Bonita woman's efforts provide immeasurable service to Coast Guard

Betty Riddle does a lot of things she doesn’t need to do.

No one is forcing the Bonita Springs resident to drive to the Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard Station three days a week. She’s not obligated to stand watch at the station while commissioned members of the Coast Guard get training. And she certainly is not required to be a mother figure to those young men and women.

But for more than 25 years, Riddle, a member of the civilian-geared Coast Guard Auxiliary, has done all that and more. All as a volunteer. All because she wanted to.

Anyone who has dealt with the local Coast Guard station in Fort Myers Beach probably knows Riddle. Three days week she stands at her desk, keeping track of activity from Boca Grande and Charlotte Harbor to the north to the Ten Thousand Islands to the south and everything in between.

“This is my home away from home,” Riddle said, pointing to the various maps, charts and monitors she uses every day to help distressed boaters.

Her work has been an immeasurable help to the Coast Guard station, said Coast Guard Commanding Officer Peter Louzao.

Though the station has more than 450 Auxiliary volunteers, Riddle’s work stands out because she’s been helping so long and she’s so knowledgeable, he said.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard

As a volunteer dispatcher, Bonita Springs resident Betty Riddle has been the voice of the Coast Guard in Southwest Florida for 26 years, and counting.

Riddle retired to Bonita Springs from Illinois with her husband, Tom, in 1979. The two were avid boaters and spent so much time on the water that joining the Coast Guard Auxiliary made sense.

“We were on the water anyway, so we became members of the Auxiliary to see what we can do,” Riddle said.

Her husband died in 1996, but Riddle kept helping with the Coast Guard.

Riddle is a mother figure to many of the officers at the station, Louzao said. During a typical day she can be seen training officers on how to use dispatch equipment, making sure to remind them to conform to customs and policy.

“We’ve got these 18-year-old, 20-year-old kids coming in from all over the country with who-knows-what background,” Louzao said. “Miss Betty, she’s like a mother to some. But she’s more than a mother. She’s a mother, she’s a grandmother, she’s your best friend.”

Riddle’s impact is so great on the men and women at the Coast Guard that members remember her years after they’ve left Fort Myers Beach.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Sean Burnett, of the Yorktown, Va., Coast Guard has fond memories of the time he spent with Riddle.

Burnett, now one of the highest ranking officers in the entire Coast Guard, spent two stints at Fort Myers Beach starting in the mid-1980s. He said he rarely sees a volunteer with as much dedication to the Coast Guard as Riddle shows.

Riddle said she did a lot more work back then. There were times when she’d work 24- or 48-hour shifts at the station, staying watch.

Two incidents stick out in Riddle’s mind. Both times she helped save a life.

The first occurred in the late 1980s when she was working with the auxiliary out of Wiggins Pass. A man had lost his buddy overboard about two miles off Wiggins Pass and came barreling to shore to get help. Riddle and her husband were able to call for help, and the man’s friend was found floating in the water, holding a beer cozy. Neither man had a clue how long he’d been in the water, or when he fell over.

A few years later, Riddle was standing watch at headquarters when a call came in from a woman whose husband was having a heart attack on their boat. The woman was not very familiar with boating, and Riddle had to slowly coach her through cutting he anchor, starting the boat and steering the vessel back to shore so her husband could receive treatment.

“It wasn’t that hard to do,” Riddle recalls. “What I had to do was keep her calm.”

Riddle’s work with the Coast Guard goes beyond being supportive and helpful to boaters. By putting in so much time in the dispatch room, she allows commissioned officers to get additional field training, which helps them move up the ranks faster.

That type of help is great for the officers, said Chief Sean Benton, of the Yankeetown, Fla., Coast Guard. Benton also trained under Riddle in the late 1990s while he was in Fort Myers Beach.

When she wasn’t helping people learn the dispatch procedures, she was supplementing officers in the watch room, Benton remembers.

“She’s a great lady. She’s very dependable and a great friend to the Coast Guard,” Benton said.

Just how dependable? Last week, Riddle had eyelid surgery. She was back at her desk a few days later. She’s also undergone hip and knee surgery. The longest she ever took off from work was five weeks following her hip surgery in 2003.

“It’s something I enjoy doing,” Riddle said. “It’s a feeling that you’re helping someone else.”