To the Editor:

If you were a friend of Omie Tillett, you were truly blessed. He would have you in mind and might step into your life in a way you might not expect.

During the early 1980’s, Ricky Scarborough was building our sport fisherman, the Wild Card. Ricky graciously let my son, Johnny, and I work in his Wanchese boat shop on weekends and on vacations so we could work on the inside of the boat. Most every Sunday (I believe on his way to church), Omie would stop by and see how we were doing. During each visit, Omie would share a few words of Faith with us in what became something of a brief Sunday school class. When I heard of Omie’s recent passing, this memory immediately came to mind.

As an appropriate memorial to Omie and all that he did to champion charter fishing out of Oregon Inlet, I think it would be fitting to have his name somehow included in the formal name of the Oregon Inlet Fishing center. Perhaps the Dare County Board of Commissioners, Dare County Boat Builders Foundation or some other appropriate group will support inclusion of Omie’s name in the OIFC and work with North Carolina, Federal and U.S. Park Service officials to make “Omie Tillett” part of formal name of the current Oregon Inlet Fishing Center.

John L. Wetlaufer, Sr.
Mechanicsville, VA

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