David Bogan Memorial Reef established
As the sun rose on Feb. 21, tug boats headed out to the Gulf to drop the first load of debris from the I-10 bridge reconstruction to be used to form a new reef. "My cell phone rang," remembers Robert Turpin, Escambia County Marine Resources Chief, "and my wife, Tammy, was on the phone to tell me that my friend David Bogan had passed away. It was uncanny as I was working to download on site to form the memorial reef in his name at that moment." Friends, family and FDOT officials had discussed the idea of a memorial reef, and Turpin had just appealed to his supervisor, Escambia County Administrator George Touart, to get it done. "We are totally committed to building reefs in the Gulf - they are like an oasis in the desert. They are not just good for the fish we want to harvest, they help those other species that play a part in forming a true community." Turpin credits Touart with the immediacy. "We were already going to construct the reef specifically from the I- 10 debris, and he just authorized the name. The reef program is handled at the Division level," he says. "and the minute we heard about the I-10 bridge damage, he'd suggested we make sure the debris was factored into our reef program." The David Bogan Memorial reef is located 11 miles south east of the sea buoy.

Robert Turpin/ Special to the News