Georgia Southern Alumna Finds Peace on The Water

Looking for Peg Phillips (’87) during the summer months is a lost cause. She’s out on the water and isn’t coming back anytime soon.

“It’s the place where I feel most relaxed, and I can forget about what’s happening on land,” said the executive director of the National Safe Boating Council (NSBC). 

It’s also where she spent the 11,688th day of her sobriety, encouraging fellow boaters to enjoy the July 4th holiday responsibly. 

“We were promoting an outreach initiative called Operation Dry Water, so we were out there during the holiday weekend educating and encouraging recreational boaters to boat sober,” Phillips explained. 

Phillips stays busy during the summer months, reminiscing on the lives she’s impacted out on the water. One of her favorites was working with the kids at the Koreshan State Park nature summer camp in Florida, where she taught boating and water safety from 2009 to 2017. 

“We welcome several hundred at-risk youth and introduce them to experiences many of them have never had before,” Phillips said. “Things like kayaking, hiking, exploring nature and learning about the history and ecology of southwest Florida.”

She takes the camp’s mission seriously, saying what matters most isn’t what the camp does for the community, but what it means to the children who come. 

“I want every child who comes through our program to feel safe, encouraged and seen,” she said. “I want them to discover confidence by trying something new, to experience the peace that comes from being outdoors and to know that someone believed in them.”

When the children are playing, and their laughter echoes across the waters of the Estero River, she thinks about how different her life might have been if she had a place like the camp as a child.   

Phillips entered the foster care system when she was only three years old. She was adopted at age six, and quickly realized her new home wouldn’t be the sanctuary she needed. 

“I had to grow up quick,” she said. “I learned to spend as much time as I could at other people’s houses.” 

When that wasn’t an option, she turned to her older cousin Carrie, who was more than willing to step in and stand up for the young girl. 

“It only takes one person to believe in you, you know?” she said. “I think she knew something bad was going on at home, that things weren’t right there … I think she knew.”

Young Phillips thought Carrie was an angel. The older girl took her everywhere she could during the summer: Kayak trips to Jekyll Island, hunting for shark teeth and wandering around the beach looking for fossils and shells. Carrie was the one who gave her a ride to friends’ houses, each one a literal savior to Phillips when she knew she shouldn’t go home. 

But her favorite days were simple ones spent near the water, even if it was just at the pool where Carrie worked.   

“She was a lifeguard, so she’d pick me up early on Saturdays and take me with her,” she said. “I’d stay with her all day.” 

Years later, when it was time for prom, Phillips didn’t have a date. But Carrie insisted she was not going to miss it. 

“I had no confidence,” she admitted. “Carrie said, ‘OK, no, you’re going.’ She got me a dress and did my hair, and I had a great time.”

Phillips started college a few months later. Most of her friends, the ones who took her in when she had nowhere else to go, moved away. She began to self-medicate with alcohol.

“I had never been a good student, but drinking made it worse,” Phillips said. “I had a lot of built-up trauma inside of me, and it was difficult to concentrate and study.”

After a year and a half at Brunswick Junior College, she enrolled at Georgia Southern University. Some of her closest friends studied in Statesboro, so the University felt like a safety net she could rely on. 

“I started to find my confidence and my independence during this time,” she said. “I started thinking about a future I had never really thought of before.”

She found brief moments of respite from the chaos of life amidst the endless rows of bookshelves in the Zach S. Henderson Library. She built close relationships with her professors, each one another person who believed in her. 

Her time at Georgia Southern paid off. A future she had dreamed of was finally within reach. But the same bad habits were waiting for her on the other side after she crossed the stage at graduation. Her first job as a hospitality planner at a resort only enhanced her relationship with alcohol.  

“Those industries come with a party atmosphere,” Phillips said. “But I was scared, because I realized I couldn’t stop. That terrified me.” 

She spent countless nights with a drink in hand, just trying to make it to the next day. Then, in 1994, she met Norma. 

“I ended up at an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting,” she explained. “It was my first one, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was surprised when Norma came right up to me and said ‘I’m going to be your sponsor.'” 

With Norma’s help, she started over. She left the party behind at her resort job and made AA meetings a part of her daily routine.

“I immersed myself in recovery,” she said. “I was going to meetings once a day, sometimes two or three on the weekends. Norma suggested I start therapy, which would help me develop new coping skills and live my life on my own terms.”

Sobriety became a day-by-day journey. She worked the AA steps until they were burned into her brain. Phillips was confident her new life would help her find the stability and peace she craved. 

And it did, just not in the way she was expecting.   

“I was part of a layoff of 500 employees from my company during the 2009 financial crisis,” she explained. “I got four months’ worth of pay as part of my severance, but I was terrified at the thought of not having a job. I called Norma immediately.” 

Norma listened, silently, and then told her exactly what she needed to hear. 

“She said, ‘Is it really the worst thing that could have happened? You haven’t taken a weekend or a holiday off in the last five years, Peg. Maybe it’s one of those things God is doing for you that you couldn’t do yourself.” 

So she took her severance and hit the pause button on life, giving herself time to figure out what she really wanted. In the meantime, she started volunteering. 

“I started doing things I liked to do,” she explained. “I’d lead hikes or kayaking trips for different nonprofit organizations. I did one for a state education program for middle schoolers, and I realized as we were on the water, I’d found the peace and the serenity I’d been looking for.”

She started working with nonprofits in the area, which led her to the National Safe Boating Council. She also found time to play around in the water with the kids on the Estero River. And even when she’s stuck inside, she’s daydreaming about getting back out on the water.  

In those dreams, she’s flying on the waves of a beautiful blue beach on her Jet Ski. Sometimes the afternoon reveries are a little more relaxed, as she dreams of unwinding on her old 14-foot jon boat, puttering along one of the many alligator-infested creeks she lives near.

It’s no surprise that these dreams always bring her to the water, back to her infinite source of peace she so dearly treasures. 

– Bradley Mullis

Editor’s Note: I recently reached out to Peg Phillips to clarify a point discussed in our interview. I received an auto-reply email from her saying: 

“Tampa Bay is calling, so I will be on the water all week. If you need immediate assistance, please reach out to….”

Nice to know she made it out there.