36
WBM september 2019
ON a warm late-sum-mer
day in 1954,
C.L. Mckenzie,
Jerry Partrick and
Ronnie Brown laughed and
joked as they walked down
Salisbury Street at Wrightsville
Beach toward a booming surf
just south of Johnnie Mercer’s
Pier. It was before the arrival of
surfboards and the three were
going bodysurfing in the clear
ocean waters. There was a hint
of fall in the air with a light
offshore breeze kicking up a
gentle swell. The view was stun-ning
with crystal white dunes,
towering waves, and a sparkling
blue-green sea. The three young
Wrightsville Beach lifeguards had
hardly a care in the world. Each
had recently graduated from
New Hanover High School, and
Brown would soon be a fresh-man
at his future alma mater,
UNC at Chapel Hill.
“Our 1954 New Hanover
yearbook had his name as
Ronnie Brown, and some called
him that, but to his close friends,
and he had many, he was just
“Bubba,” says C.L. Mckenzie. “If
there was ever a man who loved
Wrightsville Beach — swim-ming,
bodysurfing and the ocean
— it was Bubba.”
Dr. Jerry Partrick remembered
Brown as a dedicated lifeguard
and loyal friend.
“I lived at Summer’s Rest
and Bubba lived on Harbor
Island, so we grew up close
friends and lifeguards together,”
says Partrick. “We were both at
Carolina but then I went into
the Army and Bubba went to
flight school in the Air Force.”
Wilbur Ronald Brown was
born in Wilmington on July
22, 1936, to Wilbur and Lillie
Mae Brown and spent his boy-hood
years at their family home
on Harbor Island. The 1954
1955 Wrightsville Beach lifeguards. Standing left to right: Bert Womble, Earl Miller, Ronnie Brown,
Ennis Robinson and B.J. Shepard. Kneeling left to right: Dennis Connor and Freddy Beach.
COURTESY OF EARL MILLER AND ALSO IN THE COLLECTION AT THE WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH MUSEUM
Ronnie Brown and future bride Bette Woodbury in December 1958, written on back of photo,
“Ronnie left for Texas today.”