Put-in-Bay Gazette June ’25 – Another Busy May on the Bay

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Life on Put-in-Bay is anything but boring. May was particularly hectic as islanders got ready for the 2025 season.

If you were a business owner and not open already, you probably were hard at work getting ready to open. If you see workers out and about, you can bet they’re doing the numerous things it takes for a business to open after a long winter. Another thing we watch for is the mooring buoys in the harbor. Once the Boardwalk crew puts them in, you know that’s a great sign the season is starting. But there’s more than just being busy getting ready to open; there are all the activities this past month that made May fly by like the Blue Angels at an airshow.

So here’s a list for you to check off along with a little commentary.

The first event, the garlic mustard weed pull in Cooper’s Woods, was not very well attended due to rainy weather. Unfortunately, there were a lot of great prizes, but few takers. On a brighter note, there wasn’t that much GM weed to be found other than infant plants too small to be picked.

The Blessing of the Fleet was another event that wasn’t very well attended due to the weather. The Rev. Deacon Jim O’Donnell from Mother of Sorrows, Fr. Bob Solon from St. Paul’s and Pastor Jarrod Schaaf of St. John’s Lutheran in Port Clinton blessed several vessels and the vehicles of the island EMS, police forces and fire department. As always, June Stoiber’s assortment of cookies made everyone happy.

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If you wanted to find a bargain or two, you should have stopped at every single place on the Island Wide Garage Sale map. We just want to know what people did with all the stuff that didn’t sell.

This year’s spring play, Clue, put on by the Island Arts Council at the Town Hall was really fast paced. With multiple murders, a variety of suspicious characters and a surprise ending, it will be one to emulate in the Council’s future productions. Director Katherine Woischke’s choice of actors to play the various characters couldn’t have been better. How can you forget Renee Market playing the French maid or one of our island seniors, Dianne Smith, deftly maneuvering around the stage with the much younger cast. Nicholas Sanner, who works at Heineman Winery, was superb in his dual role of butler and the owner of Boddy Manor. From the get-go, you truly believed he was a classic, but eccentric, English butler. The play was so popular many people went twice to see it, and some went to all three performances.

There were three Road Scholar bird watching sessions that took place on the island in May. The participants kept the owners and staff at the B&Bs where they stayed and the crew at the Crew’s Nest where they dined very busy. Plus individuals like Lisa Brohl, who helped with the set up in the town hall, and Val Chornyak, who was there bright and early to serve breakfast, were busy with the “birders.”

If opening parties are your thing, the traditional one at the Crew’s Nest is always fun. We think Jim Wehrheim from Fox’s Den hasn’t missed one in years.

Put-in-Bay School’s students were extremely busy this past month. One of the events that draws a big audience is the annual school concert. PIB School music teacher CC Wisnieski had island students singing songs from around the world, several in a foreign language.

Besides the concert, island students enjoyed award ceremonies for both the elementary grades and the junior and senior high schoolers. Students received multiple awards. Fourth grader Bralee Dobos got the All A All Star award for a perfect 4.0 GPA, and her sixth grade brother Beckett was voted Future President by his classmates. The best award ceremony of the day was that for the two kindergartners in Ms. Troiano’s class. Yes, we said two!…Evie Cultice and Greta Koehler. Not only did they all get awards, but they participated in a graduation ceremony complete with caps and gowns for Evie Cultice and Greta Koehler. Ms. T will never forget this year’s class. All we can say is look out, Mrs. Lasota when school begins at the end of summer.

The Upper Deck was honored to host PIB School’s Junior and Senior Class Banquet. The banquet also included the high school teachers and staff. The newly remodeled facility was the perfect venue for such a delightful event.

The entire student body headed to Toledo Zoo shortly before the end of the school year. There aren’t many other schools that can say the visit includes a ferryboat trip to get there let alone all the students and staff visiting, too.

May is graduation month for the seniors at Put-in-Bay High School. Regrettably, the Class of 2025 did not have the ceremony at the base of Perry’s Monument. The cool temperature and wind off the lake would have made for a very uncomfortable affair, so the ceremony took place in the school’s gymnasium. Salutatorian Ava Heineman and Valedictorian Elias Wright gave their addresses before guest speaker Kelly Faris came to the podium. Kelly was a two-decade-plus principal and superintendent of PIB School a generation ago. Those in the packed gymnasium will never forget his eloquent address to the graduates.

If you like cleaning, there were two clean ups worthy of mention in May. One was the annual clean up at the Put-in-Bay Yacht Club. The other was the a Sea Grant-sponsored shore clean up of island beaches that the employees from the Boardwalk Family of Restaurants took part in.

Not surprisingly the Put-in-Bay Yacht Club saw a bevy of activity in May. After the clean up the club saw the Lighting of the Cupola, the Chamber of Commerce’s Spring Member meeting, Euchre playing on Wednesday evenings, a board meeting, the Memorial Service, the Eye Opener Brunch and the beginning of WAVE sailing.

There were three very enjoyable birthday parties. The McCann family had a belated 90th birthday party for their matriarch and lifelong island resident, Mary Ann, at the Ice House behind the Put-in-Bay Winery at the Doller Estate. Family and old friends watched as Mayor Judy Berry read the mayor’s proclamation in her honor, and family members sang a song about her life to the tune of Edelweiss from the movie Sound of Music.

Brynn Marshall celebrated her birthday on Middle Bass where she lives. All her classmates at Put-in-Bay School live on South Bass, so to help her celebrate, Rob Lasota picked up her friends at the Boardwalk dock and ferried them to her party. The dozen or so kids enjoyed jumping off the cliffs into the cold lake near Lonz Winery before heading to the Island Grind for treats. After the party the kids were ferried back to South Bass.

Anne Parker welcomed family and friends to her home on Catawba Ave. to help her celebrate her 96th birthday this past month. Anne has been a resident of the island since the late 1940s, and we think she remembers every minute of her time here.

Sadly, islanders attended two celebrations of life in May. The first was for Rob Mohn who retired a few years back from Miller Boat Line. The last couple of years he had worked at the Goat’s Biergarten where the celebration was held. Rob Hard roasted a hog for lunch before the party continued with a bar crawl to Joe’s Bar, the Boathouse and Topsey Turvey’s.

The second celebration of life was for Don Breier, one of Put-in-Bay’s few handymen and jack of all trades. Don had also worked for the Put-in-Bay Utility Department operating the water treatment plant years ago. Celebrants gathered at the Miller Marina pavilion.

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The Garden Club got off to a good start in May. They got the flowerbaskets around the downtown park up before the sky began to cry tears in buckets. Later, they all met at the white house of president Sheri Murphy for a potluck. There were also tears of joy from the older members when Kelly Butz showed up to bring a little of that much-need vibrant youthfulness to the group.

And at the end of the month, parishioners gathered at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as Fr. Bob Solon officially became the Rector there. On the last day of the month, Put-in-Bay Paul Jeris blasted to the edge of space as folks on the island watched live on YouTube.

Associate Editor of the Put-in-Bay Gazette Jeff Koehler turned 80 at the end of May. Please tip your hat when you see him, but please don’t make fun of him.

And if all these things didn’t keep you busy, there were the several programs at the library, the activities and exercising at the Senior Center, training sessions for the volunteers at the fire station, construction projects, endless meetings for elected local officials, and those evenings when the island ladies go out on the town leaving their young kids at home with their fathers. Alcohol might have been involved in a couple of those evenings.

Needless to say, living on Put-in-Bay is never boring.

Putinbay.com is proud to present these Put-in-Bay Gazette articles from the June 2025 issue.

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