washed ashore. The villagers, knowing 

 of no way to transport the bodies back 

 to Britain, buried the men in a small 

 cemetery on Ocracoke, Gaskill says. In 

 1976 North Carolina leased the 

 cemetery to Great Britain, and today 

 it is a famous landmark on the island. 



Every coastal village has a story 

 about the "worst hurricane," and 

 Ocracoke is no exception. Howard and 

 Gaskill say the worst storm of their 

 lifetimes came in 1944, the hurricane 

 Howard calls "The Great Atlantic." "I 

 was shelling shrimp when I noticed the 

 water coming in the yard," she says. 

 "It kept coming and coming. Finally 

 the sound and the sea met. There was 

 12 inches of water in this house. Fish 

 washed into some houses and trawlers 



were pushed onto land." 



Howard's recommendation for 

 weathering a hurricane, "go to bed and 

 sleep. I haven't ever worried about a 

 hurricane." 



But if hurricanes didn't stir excite- 

 ment among the natives, some of the 

 island's famous visitors did. Ernest 

 Hemingway was said to have visited 

 Ocracoke. And Charles Lindbergh 

 made an overnight stay. "My father 

 cooked dinner for Lindbergh," Gaskill 

 says. "His plane lit down. He said he 

 had been flying right much that day 

 and was wondering if he could spend 

 the night." And Gaskill himself met 

 Lady Bird Johnson, whose visit to 

 Ocracoke was such a well-kept secret 

 that Gaskill had to produce a 



photograph to prove to his wife he had 

 indeed luncheoned with the first lady. 



But the famous and not-so-famous 

 have long sought Ocracoke's quiet 

 shores, Howard says. She remembers 

 tourists arriving by steamer from 

 Washington and New Bern. But then, 

 "They stayed all summer," she says. 

 With the tourists came night after 

 night of dances at the Pamlico Inn and 

 blocks of ice cream on Sunday. 



Then, sheep, cows, ponies and hogs 

 ran wild on the island; there was no 

 sheriff; and you could walk across the 

 entrance to Silver Lake (then called 

 Cockle Creek) with your pants legs 

 rolled up, Gaskill says. "Things have 

 changed plenty — too much," he says. 



—Kathy Hart 



School days on Ocracoke 



Ocracoke School has no football team, no cafeteria and 

 no school bus. What it does have is 93 students in kin- 

 dergarten to 12th grade, a school newspaper that reaches 

 beyond the island to over 40 states and the support of all 

 650 or so of the island's permanent residents. 



It's a unique school. A handful of teachers instruct stu- 

 dents at 13 levels of education. Brothers and sisters sit 

 side-by-side in classrooms. And every student, from the 

 kindergartener to the twelfth grader, gets a vote in 

 choosing this school's homecoming queen. 



Most of the island natives attended the school. For the 

 first quarter of the century, the school housed only eight 

 grades. For more education, students were sent to a 

 boarding school in Washington. But in 1931, Ocracoke 

 School graduated its first senior class. 



Principal Ernest Cutler says the school's size fluc- 

 tuates. When he came to the school nine years ago, 82 

 children studied there. Then the number gradually rose 

 to 121. But lately it has dropped again. 



Cutler says three of this year's eight graduating seniors 

 have spent all of their schooling years here. "In a school 

 this small you learn the students' weaknesses and they 

 learn mine," he says. Although he can't offer students a 

 wide selection of electives, he says the school does offer a 

 lot of personal attention. 



Each year a driving teacher comes to the school to 

 provide one month of classroom instruction and practical 

 road experience. He allows each student to make a trip to 

 Manteo, where they will encounter stop lights and turn 

 lanes for the first time. And, of course, they learn the all- 

 important practice of boarding a ferry. 



Athletics take on a different focus on Ocracoke. There 

 are not enough boys in the high school to field a football 

 team. Consequently Ocracoke "is a basketball town," 

 says Kevin Cutler, the principal's son and a graduate of 

 the school. 



But even basketball presents problems. Only a few 



Photo by Kathy Hart 



Ernest Cutler 



other schools will travel to the island to play. To provide 

 additional opposition, local men and women form teams 

 to play the high schoolers, Kevin says. And it's during 

 the height of basketball season, not football season, when 

 the Ocracoke School selects its homecoming queen. 



Ernest Cutler says most of the graduating seniors stay 

 on the island or, if they do go away, they eventually 

 come back. His son puts it like this: "Once you've lived 

 here for any length of time you can't get it out of your 

 system. In your mind you always want to go back to 

 Ocracoke." 



