Beaufort’s outdoor public pool bears his name. ‘Now everybody will know about my husband’
Beaufort’s only public outdoor pool has been renamed for Alvin Settles, a well-known Beaufort man who taught swimming — a critical skill in a place surrounded by water — for more than 30 years to thousands of residents.
From here on out, the popular pool at the Beaufort County-run Charles Lind Brown Center at 1710 Green Street will be known as Alvin Settles Pool.
“I know,” his wife, Gloria Settles, told members of the Beaufort County Council when they OK’d the name change earlier this year, “he is really grateful today for this happening.”
The pool was officially dedicated in Settle’s honor Nov. 14.
Beaufort City Councilman Mitch Mitchell and York Glover, a County Council member, pushed for the name change to honor Settles, who died in 2021. He was 69.
Beginning in 1981, Settles taught people of all ages and races to swim at what had been known as the Greene Street swimming pool. He also taught swimming at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
Settles, his wife said, wanted to make sure everybody had the opportunity to learn how to swim.
“Because that was his heart,” Gloria Settles said.
Settles gave lessons to thousands of children and adults over the summer months during his break as a speech-language pathologist in the Laurel Bay military schools.
A new pool was constructed in the mid-1990s. The entire recreational complex was later renamed the Charles Lind Brown Community Center.
“It was for their safety,” Gloria Settles told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet in 2021, after Alvin died, about why he taught swimming, “but also to have the opportunity to just enjoy the water like everyone else and to take advantage of what we have here.”
No. 1 to Alvin Settles was equal access, the newspapers reported.
When Settles was growing up in Aiken, many Black children did not have access to public pools or lakes due to segregation. Settles felt that by encouraging equal access to the water, he would encourage young people to believe in themselves.
Renaming the pool for Settles was “very fitting” in light of his decades of service “in teaching a lot of us to swim,” Beaufort Mayor Stephen Murray said, “including myself.”
Former County Councilman Paul Sommerville called Settles “a great teacher.” Settles, Sommerville noted, taught two of his daughters how to swim including one who went on to become a lifeguard.
Settles also was recognized for his service in 2015 by the South Carolina House of Representatives via a resolution sponsored by Kenneth Hodges, pastor of Settles’ church, Tabernacle Baptist, who at the time was a state representative. The Beaufort City Council later proclaimed June 23 as Alvin Settles Day.
“It’s kind of confirmation of a job well done,” Settles told the newspapers at the time. “Two things that have been constant over the 30-plus years — the pool’s been really right here in the city of Beaufort and to this day, it’s still the only outdoor public swimming facility.”
Gloria Settles said her husband loved to sing and talk — and swimming. He even talked about swimming before they were married. If he could have worked year-round in the pool, she added, he would have.
“Now everybody will know of my husband — Alvin Settles,” Gloria Settles said.
This story was originally published November 24, 2022 at 12:37 PM.
