Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society

  

 

 

Nomination:

I don’t know if many of you know that Myron is an Eagle Scout with 3 palms. I asked Myron what year

he received his Eagle Award, but he could not remember. (His age is starting to show).

Myron became a certified diver in 1977, and in 1978 landed a dream job with Sam Wampler the founder

of Sea Base, who started to develop a high adventure program using the waters in and around the

Florida Keys a year earlier. Myron Haynes was hired as the “Assistant Director” of BSA’s Florida National

High Adventure Sea Base program. Myron thought he was some hot stuff being the number one man in

the new organization. But when you ask Myron how many people where working at Sea Base at the

time, it was just Sam Wampler and himself. Myron would coordinate trips to Freeport in The Bahamas

for the Scuba Program and charter 40 foot sailing vessels out of Miami for the Florida Key Adventure. At

that time they used Sam’s station wagon and operated out of a warehouse in Miami, and already had

over 700 participants through the program. Myron can remember when BSA purchased the Old Toll

Gate Motel and Marina with 6.3 acres on the South end of Lower Matecumbe Key in 1979. Today Sea

Base has 12 high adventure programs now, and has had over 14,000 attendees. Since then, Myron

worked at Tomahawk Scout Reservation in northern Wisconsin as Scout Camp Director at Chippewa

Camp, and from 1979 to 1981 Myron was a BSA District Executive with St. Paul’s “Indianhead Council”

and serviced Little Crow and Eagle River district in Wisconsin.

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

SSI provides.  March 16, 1981 Myron started Northland Divers, training in 250 new divers a year. When

asked, Myron can’t remember how many divers he has certified over the years but he said it is more

than 2,000. Northland Divers changed its name in 2010 to Northland Scuba, as people called him up

thinking that Northland Divers was a dive salvage company.  November 11, 2013 Myron started another

dive shop called Northland Scuba West, in Eden Prairie. This shop has its own pool to better service his

clients.

Myron has been a frequent guest speaker for the Midwest Dive Show and Mankato State College. This

college happens to be Myron’s alma mater.

Myron has been diving all around the world including exotic places like; Australia, Yap, Philippines,

Chuuk (Truk), seven times to Palau, and many other places.

August of 1998, Northland Scuba signed on as the Charter Partner to BSA Scuba Venture Crew 820. And

has supported the crew’s activities and has graciously filled all their air tanks at no cost. The Crew

estimates that Northland has filled over 1.3 million pounds of air, and now is letting the crew use his

pool at no cost for their activities.

Myron Haynes has given so much to our diving industry since 1978, and is truly deserving of this

recognition for his exceptional dedication to the upper Midwest scuba diving community.  For his

support of the local dive community and dedication to fostering the next generation of divers the Great

Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society and all of those Myron has helped along the way, with all due

respect and gratitude, honors Myron Haynes with the 2015 Dive Community Contribution Award.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nomination:

Bob Olson has been such a prime mover to GLSPS during his time as a member and board member that

hopefully summarizing his accomplishments will in no way dilute their value.  Bob is one of the founding

members of GLSPS who spent a year of meetings in 1995 hammering out the goals and foundations of

our organization.  He served as president for three years, first vice president for six years, sink-a-ship

chairman for seven years, access chairman for fourteen years, and headed the restoration of our

donated work boat Preservation for three years, two years of which it sat in his driveway nagging him to

finish this mammoth undertaking.  He took part in hundreds of meetings, numerous shows and fund

raisers, and spent many hours on email or the phone communicating with members.  

 If you use the Hesper Access, the Madeira Access, any of the North Shore shipwreck buoys, or dive the

Just For Fun, you should say thanks to Bob Olson for laying the groundwork and following through on

behalf of GLSPS for those projects.   What makes GLSPS successful is the ability of its members to

sometimes lead, sometimes follow, and always support each other in projects, and Bob has done more

than his share of each.   On projects he did not lead Bob was there as a supporter and worker.  

Whenever a bit of elbow grease was needed, Bob was willing to roll up his sleeves and get the job done.  

