A big birthday party was held in Baytown to celebrate Chester Smith’s 90th birthday. Two hundred persons attended to wish Chester a “Happy Birthday” on April 9th. Chester is still going 90 miles an hour at 90 years old! Still trying to save as many birds as possible! (Chester is the Warden of Sundown Island.)
-Peggy Wilkinson

Chester Smith wants a barge.

Well, I guess he wants the loan of a barge and a boat to push it and the people to run the boat and whatever else it will take to get a big load of concrete blocks from Louisiana to Sundown Island.

I saw Chester this past Saturday at his 90th birthday party, which was held at the Baytown Community Center.

I was honored to get the invitation, honored to be included in the celebration. I think Chester Smith is an amazing man … just go back to that first statement I made to get a clue what I mean:

At age 90, a lot of folks aren’t really doing much. There certainly aren’t many doing as much as Chester Smith.

His mind is sharp. His memory keen. He still stands straight and tall and is lean and mean, well, not mean, but certainly determined.

Really, really determined.

Just now, he is determined to get that barge so he can get that concrete to the island.

Chester Smith is the warden of Sundown Island, a bird sanctuary island off the south Texas coast that is part of the Audubon Society’s multi-island plan to provide safe ground for birds to nest, to hatch their young, to see those little ones through the awkward stages till they fledge and get their feathers and take to the skies.

That’s not just a few birds either but thousands, tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, each year.

The Audubon Society thinks a lot of Chester Smith and so do I. Experts in the conservation field consider him to have been instrumental in saving the Mexican brown pelican from extinction, through his efforts on Sundown Island. He still makes the trek from Baytown to Port O’Connor and Sundown Island regularly, though someone has to drive him now. He still works on the island when he gets there. More of his time is spent directing volunteers in their physical labors now, but he still puts in a fair share of that himself.

The island is a low-lying, 70 acres that was built from dredge spoil in 1962, just off the coast from Port O’Connor. Chester Smith grew up there in Port O’Connor and still maintains a house there, just a short boat ride from Sundown Island, but he and his wife Ilet wound up in Baytown, where he worked for Exxon until 1973 and they raised a whole passel of kids. He joined the Audubon Society in 1973 and became the Sundown Island warden in 1986. In the years since, he has become legendary within the organization due to his tireless efforts, his tremendous success in inspiring volunteers and in solidifying relationships with industry and businesses that help Sundown through donations of money, equipment and effort. In fact, the Audubon Society named an annual conservation award in his honor and they don’t do that for just anybody.

This time of year, Sundown Island is covered up with birds, with their nests, with their young in various stages from eggs to fledglings and with the near-overwhelming sounds that they make.

I visited Sundown last year, at Chester’s invitation, just when the young brown pelicans were stumbling around awkwardly, most still without their feathers and resembling plucked Thanksgiving turkeys. I’m invited now to go back to Sundown in a couple of weeks which will be earlier in the season than my last visit so that I can be there when the roseate spoonbills will still be there in massive numbers. A crew of volunteers will be planting trees and plants and I’ll be shooting the birds.

Of course there are many, many shorebirds other than pelicans and spoonbills nesting there … there are gulls and terns and herons and cranes and many more. The rare human visitors have to watch every step they make, so as not to step on a baby bird or an egg.

It is a place like no other I’ve seen. Visiting is an experience like no other.

Of course Sundown Island is not there for the pleasure of visitors. It is off limits to people unless hey are there at the invitation of Chester Smith or the Audubon people, to work or, in my case, to document Sundown through photography.

What a photo op.

The biggest problem at a little barrier island like that is that the water tends to wash it away. Erosion and shoreline stabilization are the things that most occupy Chester Smith’s thoughts. Someone Chester knows offered him a boatload of huge concrete blocks that could go a long way towards helping to stabilize Sundown’s shoreline, but that concrete is in Grand Isle, La. That is why he needs a barge.

Learn more about Sundown Island at www.sundownisland.net. If you can help with that barge, e-rnail Chester at popsbirds0)aol.com or you can give me a call and I’ll put you in touch.

Oh,and happy birthday Chester. I hope this helps get you what you want.

Jane Howard Lee is a reporter at the Baytown Sun.