Pine Knoll Shores will celebrate its golden anniversary

We’re gearing up to say: “Happy 50th anniversary to the Town of Pine Knoll Shores, N.C.” A big gathering is scheduled for April 23, on the grounds at Town Hall. 

This milestone occasion deserves some ink between now and then. 

The town was incorporated 50 years ago by an official act of the North Carolina General Assembly on April 25, 1973. 

The very next month, Pine Knoll Shores had a newsletter. It was created by citizens Betty Doll and Mary Hammon, who reasoned: “Residents and prospective homeowners needed a way to get to know each other, share ideas and learn about what was going on in their newly formed community.” 

“By June 1973, the newsletter had a name, Pine Knoll Shore-Line. Over the years, the Shore-Line evolved from its beginnings as a mimeographed newsletter to today’s professionally printed newspaper, The Shoreline.” 

According to an “about us” online account, “The Shoreline is still managed by volunteers…and then and now, helps make the town a community and gives it a recorded history.” 

The current editor is Janie Price, who has been at the helm since 2014. Price was recently selected as the 2022 winner of Pine Knoll Shores’ Ken Jones Public Service Award (named in memory of the late Mayor Jones) in recognition of her meritorious service to the community. 

Charlie Rocci, town clerk, reported: “Janie Price continues to see the value of a real hands-on newspaper.” 

Amen to that. The Shoreline is a shining example of community journalism at its best, trying to be a force for unity while seeking to be objective, fair and respectful.

Pine Knolls Shores is both oceanfront...and sound side.

 

In 2019, Phyllis Makuck of the Pine Knoll Shores History Committee analyzed the content of back issues of The Shoreline from 1974. She reported: “In 1974, almost every Shoreline devotes considerable space to introducing newcomers, to the good work of volunteers and to the beauty of the natural environment – to tides, shells, birds and wildflowers. So, we can feel Mary Doll’s pain” in an editorial from September. 

More than anything, Doll wants” to make our Town hum happily,” Makuck said. 

Doll wrote: “We all have our one little life to live. Do we have time really to study the dark gloomy aspect of everything, dwelling on what seems to us to be the inadequacies of others? Anyway, sometimes those who are the target of complaints are not even aware of it; so then, isn’t it the growler himself who suffers the most, bogged down in his own mumblings?” 

“Cheer up, you guys! Go catch a fish or watch a sunset. Let’s keep ourselves channeled and be the rare community where dreams can be accomplished.” 

“Hum happily,” would be a good theme for the town’s upcoming 50-year anniversary event in Pine Knoll Shores. 

Today, there are about 1,403 permanent residents of Pine Knoll Shores on Bogue Banks in Carteret County. The town is situated between Atlantic Beach and Indian Beach…a place where dreams are still being accomplished. 

The centerpiece of Pine Knoll Shores is the Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area, a 292-acre forest owned and maintained by the State of North Carolina. It is one of the few remaining maritime forests on North Carolina’s barrier islands. 

In 1971, it was donated to the state by the grandchildren of President Theodore Roosevelt as a living memorial to the 26th president’s dedication to conservation. 

The property also contains the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, which opened in originally opened in 1976 and was tripled in size in 2006.