in Virginia Beach, remembered his early days as a manager. ``They gave me a police patch to put on my trunks and that was the beginning of it,'' he said.

Scarborough said lifeguards used to be responsible for keeping the beach clean and renting beach umbrellas along with ``watching the water.'' The water was not the only thing he watched, said his wife, Kay Scarborough.

``He used to watch the girls a lot,'' she said. ``He used to ride a Schwinn bike and he fell off a time or two looking at girls on the beach.''

Kent Hinnant, president of the Virginia Beach Lifeguard Association and current captain, remembered riding in the patrol bike basket while his father, the late Dusty Hinnant, pedaled between lifeguard stations.

``My father started lifeguarding in the 1930s and was active till he died at age 82,'' he said. ``He came down to the office quite a bit passing on his knowledge and traditions of lifeguarding to the group.''

Hinnant said his father first came to Virginia Beach from college in North Carolina with friend and lifeguarding partner, John Smith, and they formed an association in the early '30s. They were also joined by other lifeguarding pioneers who helped run the local services.

Until that time there were no organized lifeguarding organizations, said John Smith's nephew, Pete Smith. ``Uncle John lived in the attic of the Albemarle Hall Hotel and worked the beach during the day as the hotel's lifeguard.''

Pete Smith became a ``helper'' at age 12 for his uncle John. From 1951 to 1959, he served as a lifeguard.

``The helpers at that time were sort of similar to a junior lifeguarding program and we had to help maintain our stretch of beach,'' said Smith. ``I was making $1 an hour at 12 years of age and I thought it was great money and by the way, I saved a few people that really needed it, not just pretty girls.''

By the time Steve Wray, lifeguard from 1968 through 1986, came along the pay scale had improved somewhat. ``I started as a helper in the late '60s and by the time I made lifeguard in 1968, we made $32 a week,'' he said.

Jackie Wareing was among the first group of women to become a lifeguard. She said that there were no problems or resentment in 1976 when she was hired.

``We were all friends and nobody made a big deal out of it,'' she said. ``You had to carry your own weight but if you needed help the guys were there for you.''

More than $5,000 dollars to benefit educational programs was raised from the reunion, which the Oceanfront Jaycees sponsored.

Reunion-goers climbed the museum stairs searching for familiar names among the nameplates bearing names of former lifeguards along with their dates of service placed along the staircase, which was officially dedicated at the reunion.

For $50 a nameplate, former lifeguards are honored and the museum programs are the beneficiaries.

Kimberly Cordle Smith checked out her father's name plate and then found him in a group photo of lifeguards from 1949 to 1950. She said that the photo and nameplate on the stairway had special meaning to her because he died less than a year ago.

``This means a lot to me,'' she said as she pointed out Oscar Cordle's face in the group. ``This allows me to remember him in a unique sort of way.''

Many at the reunion said that their days of lifeguarding had the feel of a large family.

``We remember when you could walk down Atlantic Avenue and you knew everybody,'' said Lee Scarborough. ``The same people came back year after year.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by BARBARA WOERNER

Tom Coghill, left, and Fred Isaacs talk about old times at the 4th

annual Lifeguard Reunion. Coghill worked as a lifeguard in 1957 and

Isaacs in '47.

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