Whippoorwill Award

Without Helen McSwain’s efforts the Centennial Book would not have been the same beautiful coffee table book that we have now.  Helen’s family has been on Lake Rabun since the 1930s and she knows everyone that has old pictures of the lake.  She scheduled appointments and went to house after house to scan photos – carrying her own laptop and flat bed scanner.  Helen taught herself to use Photoshop and improved the quality of many of the photos she had scanned so we could use them.  She also learned to colorize them.  Bob and I benefited from her skill because she colorized two black and white photos of us from the 1960s. 

Helen helped with the research for old Lake Rabun Families like the Rutherford, Lipscomb, Hodgson families on ‘Witham Point.  Helen is the one that figured out that Laura Jacquelin Rutherford Lipscomb was called Lamar of “Ms. Lamar’s Hill” and who Lamar Alley was named for.  

She worked with Barbara, Mary Cobb, and me to choose pictures for the DVD.  She was the one that really knew what pictures we had, and she was a huge help as we were looking for the final pictures for the Centennial book.  By the way, it was Helen that introduced us to Laurie Shock who created our book.

Since she retired from her OB-GYN practice, Helen has served on the Board of Trustees, coordinated the clean-up of Minnehaha Falls, been a member of the Lake Rabun photo team, joined the kayaking group. (She painted a wonderful picture of the kayaking group.) 

Helen has loved and supported Lake Rabun all her life.  She is very deserving of the Whippoorwill Award.