CRESCENT CITY, Calif. – Those who looked through a high-powered telescope toward St. George Reef  Lighthouse southwest of Brookings on Feb. 27, might have glimpsed mammals not observed there in several years –  people.

After three years away from the North Coast icon, members of the St. George Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society arrived by helicopter to find most things as they left them, with a few surprises.

“The galley window was broken out … but the sleeping bags were dry  and even smelled fresh,” said Preservation Society work coordinator Terry McNamara.

Two stories below the broken galley window, at the base of the tower, equipment weighing in excess of 10,000 pounds had shifted several feet across the base of the lighthouse and a large concrete slab covering a ventilation shaft was broken in two, presumably by winter swells that the lighthouse, seven miles off the coast of Crescent City, has endured since its lens was lit Oct. 20, 1892.

A certain amount of winter damage is expected and the last few years have nothing on 1952, when a wave actually broke a window in the lantern room 145 feet above sea level and sent water cascading down the tower steps.

A dozen acts performed for the annual Brookings-Harbor High School talent show Thursday night, but in the end it was the duo with an original song that impressed the judges the most.

Junior Liz Lindley, accompanied on guitar by Senior Mitch Harrison, sang their original song “Change” to win first place in the annual contest sponsored by the Sophomore Leadership Class.

Winning second place was Liz Ha, a senior who performed “Concerto Pour Une Juene Pille” by Richard Clayderman. Ha performed a piano solo. The panel of judges chose freshman McAlla Murdock, who performed a Celtic-style violin solo.

Special speakers, movies shown during March

University of Oregon (UO) history professor James Mohr will speak on Abraham Lincoln and the decision to end slavery on March 6, Stacy Smith, assistant professor of history at Oregon State, will lecture on fugitive slaves in California, the American West, the Constitution and the coming of the Civil War on March 13. University of Oregon history professor Jack Maddex Jr. will speak on President Lincoln and wartime government powers on March 20 and Jack Trotter, a Gold Beach resident who is a military historian, will lecture on “American Arms and Equipment 1860-65” on March 27.

All lectures begin at 11 a.m.

Walt Schroeder, a longtime Oregon State University Curry County extension agent, opened the lecture series last Saturday speaking on the American Civil War in Oregon.

There is still time to submit an entry into the Brookings Merchants Association’s logo contest to win $100 in cash, plus additional fame and fortune.

The winner will be interviewed on “Your Community” on KBSC TV cable channel 9, and be featured with the winning logo in an article in the Curry Coastal Pilot.

The logo will be used on all the newly formed merchants association’s advertising and displayed in all member stores and offices.

Brookings builder Kurt Kessler of Kurt Kessler Kustom Builder Inc.

The coffee table book which is publicized as “... a showcase of the region’s finest architects, home builders, landscape architects, interior designers, artisans, craftsmen and other industry specialists, under whose creative direction the extraordinary is possible.”

The published photos of Kessler’s construction projects are also the work of a Brookings artist, photographer William Ferry.