NEWSROOM
Louisiana Sea Grant Receives APEX Award
June 29, 2010
BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Sea Grant College Program (LSGCP) communications office is the recipient of a 2010 APEX Award of Excellence for its series of oral history web films, Reflections on Chandeleur.
Accessible only by boat or by air, the 50-mile Chandeleur Island chain has a colorful history both geologically and in terms of human use. Arcing below coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, the barrier islands’ shifting sands buffer the mainland from hurricane winds and storm surge. It was the site of a yellow fever quarantine station in the 1800s. President Theodore Roosevelt established Breton National Wildlife Refuge on the islands in 1904 to protect egrets and other shorebirds that were being slaughtered for their plumage.
Sadly, a significant part of the islands was lost on Aug. 29, 2005. After weathering numerous hurricanes, the 102-year-old steel lighthouse at the northern tip of the chain succumbed to Hurricane Katrina. The land at Hewes Point where the structure stood had been eroding for years. Katrina’s violent winds and waves scoured away the last bit of terra firma at the light’s feet and sank it in Chandeleur Sound.
To keep the history of this isolated locale alive, Louisiana Sea Grant collected images and recorded fishermen, naturalists and scientists’ recollections of its past in Reflections on Chandeleur. The website (www.laseagrant.org/lighthouse) features brief movies, photographs, oral histories and information on the islands.
More than 3,700 entries in 11 major categories were submitted to the 22 nd Annual Awards for Publication Excellence (APEX) competition, sponsored by Communications Concepts Inc.
Since its establishment in 1968, LSGCP has worked to promote stewardship of the state’s coastal resources through a combination of research, education and outreach programs critical to the cultural, economic and environmental health of Louisiana’s coastal zone. Louisiana Sea Grant, based at Louisiana State University, is part of the National Sea Grant College Program, a network of 32 programs in each of the U.S. coastal and Great Lakes states and Puerto Rico.
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