By Sonya Allen
What is it about Ocracoke that can boast of 13 former service corps members?
Maybe it’s the general concern for others many residents have.
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy founded the American Peace Corps in 1961, asking university students to volunteer in remote areas overseas.
He posed the challenge: “How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling worldwide?”
On remote Ocracoke Island, 12 former Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) and one AmeriCorps member answered that call and now live on Ocracoke among their 1,000+ neighbors.
Al and Linda Scarborough served together in Cameroon, Africa. They married and eventually returned to Al’s roots.
“We stayed in Ocracoke because we had a house and history here,” Linda said. “The Peace Corps taught me that there is not just one way to live. It gave me a worldview I wouldn’t have had if I stayed in Ohio.”
For years, Al coached boys’ basketball, and Linda ran the Girl Scout troop.
Ralph and Vera Buxton served on tiny Bocas del Toro Island in Panama, establishing a hospital and teaching sanitation.
When they retired to Ocracoke, they continued to give back by volunteer teaching at the school.
“We came here because we saw what we liked,” Vera said. “It’s the ultimate in community living. We enjoy the lifestyle we learned to love in the Peace Corps and see a reflection of it on Ocracoke. This is something the locals have known and lived for over 250 years.”
Barry and Karen Burgan went from teaching fish farming in the Philippines to becoming EPA environmentalists before moving to Ocracoke.
“At heart, we are island people,” Karen said. Both grew up on Long Island, New York, met in Jamaica, became marine biologists, and served together on Siquijor Island.
Now, they help however they can, from folding T-shirts to serving food at events.
Rachael Chestnut, whose college major was Peace Studies at George Washington University and who served as an AmeriCorps volunteer, says many islanders pitch in. She is the Hyde County Board of Education representative for Ocracoke.
“We do it for the sole purpose of bettering the community,” she said. “Unlike in other areas, there’s no showboating about it.”
Matt and Mary Rueff served as teachers in Swaziland in the 1980s.
After decades in the workaday grind, they moved here this year.
“Some friends told us, ‘You should visit Ocracoke,’” Matt said. ‘It’s not like any other island in the Outer Banks.’ The community came first for us. It’s about meeting and really talking to people.”
They enjoy cheering on the school teams and getting to know their new neighbors.
Ocracoke High School math teacher Shea Youell began his teaching career on Ocracoke, then spent three years teaching in Macedonia before returning to Ocracoke to continue teaching.
“I think success in both places depends on building strong relationships,” he said. “That’s something I learned and took with me from Ocracoke. Building community is everything. You can think you know it all, but none of that matters unless people feel like they know you.”
The sense of community resonated with everyone interviewed.
However they got to Ocracoke—whether through family, vacations, or jobs—they recognized something special that was already established.
Ocracoke seems to represent a microcosm of the worldviews and ideals that JFK envisioned when founding the Peace Corps—a community that thrives on mutual aid, volunteerism and the intrinsic value of helping one another to survive and flourish.
That could be said of the Ocracoke community, which has flourished away from the madding crowds for generations.
Almost everyone who comes here volunteers for something. It’s not an official government-appointed role with external rewards attached.
Instead, it’s a way of life, a means of survival on this remote strip of sand.
The following are PCVs and foreign service officers that live or have lived on Ocracoke Island:
Sonya (Dobbins) Allen, PCV Romania; Barry and Karen Burgan, PCV Philippines; Ralph and Vera Buxton, PCV Panama; Rachael (Pulwers) Chestnut, AmeriCorps, Calif.; the late Leonard Meeker, Ambassador to Romania, whose wife, Beverly, still lives on Ocracoke; Mary (Zuverink) and Matt Rueff, PCV Swaziland; Linda (Smith) and Al Scarborough, PCV West Cameroon; Henry Schliff, PCV Turkey; Jack Whitehead, PCV Fiji Islands; Shea Youell, PCV Macedonia.
Rachael Chestnut is the AmeriCorp alum.
Sonya Allen is an artist and the author of “Living Abroad: Dark Humor for PCV’s and Expats.”