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Navy personnel '	C°°*	0P	C0m«®ce
J . J 7	Ba3rS.t' Lf1j’^S. 39520
introducing our new neighbors
BY Dee Cichon
Perhaps you have had the opportunity to become acquainted with some of the “New" people in town who have moved here with the NAV0CEAN0 project at the NSTL base. If not, we would like to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Gary Strom, who moved here this past January.
Gary Strom, 32, is an oceanogTapher with the Naval Oceanographic offices based at NSTL. His wife, Lorraine (Raine), is a former elementary school teacher who taught in Maryland after completing her B. S. degree at the University of Maryland. The Stroms have a daughter, Mali-aca (Mali) who is 13 months old.
One of the first families with the Nav-OCEANO program, the couple searched for some time before deciding to make Bay St. Louis their home. Guided by a Navy fact-find-ing committee which had cursorily checked the area surrounding the NSTL base of operation, they first followed up the suggestions of that committee in their search for housing, shopping, and educational facilities.
Not familiar with the coast, they spent their time looking at homes in towns within a reasonable traveling radius of NSTL. They tried to judge from existing educational failities which communities had the best to offer their daughter, as well as themselves.
Shopping and housing were considered next. “If we were to have made a quick decision, we probably would have chosen Slidell, as many families have. On first impression, Slidell is a busy town with much to offer, but time proved
that, in our opinion, the schools, housing and “suburban atmosphere” were too similar to what we didn’t like in Washington, D. C.”
Unable to find a house that suited their many creative interests, they decided to build a home. After looking in some more rural areas, they made there way to the Gulf Coast. Here they found a community where people were friendly, child-oriented and concerned with and about each other.
The Stroms feel that, guided by the Navy fact-finding committee alone, they may not have thought to look here at all. Apparently, the committee had stated that the public school systems here were poor. But after visiting the schools, Mrs. Strom has seen for herself that the basics of education are being taught here, and the teacher-pupil relationships here were more impressive to her than that in some of the more progressive schools near our nation’s capital.
As Mrs. Strom so vigorously stated, “We did not want to raise our children in Washington, D. C. and had hoped to live in the South. We are tickled as can be to live in Bay St. Louis. It’s a wholesome place to raise children and we appreciate the opportunity to enjoy many things that we like to do without an ever-present fear of being interrupted by social deviants.” The couple agreed that Bay St. Louis has a “cosmopolitan outlook toward the unusual and adventurous.”
Few people here realize that many families who were moved here by the Navy have given up homes, family and friends to partici-
pate in the NAV OCEANO was declared legal by court action. When we that had this court action not come through, they would have been called back to Washington, D. C. to relocate once again, we can appreciate that many of the people of NAV OCEANO welcomed the opportunity to live here greatly enough to take that risk.
When asked to comment on business dealings with companies along the coast, the Stroms enthusiastically praised the help received from their realtor, Ames Kergo-sien, who located their lot at 136 Leopold St. as well as the two-neu-room cottage they now occupy on Beach Blvd. They are very excited, too, about their builder, Charles Johnson, whom they describe as “a progressive thinker.” And, while adapting to a pace somewhat slower in operation to what they have become used to in Washington, D. C. they find that the quality of many services rendered here compensates for the greater quantity and diversity of similar services offered in a more urban community.
Some things they would like to see more of here are a good book store, a hardware center offering workshops to do-it-yourselfers, more university courses and lectures of adult interest, natural childbirth preparation with husband-assisted delivery and a little more respect for certain aspects of women's lib. They explained that Naval wives must fill in for husbands away on long missions, and both husbands and wives resent lip-service being given to the wife in the absence of the husband
in matters he would usually handle.
While the Stromes have not had the opportunity to savor the night life on the coast, they have enjoyed some of our local family restaurants, notably Chica Boom, Little Italy and Annie’s Pantry. The couple is greatly interested in organic gardening and forage whenever possible for wild foods such as berries, thistles and certain edible flowering plants. Their hobbies include painting, metal sculpture, beachcombing and more active pastimes such as hiking, canoeing, fishing, and bicycling.
Reprinted by Permission Coast Buyers Guide July 14, 1976