Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society

Ric Mixter – 2022 - C. Patrick Labadie Special Acknowledgement Award

Shipwrecks--some might find it odd that people gather in shows and festivals around the Great Lakes to celebrate and remember these maritime disasters.  But we all know it is more than the skeletons of these timeworn ships that we remember.  It is about the lives and stories of the people that designed, built, operated, lived on, and sometimes died on these gallant machines.  It is the stories of the heroes that risked their lives to save the sailors caught in the jaws of an unyielding lake cataclysm that we celebrate. These stories are not passed down the generations by tribal storytellers but dug out of musty old newspapers and ship logs or reconstructed from the evidence in the crime scene then told by the best storytellers of our generation.  And few storytellers can top the energetic narrations of Ric Mixter.

Ric Mixter has been a storyteller since he was a kid, first broadcasting professionally when he was sixteen.  Now millions of television viewers recognize Ric as a shipwreck researcher and storyteller, diving over 100 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including the Edmund Fitzgerald. Just a few highlights of his lengthy list of awards and accomplishments would include the following: He has worked for affiliates of CBS, NBC and ABC and as multimedia producer for “Great Lakes Now” on Detroit Public TV.  He has produced over 30 programs for PBS and the Outdoor Channel and appeared as a shipwreck expert on the History and Discovery Channels.  Ric served as SCUBA cameraman on underwater expeditions to the Great Lakes largest shipwrecks, the Edmund Fitzgerald, and Carl D. Bradley.  He has interviewed dozens of shipwreck survivors over the past 15 years, including two from the 1913 Storm, two from the 1940 Armistice Day Storm and survivors from the largest shipwrecks in lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie.  He’s been Emmy nominated and has taken several awards including the Addy, Aurora, Michigan Association of Broadcasters Best Use of Medium, AP, and UPI.  He was the 2007 Vescio award winner for a video on mental health advocacy. With over 20 years of stories on historical preservation, Ric was awarded the 2009 Award for Historic Interpretation by the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History.   Today he runs his own production company, Airworthy Productions.  Ric’s podcasts on www.shipwreckpodcast.com are the first dedicated to sharing maritime history of our inland seas.

People with great passion for their work achieve great feats, and we as the audience have been privileged to be the benefactors of Ric’s success.  Thanks to Ric’s work, millions of people have enjoyed and learned appreciation for our maritime history.  For his enthusiastic passion and innovative mastery of telling stories of Great Lakes maritime history, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society is honored to present Ric Mixter with its 2022 C. Patrick Labadie Special Acknowledgement Award.

Myron Haynes – 2022 GLSPS Appreciation Award

As people get older, they often feel a desire to give back to the community that gave them so much.  This might come as a change of life revelation to some but not to Myron Haynes.  For Myron the “give back” mindset is no revelation because it has always been a way of life for him.  Both GLSPS and the Boy Scouts of America have been grateful receivers of Myron’s generosity for years and both organizations have passed on his generosity to benefit our diving community.

Myron became a certified diver in 1977, and in 1978 landed a dream job with Sam Wampler, the founder of Sea Base, a Scouting high adventure program in the Florida Keys. Myron, himself an Eagle Scout with 3 palms, was hired as the “Assistant Director” of BSA’s Florida National High Adventure Sea Base program. They used Sam’s station wagon and operated out of a warehouse in Miami.  Starting from those simple origins, today Sea Base has 19 high adventure programs in five locations and has had over 14,000 attendees. Since then, Myron has worked at Tomahawk Scout Reservation in northern Wisconsin as a Scout Camp Director and from 1979 to 1981 Myron was a BSA District Executive with St. Paul’s “Indianhead Council.”

Myron became a Dive Instructor in 1979 and now holds the highest-level instructor certifier rating that

SSI provides.  In 1981 Myron started Northland Divers, training 250 new divers a year. Myron can’t remember how many divers he has certified over the years but knows it is more than 2,000. He has been diving all around the world including exotic places like Australia, Yap, Philippines,

Chuuk, Palau, and many others.  Myron has also been a frequent guest speaker at our Dive Shows and his alma mater Mankato State College.

In 1998 Northland Scuba signed on as the Charter Partner to BSA Scuba Venture Crew 820 and supported the crew’s activities including filling all their air tanks at no cost. The Crew estimates that Northland filled over 1.3 million pounds of air, and graciously gave the crew the use its pool at no cost for their activities.  For GLSPS Myron was a firm supporter and donor since our inception in 1996.  Besides speaking at shows when requested, he donated a communication system for our underwater projects and raffle prizes for every show we have organized, even when times were tough and giving was not easy.  Now after almost forty years in the business, a time that included a name change to Northland Scuba, and expansion to two dive shops, Myron finally closed the doors and retired from the dive shop business.  We all sincerely miss the prominent position of Myron and Northland Scuba in our dive community but recognize as times change, we also must change.  Knowing Myron will unlikely take his retirement sitting down, we wish him well in his retirement or career change whatever he undertakes.  We know there is a community who will benefit from his energy, experience, kindness, and friendly demeanor.

Myron Haynes has given so much to GLSPS and the local diving community and is truly deserving of this recognition.  For his support and dedication to the goals and activities of GLSPS and for fostering the next generation of divers the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society and all those Myron has helped along the way, with all due respect and gratitude, honor Myron Haynes with the 2022 GLSPS Appreciation Award.