NEW PHOTOS (Shown below) and MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EVENT HAVE BEEN ADDED.

The LWA held its Fall Wrap-Up Dinner on Sunday, October 11th starting at 6:00 PM at the Wolfeboro Inn’s 1812 Room.

A hundred plus members and guests of the Lake Wentworth Association went to honor Allen Stevens of Wolfeboro at the Association’s End-of-Season Banquet held Sunday, October 11 at the Wolfeboro Inn.

 “There is no one, absolutely no one, who knows more about Lake Wentworth and its nature than Allen,” said LWA President Kevin Donovan. “Allen is always there when you need him, whether it’s to help a neighbor with a dock or single-handedly putting up the tent for the annual picnic. You never even have to ask. Allen is just there, it gets done and he’s gone.”

A  Lake Wentworth AssociationLife Time Membership Award was given to Allen Stevens in recognition for his many years of service to the lake, including nearly twenty years of keeping the lake at the “appropriate” level as he opened and closed the Crescent Lake Dam.

 Wolfeboro Selectman Linda Murray talked about Allen’s contributions to the town but also said: “…. everyone here knows Allen as Wolfeboro’s Crescent Lake dam controller, the man who faithfully watches over the lake’s level. His role is to keep the lake high for the high water people and low for the low water people, and in the process balance Mother Nature’s storms and the lack of storms. The only guarantee is that not everyone will be happy. On behalf of the Town of Wolfeboro and the Board of Selectmen I want to thank you for your valued service to the Town.”

 Allen Stevens first came to Wolfeboro as an infant in the 1930s to summer at Point Breeze on Lake Wentworth, a summer resort founded by his Great Grandfather Charles Stevens in 1889. He became a year-round resident in 1940 when his parents, Henry and Jean Stevens, moved to Wolfeboro full-time to help run Point Breeze, and Allen and his three sisters, Margaret Jean, Ruth and Gerry grew up in the summer resort business. (All three sisters traveled to Wolfeboro to join their brother at the dinner held in his honor.)

 In its hiatus in the 1950s, 60s and 70’s Point Breeze hosted upwards of one hundred campers in as many as forty-six cottages on the forty-acre site with a thousand feet of frontage on Lake Wentworth.

 “We had our main meal in the middle of the day. After that we spent the afternoon waterskiing. Everyone got to go at least once; those who wanted to learn each had three tries to get up,” recalled Stevens.

 Following graduation from Brewster Academy Stevens studied food service and forestry at a small college in upper state New York,

 “I already knew how to cook; Id been doing that for years at the resort,” he said with a sly grin. “So I mostly studied forestry, the outdoors, that’s what I really liked.”

 His love for the outdoors is rooted in his love for Lake Wentworth.

His favorite parts: “The sunsets, the sunrises and fish for breakfast,” he said. Bass would be his first choice.

 Stevens shouldered the responsibility for monitoring the Crescent Lake Dam in 1991. No small responsibility, that dam controls the level of Lake Wentworth and its little sister, Crescent Lake, where the Smith River leaves Crescent Lake to run down through Wolfeboro Falls into Back Bay and finally into Lake Winnipesaukee.

 It’s Allen Stevens who opens the dam each spring for the annual running of the Wolfeboro Lions Club’s Smith River Canoe Race.

 Maintaining a consistent lake level is challenging because Wentworth is such a shallow lake, “a warm water lake,” he calls it. Changing times make it even more difficult. “Bigger boats need higher water,” he explained. “And the boats on the lake get bigger every year.”

 As for the dinner in his honor, “The turn out was amazing! “ he said, and it was nice to see so many old friends.

 “I’m a very private guy, you know,” he continued. “If you need something done, or you need help, that’s what I’m best at…” … and that’s exactly why so many Lake Wentworth people were saying ‘Thank You.’

Also recognized at the LWA event were four scuba divers who turn up most every Saturday morning all summer long to pull milfoil off the bottom of Crescent Lake and Lake Wentworth. Peter Galanis (in back) presents Dive Team Members (from left) Tom Ouhrabka, John Lydeard, Skip Oliver and Kevin Donovan with “Baskets of Gratitude” including Lake Wentworth Wine glasses, a bottle of wine and a generous gift card.

  “We also want to thank their spouses for their support,” he added. A fifth diver, Spencer Skinner of Wolfeboro, was awarded an educational scholarship by the LWA earlier this year. Spencer is a senior at the University of New Hampshire studying oceanography.

 In addition Donovan praised LWA Treasurer Ken Roberts for more that fifteen years of service and Director Ralph Cadman for his work with the NH Lakes Association and for organizing the October 11 dinner.