Bubba’s Beach
For Harry
T. “Bubba” Bechtol

Over 80 years ago, somewhere between Etowah and Cherokee, AL, was born the man that was to bring what we know as Pensacola Beach into the 20th Century. Harry Gowens died January 23 not far from the white sands, children and friends that lived in the community he gave us. In the early 60’s, Harry moved to “the island” when there was a single paved road and a few businesses on Casio Beach to provide for the tourist. He was a successful businessman with businesses that ranged from Apex Auto Parts in Pensacola to the first land developer on Pensacola Beach. From what we know today as the Community Church eastward, he built his home and developed the 35 acre plot that was the island’s first “neighborhood’.

He built more than houses; Harry Gowens home was our first school. He didn’t have a building, so they met in his AFrame house on Rio Vista that Hurricane Dennis finally destroyed. Not everyone would give up their home to a school for children ages kindergarten through fifth grade. Can you imagine the noise alone!?

Harry was the first King of the Krewe of Wrecks that began the Mardi Gras tradition; founded the first bank on the island and he and his friend Wally Pecevich fed us Boston Butts, sausage and the finest cooked meats we could eat. They cooked for every charity that would call them and never took any money for it. All they wanted was to see people happy eating it and know that they had helped someone by

Harry Gowens, center, with son Glenn and daughter Joanne.

they had helped someone by cooking it up. He played football when it was a new game at Washington and Lee University, parachuted into France to liberate the them in World War II and received the Purple Heart for it. He hurt until the day he died from the bullet he took that fractured his leg and hip.

Harry earned honors as Pensacola Beach Mayor, and is recognized as one of the original Pensacola Beach Wooly Boogers. In 2000 he was awarded the Pensacola Beach Bum of the Millennium for which he received a beautiful, three-foot tall, hand carved wooden pelican with brass plaque attached. He served on the Santa Rosa Island Authority for years and donated his monthly check to Pensacola Beach Elementary School. He told stories of his life that couldn’t have been true.

The more I got to know him, I learned that not only were they all true, but also some had been rearranged to protect the guilty! He was ornery, hard to love, real curmudgeon, but I loved him like the daddy I never had. We were closer most thought. When Harry resigned from the SRIA because of the work load and the time he had to take away from community projects to be a politician, he told the county commissioner that had appointed him and had to make a new appointment He said, “I ain’t going to resign unless Bubba Bechtol takes my place, because he is the only person I know of on this beach that feels about the way I do about it, and strong enough to fight for it!” I have had compliments from governors and presidents and one king, but that meant more to me than all the others combined.

We will miss him. There will never be another like him. We will miss the stories, the legends and the company. He was one of a kind. He spoke his mind in public, with colorful language most of the time that left no confusion as to where he stood on any subject.

He had friends his age and real friends that were 55 years younger than he, and they all liked him in the same way. He was the original “bald look” that is cool today. He never cared if someone didn’t like him; he just figured that it was their loss. He thought the world of my wife, Tarsha, and when he discovered that I had asked her to marry me; he took me aside and told me, “Boy, you out-kicked your coverage on this one!” For years afterward, every time I saw him he would ask, “Bubba, how is OUR wife?”

He left a legacy of caring that has become uncommon in our world today. He gave away more than he ever made and when he saw a need in the community, he didn’t form a committee, or even ask permission, he just went about filling the need and people seemed to just fall in line behind him.

Harry was a leader by example, but if you were against him you would feel his wrath and you needed to give him a wide space if he was near you. In his late seventies I saw him throw a man that was 25 years his junior out of Bobby D’s bar because the guy was drunk and causing a disturbance. The man didn’t know what hit him. It was over in a flash. When the guy figured out that an old man had just embarrassed him, he went to his car and got a tire iron and started back into the bar. Harry was in the doorway waiting for him, but when the drunk saw that almost every able bodied man in the room was standing behind Harry ready for a fight, he turned and walked away. Harry never knew we were all there behind him, he just turned and asked, “Can we now go back to peaceable drinking among friends?” That was the way it was. Harry always had our back and those that loved him always had his.

His passing is the going of a simpler more graceful and beautiful time in the white sands we all call home. I visited Harry in the nursing home just a few days before he died. I asked him if there was anything I could do or get for him. He looked at me and said, “Bubba, there ain’t a damn thing anyone can do for me. I’m done!” He said is with that wide smile and with authority, and he meant it.

So, here’s to Harry Glenn Gowens. We loved you and will never see anyone like you again.