George Anthony Schoepf

  General Notes:

Captain Schoepf served as Captain of the Ocean City Beach Patrol from 1986-1997. However his leadership role on the Beach Patrol was quite extensive beginning with his appointment of "Assistant" to Captain Craig in 1950. Every year, in honor of his many years of service to the OCBP the Captain Schoepf Relay is held where a classic steel rescue buoy is passed along. This honorary relay is held annually in June. It is only open to the Ocean City Beach Patrol as well as anyone that has worked for the Beach Patrol in the past.

In 1950 George Schoepf applied for a job and was tested thoroughly by Captain Craig. After serving admirably for a couple of years, he was advanced to Sergeant, then to Lieutenant. During this time he had continued teaching and coaching and had married.

The supervisory officers consisted of 4 Sergeants and 4 Lieutenants and it didn't' seem right to Captain Craig that Lieutenant Schoepf should be receiving the same salary as other lieutenants who were more recently appointed, so, with the approval of the Mayor and City Council, a new position was created to be designated "Assistant to the Captain" with a salary half way between that of Lieutenant and Captain. When Craig retired, Schoepf was appointed Captain by the Mayor and City Council and did not appoint anyone as "Assistant".

When the Patrol personnel increased to over 100, it was Captain Schoepf's idea to divide the Patrol into crews of about 7 men each and have each crew responsible to a crew chief who would check and report attendance, tardiness, if any, see to it that crew members did the required workouts, etc. The idea of an annual crew competition was also Captain Schoepf's. There were no prizes except for "bragging rights" but the competition was good public relations with the visitors who had a chance to see the various abilities of the guards in running and swimming.

In 1964 a professional organization was formed dedicated to lifesaving. It was several years before Ocean City formed a local chapter of the new group known as the United States Lifesaving Association (USLA). Most of the chapters were located in California, then several were added from the New Jersey and New York shores. The Association sponsored annual lifeguard championships involving running, swimming, rowing and rescue board races. In the early years of the Association, Ocean City did not have any rescue boats or rescue boards and did not participate in the championships. However, around 1980 a local Ocean City chapter was formed and Ocean City held the Mid-Atlantic States Championships, a prerequisite to attending the USLA Championships. Captain Schoepf was given the complete responsibility for setting up and running these championships and he did the job extremely well. He served the Town of Ocean City well for over 40 years.

George married Joan Conrad.