Our “Plank Owners”

Being an old navy man, an old “salt” so to speak, our Executive Director Mike Baroman-Coggins sometimes uses a colorful phrase from his past as a cook on two nuclear submarines in the U.S Navy. He referred to Betty Searway’s group, which took honors as the opening crew on our Grand Opening day as “the Plank Owners.” No one, of course, knew what Mike was referring to other than Mike. So some explanation is in order.

According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia of the internet, a “plank owner or plankowner” is an individual who was a member of the crew of a ship when that ship was placed in commission. Originally, this term applied only to the crew members that were present at the ship’s first commissioning. Today, however, plank owner is often applied to members of newly commissioned units, such as new military bases or units and recommissioning crews as well. In Navy lore since the crew member was around when the ship was being built and commissioned they therefore held bragging rights as to “ownership” of one of the planks in the new ships main deck. Crewmembers who are “plankowners” often have the word PLANKOWNER embroidered into the back of their logo ball cap to denote this designation. They usually receive a plankowner certificate to commemorate the event. Historically it was also common for a plankowner or their widow to request a piece of the deck from the Naval Historical Center’s Curator Branch when the ship was decommissioned.

While many volunteers helped in the Grand Opening Ceremony with logistics, it was Betty Searway’s group that was the actual “plankowners”, serving the lunch crowd. Mike plans to honor the group with a certificate and a commemorative photo of the event.