The American Lighthouse Council, now an affiliate of the United States Lighthouse Society, marked National Lighthouse Day this year by presenting the nation’s top lighthouse preservation honor to Anne Webster-Wallace of Maine.
Anne was the force behind the 1996 Maine Lights Program, the prototype lighthouse transfer program that served four years later as a template for the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act and lighthouse transfers to preservation groups nationwide. When she became director of that program for the Island Institute, she already had a decade of experience in preserving the offshore Sequin Island Lighthouse near her home in Georgetown, Maine. In 1986, Anne Webster started her involvement with lighthouse preservation by fighting to save a hometown lighthouse. She went on to make invaluable contributions to the national lighthouse movement, including developing the lighthouse transfer program that became the inspiration and template for the transfer of historic light stations to stewardship groups nationwide.
Anne also served on the National Lighthouse Museum Steering Committee and as an officer of the American Lighthouse Council. She played a pivotal role in lighthouse preservation at seminal moments in its development as a state, regional and national movement, and helped immeasurably in shaping it into a strong and successful coalition of groups with a unified voice in the general preservation community.
To recognize her long service to the keeping of the lights and of their heritage, the American Lighthouse Council this year awarded her the H. Ross Holland Award, the community’s highest lifetime honor. The award was presented in Georgetown on August 7, National Lighthouse Day, by Council co-chair Mike Vogel.
The honor was the final Holland Award to be presented by the Council. The honor now will be administered by the grants and awards committee of the United States Lighthouse Society, and nominations may be sent to the Society.
Submitted by Mike Vogel, U.S. Lighthouse Society Board Secretary, August 9, 2017
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U.S. Lighthouse Society News is produced by the U.S. Lighthouse Society to support lighthouse preservation, history, education and research. Please join the U.S. Lighthouse Society if you are not already a member. If you have items of interest to the lighthouse community and its supporters, please email them to candace@uslhs.org.
Candace was the US Lighthouse Society historian from 2016 until she passed away in August 2018. For 30 years, her work involved lighthouse history. She worked with the National Park Service and the Council of American Maritime Museums. She was a noted author and was considered the most knowledgable person on lighthouse information at the National Archives. Books by Candace Clifford include: Women who Kept the Lights: a History of Thirty-eight Female Lighthouse Keepers , Mind the Light Katie, and Maine Lighthouses, Documentation of their Past.
Well deserved Anne. Great work for Maine lighthouses. Congrats!