And another secret irony is that the two stories are intricately connected - the Editor
Linda and Keeper James at the Hatteras Island Art and Craft Guild Holiday Craft Show in 2023 and 2024. Look for us there again in November 2025!
"There are two GREAT stories in North Carolina Outer Banks history: The Life-Saving Service and the Wright brothers" Charlet says, "and, ironically, these may be the two that the least is actually known about by the average person. That is exactly why it is SO much fun for me to present these to audiences and watch them react and ask so many wonderful questions."
Keeper James' Log Book of PRESENTATIONS
Westminster Village, Mobile, AL 2003, 04, 05
Chapel Hill Library, Chapel Hill, NC 2005
First Flight Gala, Hilton Garden Inn, Kitty Hawk, NC 2006
Kiwanis Club, Nags Head, NC 2006
“Best of ‘Our State’,” Hilton Garden Inn, Kitty Hawk, NC 2007
North Beach Rotary Club, Kill Devil Hills, NC 2007
Portsmouth Island Homecoming, Portsmouth Island, NC 2008
NC Transportation Hall of Fame, Rocky Mount, NC 2012
Memorial Day, Hatteras Village, NC 2012
Bodie Island Descendants Homecoming, Bodie Isl., NC 2013
Southern Shores Boat Club, So. Shores, NC 2014
Day at the Docks, Hatteras Village, NC 2014
Hatteras Story Telling Festival, Hatteras Village, 2014, 2015
Tryon Palace, New Bern, NC 2015
http://www.tryonpalace.org/events/united-states-life-saving-service-and-ss-mirlo
Beach Bonfire, Chicamacomico LSS, once/week summers 2001-2010
Coast Guard Beach Apparatus Drill, every Thursday, summers, 2006-2014
a combined 13 years in historic interpretation... at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse
James D. Charlet
is a free-lance writer who contributes articles on North Carolina's iconic Outer Banks and nautical history for local and national media. His winding path to his life as an author took many turns, always seeming to lead to exactly where he belongs.
He was involved with the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site & Museum for 21 years in various functions, first as a volunteer, eventually serving as the Site Manager of the Historic Site for 10 of those years. In all that time, he learned a thing or two about the subject. His favorite parts of that “labor of love’ was talking to and with literally thousands of visitors from all over America and the world. He also did many hundreds of formal, group presentations on and off-site.
His previous professional experiences were
- 24 years teaching North Carolina history,
... and the Wright Brothers National Memorial
and Roanoke Island Festival Park; a writer, published author and public speaker. He says those jobs “have all been to prepare me for this exact position, that is, being Keeper James and spreading the word about this incredible history!” The best thing about his dramatic stories is that they are all true.