Jon Council, the founder and developer of the Avalon Dive History Exhibit now on display in the Casino was awarded the Nick Icorn Diving Heritage Award this past weekend by the Historical Diving Society in Santa Barbara at its annual meeting.
“It’s a huge award and I’m grateful for the recognition,” said Council, adding the award amounts to the equivalent of an Emmy or an Oscar in the field of entertainment. Past winners of HDS awards include Jacques Cousteau, Dr. George Bass, Astronaut/Aquanaut Scott Carpenter, Dr. Sylvia Earle and others, putting Council in a very exclusive league indeed.
Jean Michele Cousteau, the famous underwater explorers’ son, attended the award ceremony, said Council.
Council said the award is simply a recognition by the HDS of “all of the effort, work and dedication by everyone who worked to make the diving exhibit a reality.”
Attendees of the Santa Barbara Diving Reunion said Council had made an extensive presentation earlier in the day about the Avalon Diving Exhibit to the entire conference.
Council said the award is rooted in history as Icorn was the Diving industry’s recognized Historian for decades prior to his passing in 2013. The award will be covered in the Historical Diving Society quarterly journal, which he said is distributed to 38 countries. The magazine has promoted Avalon’s dive exhibit with repeated articles and photographs over its initial year of operations, said Council.
“This puts us on an international scale,” said Council, who was back at work at in Avalon this week, hosting visitors and rescuing animals. As part of the operation, Council operates the Avalon Marine Animal Rescue.
According to Council, September was a great month for Avalon’s Diving History Exhibit. Several milestone events occurred for the exhibit housed within the world-famous Casino building in Avalon.
Notification was received from Google that over 51,500 people had conducted online searches for the exhibit, Lyman and Ann Packard walked through the doors as the 19,999 and 20,000th visitors, he said.
The unsuspecting couple received celebratory gifts from local businesses including dinner gift certificates from Steve’s Steakhouse and Maggie’s Blue Rose, Hotel stay at the Avalon Hotel, 20,000 leagues under the Sea DVD and a limited edition hard back book, a Catalina Falconry experience gift package for four, along with other gifts from the diving exhibit.
Council said despite the recognition, the exhibit was beginning to have a financial impact on Catalina.
Even if a quarter of the people who web searched the venue online made a trip to Avalon with a modest $500.00 spending budget it would translate into a $6.5 million dollar revenue injection into Avalon’s and peripherally into Catalina island’s economy, he said.
The Dive exhibit is offered to the public free of admission as a value-added experience while visiting Avalon. Many island summer camps as well as visiting dive instructors have taken ownership of sorts of the dive exhibit, taking the opportunity to walk their student groups through in order to have them learn about the early days of SCUBA use and its intrinsic connection to Southern California and Catalina Island in particular, according to Council.
Education regarding Diving History is half of the exhibit’s goal, the other important purpose behind the space set up in the Casino building is to serve as a reporting center and education base for the island’s Marine Animal Rescue (MAR) program which began operations in January 2013 and since has rescued 854 animals.
Rescued creatures include whales, dolphin, seals, sea lions, turtles, shorebirds, Island Fox, deer and other assorted small animals and birds. MAR strives to continue to work towards responsible stewardship of Catalina’s unique and important wildlife.
A series of new and highly unique displays are scheduled for the dive exhibit.
Projects in the works with NASA and their involvement with diving as a weightless training simulation medium over the years will be highlighted with incredible items, photos and NASA personnel guest speakers as well as U.S. Naval deep diving technology are planned, he added.
