THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701190081
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Paul South
LENGTH: 56 lines
There was a time, not so long ago, when heroes were as close as the local movie theater. They wore white hats, rode palomino ponies and carried rarely used pearl-handled pistols.
For 50 cents, we got all the bravery we could ever want, a box of popcorn and a Coke.
But as we get older, and life gets colder, heroes seem harder to find. John Wayne is gone, and there are no Saturday matinees in the grown-up world. Sadly, it often takes a tragedy to remind us that there are special folks among us.
So it was this past week in the picturesque north beach community of Corolla.
You know the story. A duck-hunting excursion turned to horror. Three people, including two small boys, died in the near-freezing waters of Currituck Sound after their small boat was swamped. One man managed to hold on for 14 hours, and survive. And one man, 51-year-old Philip Boedker Sr., is still missing.
But amid the grief and suffering was the dedication of more than 50 people, determined to find the missing hunter.
Some are firefighters. Some are paramedics. Some are pilots or divers. Most volunteered their time. Ricky Holt, a Poplar Branch waterman, contributed his boat, his nets and his time to the search.
Others brought loaves of banana bread to feed the searchers. The Sanderling Inn and the Salvation Army provided hot soup and sandwiches.
As one day dragged into another last week, the men and women looking for the lost hunter, as well as a missing chocolate Labrador retriever named Winchester, trudged home without success.
``We're going to keep looking until we find him,'' said Currituck County spokesman John Mulvey. ``We want to give this family some peace.''
Members of the Boedker family were there. For virtually every volunteer he encountered, Philip Boedker's brother, Bobbie, had these words:
``Thank you for what you're doing,'' he said. ``We couldn't make it without you.''
And rescuers learned that the missing man was more than a name, age and hometown.
``Whenever Philip would go on a hunting trip, he always did the cooking,'' Boedker's father-in-law, Bill Cornelius, said. ``He used to make big pots of chili for the guys he worked with at the (Norfolk Naval) shipyard. And he loved to take the kids hunting, to show them the outdoors.''
More often than not, tears would creep into the corner of their eyes as they talked of their loved one. And as hard as they tried to fight it, volunteers cried, too.
The stranger they started searching for has become a member of their family.
The volunteers don't have pearl-handled pistols or palomino ponies. Just hearts of gold.
KEYWORDS: RESCUE