DATE: Sunday, July 13, 1997                 TAG: 9707110543

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 2    EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: SONG OF A SAILOR 

SOURCE: Ronald Speer 

                                            LENGTH:   58 lines

MARCHING TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER NOT EASY BUT CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Every time I spot a flock of pelicans skimming the sounds and the sea, I'm reminded that one person CAN make a difference.

It's not easy to be the lightning rod of change, of course. And many of the people we now honor for marching to a different drummer once were the targets of abuse and ridicule.

Rachael Carson was one of those people scorned when she was alive for her efforts to save our wildlife with her book, ``Silent Spring.''

The book blamed pesticides for the diminishing population of birds such as the pelican. And defenders of the use of DDT and other chemicals abused Carson viciously as a naive do-gooder who threatened the American way of life.

Carson published ``Silent Spring'' in 1962 and died two years later, before her critics conceded she was right.

Pelicans faced a dismal future then. And many thought they were a dying breed. But slowly America took up Carson's crusade. And now pelicans are common even in northern states where they'd not been seen in decades.

And they're everywhere on the Outer Banks, their sweeping flights, their screeching dives a delight to residents and visitors alike.

Closer to home, Carolista Baum was considered a dune-loving nut by some for her fight against developers who wanted to mine the sand of Jockey's Ridge in Nags Head and then turn the leveled site into a housing complex.

Legend has it that the late Nags Head teacher and jeweler knelt in front of a developer's bulldozer in a successful attempt to preserve the East Coast's tallest sand dune.

That was in the early '70s and time probably stretches the truth about the confrontation with a bulldozer. But nobody pokes fun now at her efforts, because Jockey's Ridge is a state park and one of the lures that attracts millions to the Outer Banks.

The shiniest jewel on the Outer Banks, of course, is the Cape Hatteras National Seashore - and that treasure, too, is the result of one person's futuristic foresight.

Frank Stick, internationally known artist and Outer Banks entrepreneur, first proposed the preservation of the beaches and dunes on Hatteras Island in 1933. The idea of turning the coastal area into a park touched off a storm of criticism.

``It was terrible, just terrible,'' recalls his son, Outer Banks historian David Stick. ``People who had been good friends turned on him.''

The elder Stick's idea finally was adopted - 20 years later. Most everyone now thinks Frank Stick's biggest contribution was the preservation of one of nature's most pristine places - 30,919 acres on Hatteras that forever can be enjoyed by all of America and not by just a fortunate few.

A more recent controversy has developed over the bike paths on the Outer Banks that are the brainchild of state Sen. Marc Basnight of Manteo.

Across the state, talk-show critics and newspaper cartoonists and editorial writers have pounced on Basnight, contending the powerful Democrat is single-handedly wasting taxpayers' money.

If that is waste, I hope he wastes more of it, putting paths in everybody's home town. I believe our descendants strolling and biking and skating on the bike paths will think he marched to the right drummer.

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