HARKERS ISLAND — It takes countless hours of work for the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center to fulfill its mission of preserving Down East Carteret County’s heritage.
Located next to Cape Lookout National Seashore’s visitor center on Shell Point, offering on most days a view of the diamond-patterned lighthouse across the sound, the museum spotlights the history and traditions of the 13 unincorporated communities in the eastern part of the county through exhibits, programs and events.
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While Executive Director Karen Willis Amspacher and about a dozen volunteers were busy setting up the morning of July 3 for the annual All-American Shrimp Fry taking place that Saturday, July 5, she told Coastal Review that “It’s the work that makes this place what it is” and the museum “was built on volunteers.”
From converting an old doctor’s office to the gift shop housed in the facility, clearing land and pulling stumps from Willow Pond behind the museum, to creating beautiful quilts and feeding thousands fresh local seafood and sweet puppies, “Core Sound has always been and still is — and hopefully will always be — grounded in the hard work, talents and dedication of the people of our community,” she explained.
So, when Gov. Josh Stein inducted Amspacher and nine others June 25 into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honor in the state, she didn’t tell a soul.
Amspacher, who has been leading Core Sound since it was established in 1992, had been in Raleigh that last week of June with others fighting against a proposed law that would ban commercial shrimp trawling in the state’s inland waters and within a half-mile of the shore. The House chose not to push the contentious bill through.
She was reluctant to accept the award at the time because, she said, it wasn’t only her who had made the museum a success, and didn’t feel like a time to celebrate. Amspacher decided to meet with the governor anyway because it was a chance to speak to him about the proposed trawling ban.
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She wrote in a social media post a week later a “confession of guilt for accepting something good that belongs to everybody that I have mommicked all along the way.”
Amspacher thanked everyone for their congratulations, “but know … WE have accomplished NOTHING alone. Since I moved back home in 1982 it’s been quite a journey, thank you to everyone who is still holding on for our fishing communities no matter what it takes,” she wrote, adding that she hopes her daughter, Katie, remembers when she “puts me in the ground on #redhill under those oaks to post a sign somewhere .. ‘Work is love made visible.’ I believe that … I do love ‘my crowd’ … and love means work.”
Amspacher paused between tasks the morning of July 3 to reiterate that she’s truly grateful for all of the volunteers, especially the young ones “who keep showing up to do the work it takes to keep the museum’s work moving forward.”
Her “shrimp boys” Liam Calabria, Nick Davies and Jackson Saunders, were among those setting up tables and chairs. The three best friends grew up together in Raleigh.
Calabria explained during a break that the nickname came from when he and his older brother, who is in college now, began helping at Core Sound about five years ago.
The first few years, “We had to clean all the shrimp, so that was the main focus, and then we would just help out where need be,” Calabria said. “Now we set up all the tables, chairs, water stations, and we’ve helped serve the food recently, and that’s the fun part because we make it a friendly competition.”
His family began in 2020 splitting their time between Carteret County and the state capital, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Core Sound decided to hold the shrimp fry again after pausing during the pandemic, Calabria said that his brother, who was in ninth grade at the time, needed volunteer hours and wanted to help the community.
“I decided to tag along with him,” and his family decided to continue to help. “Now, we started dragging our friends along,” Calabria explained, gesturing to Davies and Saunders.
Davies started helping about three years ago. Currently attending Wake Tech Community College, Davies said it’s “a lot of fun” at Core Sound and he gets to spend time with his best friends.
This is the first year for Saunders, who said he decided to join because he needed some community service hours for scholarships, and “thought it’d be fun to hang out with my friends. So I was just like, why not tag along?”
Calabria added, “We just love the community, and we’ve made a lot of friends and connections through Harkers Island over the five years we’ve lived here, so we just like to see them enjoying the time here and meeting up with some friends.”
Nearby, high school senior Thomas Lathan was helping his grandfather Bill Lathan, a board member for more than 20 years, hang banners that thanked the shrimp fry’s sponsors.
Thomas Lathan has helped at past events, but this is his first summer as an intern. He’s been working with a doctoral student to interview residents about their experiences with tropical storms and how the natural disasters affect and change the culture. He plans to present the findings when he’s done.
Bill Lathan, who still works full time as an attorney in New Bern, said he heads to Harkers Island whenever he’s available and decided to join Thomas that Thursday to help.
Amspacher explained in a later interview that many of the youth that help have been volunteering as shrimp cleaners and trash collectors since they came with their parents and grandparents when they were 9 and 10 years old.
“Now they are high school and college students and they are returning as interns and as the ‘power’ behind our events and projects. They care and each of them know they are part of us and always will be,” she said. “Troop 252 of Davis has been part of our events from the first year we were in this building in 1999. Many of them have children who are now Scouts, doing what they did.”
After the event, Amspacher told Coastal Review that the shrimp fry was a success. This year highlighted the Crystal Coast Water Rescue Team who traveled to Black Mountain during Helene response in fall 2024 and welcomed the Black Mountain Fire Department who called on Carteret County for help.
Core Sound has been reaching out to leaders in the mountains since Hurricane Helene caused untold destruction last fall to the western part of the state to help cope with the destruction and heartache.
Recognizing “our water rescue team traveling to help Black Mountain Fire Department was the same story. The shared experience, the bond that tragedy builds, the ever-knowing that we are all one storm away from needing them to come help us was heavy on everyone there. It was a moment that we will all hold dear,” said Amspacher. “The All-American Shrimp Fry is just that: communities coming together to celebrate our homes, our families and the traditions we hold sacred from across North Carolina.”
