Gene Gregg: A One-of-a-Kind Grand Lake Pioneer

 Our friend Gene Gregg, who ran Airport Resort, or in recent years known as Tera Miranda, for some fifty years, passed away last weekend at the tender age of 96. Don’t know of many people on this lake more respected far and wide than Gene. A gathering will be hosted by Gene’s son Shane at Doc’s at Shangri-La on Saturday, March 4th, getting underway at 1:00 PM to swap stories about the late, great Gene Gregg. Just maybe the history of those Cat Hats will finally be revealed.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Gene authoring an article for Grand Times on Grand Lake about the history of the resort and that of Golda and Gene Gregg. I’ve elected to include it on our blog in honor of a truly unusual man as follows:

From the time the last log fell into place and Grand Lake began to fill with water, there have been some influential Lakers who contributed, and not in a small way, to what Grand Lake has become today. And many of them came from the most unexpected places. The first two owners of Airport Resort, renamed  Tera Miranda in later years, were tied to aviation. The Andrews and Swinney families both had connections to aviation, which resulted in a grass airstrip which spawned one of Grand Lake’s first resorts.

The Andrews were the first owners and were instrumental in bringing power, telephone service and other much needed improvements to the Island. The resort was first popular with flying enthusiasts, which generated the demand for a café as fly-in breakfasts were becoming popular. As many as 25 planes were observed at one time.

The Swinney's were the next owners and took the resort to a different level as they constructed a new restaurant, swimming pool, new cruiser docks and access roads. They brought the resort a long way.

In 1961, three couples, John & Linda Stewart, Richard & Sherrill Mercer and Gene & Golda Gregg purchased the resort. The Greggs became the face of the resort for over 50 years. Gene and Golda were both educators from Kansas. Their only exposure to Grand Lake had been summer vacations on an annual basis for about ten days. The trail which led from educator to marina and resort owner was an interesting one.

According to Gene, public education was in the process of implementing something called Progressive Education and his superintendent dispatched him to a related meeting. When he returned and expressed his opposition to the plan, his superintendent suggested he find something else to do. He joined Beach Aircraft as a recruiter until the purchase of the resort was finalized in 1961

In the early years, the operation had a small number of boat docks, a 40 X 40 repair shop, a small café and 12 cottages. Improvements were made immediately with most of the cottages being replaced with cedar cabins and the boat docks being replaced with slips up to 54 feet in length. The restaurant was redesigned and expanded utilizing cedar and stone. The shop operation was expanded to accommodate large cruisers for woodwork requirements and anything mechanical including OMC, Volvo, and MerCruiser stern drive work. It had become a good size marina operation.

And even though Gene was and is an extremely skilled craftsman with an “I can fix anything” mentality, the legacy he leaves in his wake is far more important and teaches a lesson all could learn from. In today’s "win at all cost" society, as demonstrated by the negative political ads we have recently been bombarded with related to the recent elections, Gene would have no part of it. His competitors were not adversaries, but more like co-workers with the objective of getting a customer’s boat ready by the weekend. And Gene had the reputation of stocking about every part or parcel of mahogany that might be needed for a woody.

Former TowBoatUS owner, Wade Silzer has known Gene Gregg for as long as he can remember, and Wade says, “I dealt with Gene on many occasions looking for hard to find parts and even repaired his auto-start home generator at one time. Even though it was a tough one to diagnose, I refused to charge him for the repair because he had done me so many favors over the years. When I started to leave, we shook hands and he had two $100 bills waded up in his hand and refused to take them back. Just a class act.”

He added, “Since my Dad hauled boats we did a lot of business with Gene because he had the foresight to bring the first travel lift to Grand Lake and we, and everyone else around here, used it for assembling and breaking down boats for transportation.”

When Arrowhead Yacht Club’s Joe Harwood was asked about Gene Gregg, he immediately asks, “Is he still wearing that Cat Diesel hat and spitting chewing tobacco into that cup he always carried around with him? It really didn’t matter whether he was at the controls of his travel lift or selling fifty-plus foot Trojan Cruisers at the Tulsa Boat Show, Gene was always Gene and a more genuine human being, willing to help anyone, I have ever met. Truly a kind-hearted soul.”

Tom Berry, who was hired to handle the accounting function when Golda Gregg elected to retire in 1982, but ended up being a jack of all trades, was as close to Gene as anyone over the years. When Tom was asked to describe his years in the Gregg employment he was an emotional challenge, but the respect can’t be hidden. Tom says, “As fair as any man a person could ever hope to meet or work for and he would never ask an employee, or anyone else for that matter, to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.”

A good example of that work ethic is described by Grand Lake Towing’s Paula Silzer when she recalls her first meeting with this Legend of the Lake like this. “Wade and I were standing around killing time at the Tulsa Boat Show when I saw this older gentleman scooting around on the floor with a paint scraper removing the tape on the floor used to define booth space. I asked Wade who that was and he informed me that was Tera Miranda’s owner Gene Gregg. I went over and introduced myself, sat down on the floor, and spent the afternoon removing tape from the floor, laughing and cutting up with Gene. I don’t think he ever remembered my name, so he always just called me darlin.”

Gene has had a huge impact on this lake and he hung with some of the most influential movers & shakers from days gone by like Virgil Duncan, who developed Port Duncan, Charles Davis at Shangri-La and Carlos Langston, who built Port Carlos from scratch. Everyone who attempts to chisel out a living on this lake in a few short months annually, owes Gene and some of his pals a huge debt of gratitude.

Humility is definitely one of Greggs attributes and when asked to sum up his 50 plus years at the helm of Tera Miranda, he picks up that tobacco cup, ponders for a moment and says, “You know, we had some pretty good years and then we had some lean ones.”

Perhaps he is best described by the old cliché, “No brag, just fact!” Rest in peace old friend.

See Ya’ Around the Pond!!