Bodie Island Lighthouse among finalists for new windows

The Bodie Island Lighthouse has advanced to the short list of lighthouse contestants vying to win new windows.

Lighthouse lovers nationwide narrowed a field of 12 window-worthy lighthouses down to three, according to a news release on Friday from Jeld-Wen Windows & Doors.

In the voting that ended Sept. 7, the Grand Traverse Lighthouse in Michigan and the New Canal Lighthouse in Louisiana, along with the Bodie light, garnered nearly 70 percent of the half-million total votes.

Fifty lighthouses initially were nominated for the contest.

The Jeld-Wen Reliable Lighthouse Restoration Initiative began in 2005 as an effort to restore the original architecture and performance of historic lighthouses. Members of the public were asked to go to the company's Web site and choose the lighthouse that they thought could benefit most from a window and door makeover.

Bodie Island is one of the few lighthouses in the nation that still has its original first-order Fresnel lens.

Plans for a complete restoration of t he 1872 black-and-white striped tower near Oregon Inlet are included in the president's proposed budget, but funds still are lacking to repair all the stairs and the deteriorating lens.

National Park Service officials have said the windows in the tower are in poor condition. If the windows were awarded by Jeld-Wen, it would free up money to restore more of the brick beacon.

A decision on the winner is expected to be announced this fall, the statement said.

More information about the contest is available at www.jeld-wen.com/lighthouse.

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com