Oak Orchard Lighthouse presents special light show for late Florida woman

OOL Museum this weekend welcomed family of Emelee Arbuckle

Photos by Tom Rivers: The Oak Orchard Lighthouse Museum presented a light show on Saturday that honored Emelee Arbuckle, who was 23 when she died in a motorcycle accident in Florida in 2013. Her family has left bricks with her name engraved at about 300 lighthouses around the country. The bricks are typically buried or left in the water close by the lighthouse. Oak Orchard is the fifth lighthouse to find the brick and contact Emelee’s parents.

Ken and Karen Arbuckle of Melbourne Beach, Fla. visited the Oak Orchard Lighthouse on Saturday evening for a special light show as a tribute for their daughter, Emelee. The show was in addition to the nightly 30-minute light show that starts a half hour at sunset. That light show mimics the Northern Lights.

POINT BREEZE – The Oak Orchard Lighthouse Museum presented a special light show on Saturday in honor of a Florida woman was passed away at age 23 on Dec. 29, 2013 from complications following a motorcycle accident.

Emelee Arbuckle was connected to the water. She was the top coxswain on her high school rowing team. She was also an artist who wanted to teach art to disabled children.

Her parents, Ken and Karen Arbuckle, visited Point Breeze over the weekend. The Arbuckles have left about 300 engraved bricks at lighthouses around the country. They were at the Oak Orchard Lighthouse on Aug. 4, 2024 and buried a brick engraved with their daughter’s name and nickname: Emelee “Bean” Arbuckle.

The Arbuckles typically will bury a brick at the southeast corner of a lighthouse or leave in close to shore in the water.

At the Oak Orchard Lighthouse, a new lighting system was being installed in August to display a light show that would mimic the Aurora Borealis. Lighthouse volunteers worked with A.J. Hetzke of IlluminFx Lighting Systems to install the system which debuted on Aug. 14.

Cheryl Giacherio was digging at the southwest corner on Aug. 7, creating a hole for one of four corner canisters for the lights. The top of the lighthouse has 192 lights for the show.

When Giacherio dug down in the dirt, she found a brick in honor of Emelee “Bean” Arbuckle. An internet search showed the story of Emelee, and helped connect the lighthouse museum to her family.

It was the fifth brick that has been found with Emelee’s name.

The Arbuckles made the trip up from Melbourne Beach, Florida on Friday, and presented a collage with a poem by their daughter that will be on display in the lighthouse.

The lighthouse museum had a special tribute for the family on Saturday night. Hetzke of IlluminFx created a new light show for Emelee.

“Thank you so much for honoring our girl,” Mrs. Arbuckle told a group at the lighthouse on Saturday night. “No one has ever done anything like this for us.”

Emelee Arbuckle is shown at left. Here is the brick that was found last month with her name at the Oak Orchard Lighthouse.

Emelee’s mother feels like it was a God-ordained miracle that the brick was discovered at Oak Orchard. Her husband usually buries the bricks in the southeast corner. This time, he put it at the southwest corner, right where a hole would be dug a year later for the light show.

“This was God,” Mrs. Arbuckle said. “He was coordinating this to all come together. You need to recognize these miracles when they happen.”

She thanked Hetzke for the light show, which was set to music.

“With the music, you can feel it in your heart,” Mrs. Arbuckle said.

She and her husband have been to at least 400 lighthouses in the past 12 years, trying to leave a memorial brick or a “handheart” of her and her husband’s hands creating a heart shape. The Arbuckles take a picture of that heart shape with the lighthouse in the background if they can’t get up close in person. Some of the lighthouses are off limits to the public. (They stopped by the Braddock Point Lighthouse in Hilton on Saturday but couldn’t get close enough to leave a brick because it’s on private property.)

The Arbuckles are happy when people find a brick with their daughter’s name, and reach out to her parents.

“It’s about saying Emelee’s name so it isn’t forgotten,” Mr. Arbuckle said.

Here are other photos from the light show on Saturday night.