A Dream Realized

When Jeremy Owens conceived the Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue Junior Lifeguard Camp in 2015, he wanted the participants to have fun, to be sure, but he also had a more serious purpose in mind.

“We’re actually training the lifeguards of the future,” Owens told Wrightsville Beach Magazine in 2017, when the camp expanded from one session to two.

The lofty goal was realized this year when Brendan Huston became the first junior lifeguard camp graduate to become a WBOR lifeguard. Huston, who was 15 when he attended the camp in 2016, made it through the tryouts and is patrolling the beach strand this summer.

“They tell us it’s the best job in the world, and honestly I believe that,” Huston says. “You get to work out, be at the beach, and help people. It’s definitely the best thing ever.”

Huston was born and raised in Wilmington, spending as much time as possible at the beach. That prompted a desire to attend the lifeguard camp.

“I had an interest in the ocean and the lifeguards,” he says.

The junior lifeguards, ages 9-17, experience the same things as the professionals — mock rescues, CPR and first-aid training, running in the sand, and a buddy swim with rescue buoys. The highlight comes at the end of the week when they are assigned to a lifeguard stand.

“Sitting with the lifeguard at the end of the week, it was definitely cool to see that side of it,” Huston says. “It really made me have a different appreciation at a younger age.”

This year’s camps, scheduled for the weeks of June 21 and July 26, filled up quickly with 50 students in each one. The original vision remains: to train and inspire the lifeguards of the future. But there is something new — the name. It is now the Jeremy Owens Junior Lifeguard Camp, in honor of the former Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue captain who died in tragic circumstances last November.

“The camp name was changed at the request of Ocean Rescue,” says Katie Ryan, recreation program supervisor for Wrightsville Beach. “Renaming the program the Jeremy Owens Lifeguard Camp is more than appropriate — he started it. Jeremy had a huge impact on the community, he was loved by many, and he is greatly missed.”