Karen Nunan Center, 30 years Strong – Chesapiq Bay Foundation

Fighting the wicks of an old oil lamp, CBF captain Doug Walters sits in a chair of rags and cleans his throat. The warm light flashes on the faces of 20 average students as they settled on the sofa walking around the room. They laugh and remember the day they had on the southern end of Dorchester County, Maryland, on the bishop’s main peninsula.

One student indicates spots of dried mud behind the ear of another left in the afternoon of Marsh Mucking. Two students exclaim about the White perch, which they caught from the harness of sunset using the grass shrimp they gathered as a bait. Another group is discussing how many crabs can be caught in their crab pots and they make their forecasts. They are reminded of the early sunrise, the beach at ebb, the oysters caught during dredging, and the legendary passes touched the port of the island of the deal. The stories of the day are spinning around the room.

After the group established itself, Walters began the evening history, calling back to the 1850s, and the days before the Center of Karen Nunan was used for environmental education. The building was an old farmhouse and the surrounding land held tomato crops and cows. Now only a few straight, irrigation ditches cut through the swamp remain from those long -standing agricultural days.

At the beginning of the century, Albanius Phillips turned the country house into one of the big hunting lodges on Chesapiq Bay. Walters list several famous people hunting the area, including Annie Okley and Babe Ruth, names who still call with the ears of young students. After years of hunting waterfowl in the surrounding waters and marshes, the lodge hosted its last hunting trip in the 70s. Then the property was sitting free for many years.

Walters stops and looks at the portrait of a young woman hanging on the wall. It starts again, saying that there is a name written on the sign, welcoming the people in the property, on the boat that brings us around, and several walls around the center; This name is Karen Nunan. He explains that Karen was a college student who dreams of becoming a teacher. She liked to work with children and loved outdoors. Karen was tragically killed in the terrorist attack of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerby, Scotland while traveling home after studying abroad in Vienna, Austria. It was only five days before her 21st birthday.

The room falls gloomy, and the students look solemnly at the portrait of Karen. After a silence, the captain continued, explaining that Karen’s father, Pat Nunan, wished to honor Karen and her inheritance. He works to help the Chesapeake Bay Foundation acquire the property for use as an environmental education center. With the support of the Nonon family and other families who lost their relatives in the attack, the Chesapiq Bay Foundation opened the Karen Nunan Ecological Education Center in 1995, combining two of the things that Karen loves the most – outdoor education.

Walters explains that their group is only the largest group in a long row of students and teachers who have survived the bay and his magic in the center of Karen Nunan thanks to the heritage of Karen, a heritage that has been going on for 30 years.