Perry’s monument will continue to have superintendent

PUT-IN-BAY – After an outcry from islanders and tourism officials, the National Park service has decided against having Perry’s monument and a Michigan national park share a superintendent.

Instead, the open superintendent job at Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial is expected to be filled before Put-in-Bay’s Historical Weekend, Sept. 11-13, said Maggie Beckford, Put-in-Bay Chamber of Commerce executive director.

The National Park Service was considering consolidating the superintendent positions for Perry’s Victory and River Raisin National Battlefield Park in Monroe, Michigan, but notified the chamber last week that it was going to keep a superintendent at each park instead, Beckford said.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” Beckford said. “To have our park run from Michigan was unconscionable to me. I just didn’t see how they’d fit two parks from two states together.”

Park Service Midwest Regional Director Cam Sholly and Perrys’ Victory acting Superintendent Barb Fearon were not available for comment.

The park service’s decision came after Beckford and others told the park service they felt Perry’s Victory needed an on-site superintendent to continue regular programs and work with island and local officials to plan events.

A bipartisan group of Ohio Congressmen — Marcy Kaptur, Bob Latta and Jim Jordan— and U.S. senators —Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman — also wrote a letter to the park service in March expressing similar concerns.

Former Superintendent Blanca Alvarez Stransky, who moved in March to the park service's George Washington Memorial Parkway in Washington, D.C., was instrumental in starting new programs and festivals and worked closely with the Put-in-Bay community, Beckford said.

The park service also had public meetings on South Bass Island, where locals shared their thoughts and concerns about the proposal. Most were adamant that if the sites shared a superintendent, that person should be stationed at the island park, Beckford said.

The park service had considered combining leadership at the two sites because they both involve War of 1812 history.

Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial includes a 352-foot-tall memorial that honors those who fought in the Battle of Lake Erie on Sept. 10, 1813, near Put-in-Bay, and symbolizes lasting peace between the United States, Canada and Great Britain. The monument turned 100 last month.

In the Battle of Lake Erie, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry leading U.S. sailors to victory over the British. After the victory, Perry wrote this famous line to Gen. William Henry Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”

Last year, the park had 129,440 visitors, according to the National Park Service.

mksmith@gannett.com

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Twitter: @kristinasmithNM