Seven Wrightsville Beach community members were recognized for their contributions to the island’s watersport culture and inducted into the Wrightsville Beach Waterman Hall of Fame during a Sunday, Oct. 18 ceremony at the Blockade Runner Beach Resort. This year’s inductees were selected by Wrightsville Beach Museum of History board members from a pool of nominations.
Historian Skipper Funderburg was inducted for his contributions to beach culture.
“Skipper Funderburg is, in my opinion, the foremost surf historian on the East Coast,” said Haywood Newkirk, Hall of Fame chairman.
Dave Baker was honored in the ocean rescue and swimming category for raising the level of the Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue. His lifeguards must meet the highest standards required by the U.S. Lifesaving Association and his competition squad has won the South Atlantic Regional Lifeguard Competition for three years in a row.
He was also instrumental in amending the town’s restrictive surf zone ordinance, Tony Butler said, recognizing that “surfers save lives, and lifeguards can’t be out there 24/7.”
Mike Merritt was inducted for his contributions to boating and fishing on the island. He first got involved with watersports when he was a child, skipping class at Wrightsville Beach School to fish off Johnnie Mercer’s Pier. Years later, he accumulated numerous awards for fishing, became a championship speedboat racer and built Atlantic Marine.
Sailor Joseph James was also inducted for his boat-racing legacy. He helped found a sailboat racing organization called the Wrightsville Beach Ocean Racing Association and eventually became commodore of the Carolina Yacht Club in 1986 and 1987.
Because of the vast talent pool of local surfers, two surfers, Will Allison and Ben Bourgeois, were inducted. Bourgeois represented Wrightsville Beach on surfing’s biggest stage, the World Championship Tour.
“This is the big league,” Butler said. “Only the top 30-some people make that tour, and Ben was able to make it three times.”
Allison was inducted both for his talents as a surfboard shaper whose crafts have been sold all over the world and a surfer who clinched two U.S. Surfing Championships and 12 first-place eastern titles. Allison, a regular in the local lineup, said he paddles out today with the same stoke he had when he caught his first wave at Wrightsville Beach in the 1960s.
“I carried this big, heavy board down to the beach, paddled outside and waited,” he said. “I caught a wave and rode it all the way in, first try, all the way in to the shore break — and got completely destroyed.”
Allison said one of his favorite aspects of surfing is the people he meets in the water, who, after his family, he considers to be the most valuable things in his life.
Another surfer, Cissie Brooks, was inducted as Woman of the Year, but Newkirk said it’s not only her surfing ability that earned her the honor.
“In my opinion, Cissie’s greatest contribution to our community has been the development of the marine science program at Wrightsville Beach School,” he said.
During his daughters’ Wrightsville Beach School graduation ceremonies, he added, every child gave a short speech, and nearly every student talked about how much they liked Brooks and her marine science classes.
“To me, that is her legacy,” he said. “Not just her ability as a surfer, but her impact on the children that have grown up at the beach.”
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