Whether it was attaching a mooring system to a wreck, welding parts for the Preservation, refinishing

the America Spiral Staircase, manning the GLSPS booth, speaking at a dive show, doing the dirty work to

rehabilitate the SS Meteor, doing underwater stabilization on the SS America or S.P. Ely, or helping to

frame a garage or strip a roof off a house to raise money for GLSPS, Bob dug in and completed more

than his share of the work.  When it came to exploring Lake Superior's newly found deep shipwrecks for

nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, more than once Bob proved his incredible ability

to do the mooring work or salvage a drop camera in over 300 feet of water.  He did it selflessly for the

pleasure of being able to explore Lake Superior's historic treasures.  

Being a committed and driven person like Bob, does at times take its toll, and there were times when

Bob had to step back to remedy his burn-out.  For that our gratitude is accompanied with our apologies.  

In 2012 we lost Bob's invaluable participation to his new demanding cross-country trucking job, which

he thoroughly enjoys.  Few others have given so generously of their time and talents to the GLSPS cause.  

For his tireless work ethic and the many, many hours committed to the various GLSPS projects, and for

being a great friend and dive partner, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society with the utmost

gratitude proudly honors Bob Olson with our 2015 GLSPS Appreciation Award.

 

 

 

 

 

The shipwreck preservation community is blessed with a number of dedicated and driven professionals

and Keith Meverden is one of those professionals.  Keith served in the Gulf War as a US Army-licensed

Mate aboard the Army’s 174-foot LCU2000 landing craft class vessels. He holds USCG Master and

Towing licenses and is a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.  Keith earned his

Master’s degree in Maritime History and Nautical Archeology from East Carolina University and has

worked on projects throughout the US Virgin Islands, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, including the USS

Monitor.  He started his position as Underwater Archeologist for the Wisconsin Historical Society in 2004

a position which he held for nine years. He is currently a Conservation Warden in Sheboygan County so

is still heavily involved with Lake Michigan Underwater Resources.  Wisconsin is unique in Great Lakes

states as being the only state with a staff Underwater Archeologist.  The position and underwater

archeology program is not heavily funded so programs rely on grants and volunteers lead by

professionals to accomplish an amazing amount of work.  I'm sure working with volunteers and para-

professionals is often frustrating and difficult, but the value in these community programs can readily be

seen in the proliferation of an amazing shipwreck ethic that prevails in our Great Lakes diving

community.  During his time as the Wisconsin Underwater Archeologist Keith Meverden and Tamara

Thomsen have nominated and added more than 25 shipwrecks to the National Register of Historic

Places, have surveyed numerous underwater historic sites, and have written over 15 research papers

and articles documenting these precious pieces of our Great Lakes History.

Keith has been a presenter at our GLSPS Dive Into the Past and UMSAT Shows.  In 2004 through 2006

when our shipwreck hunting team was successful in finding and diving six new deep water shipwrecks

and was questioning what was the right thing to do with the finds, it was Keith's advice we took.  It was

Keith who reminded me that we are all short timers in history and the preservation of these shipwrecks

will need to go on long after GLSPS and our good intentions cease to exist.  In several long discussions

with Keith and our Minnesota National Register Archeologist Scott Anfinson, we were convinced that

adding them to the National Register of Historic Places was the correct action.  The result of those

discussions was the creation a National Register Nomination program within GLSPS to support that

direction.  Since that time GLSPS has sponsored the nominations of five shipwrecks to the National

Register, four of which we worked with Keith and Tamara to accomplish.  The shipwreck Mayflower

survey and National Register Nomination Project was a tremendous amount of work for Keith and

Tamara.  Working for hours in ninety feet of water, they did a thorough survey and detailed drawing of

the site.  The result was an amazing drawing of the site, the addition of the Mayflower data to their

research on Great Lakes scow schooners, and the addition of the Mayflower to the National Register of

Historic Places.

For his dedication to the research and preservation of Great Lakes Maritime History and his work with

the diving community to promote and expand our shipwreck diver ethic, the Great Lakes Shipwreck

Preservation Society thanks and honors Keith Meverden with our 2015 C. Patrick Labadie Special

Acknowledgement Award.

 

 

 

Nominations Presenter