Community leaders toured the new development of Oyhut Bay, the remodeled coastal Interpretive Center and the ever-growing vacation/residential beach town of Seabrook Friday, along with several other North Beach attractions as part of the Greater Grays Harbor Inc. Showcase Tour.

Every year, the organization visits a different part of the county to educate people from around the area on successful aspects of the local economy. This year’s tour also made stops at Lytle Seafoods and included a barbecue catered by the Mill 109 restaurant.

With four tour buses and dignitaries such as U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer and County Commissioners Vickie Raines and Frank Gordon, about 130 people in all took in the full tourism tour of the bustling North Beach. Ocean Shores Mayor Crystal Dingler also joined the tour for the Ocean Shores’ stops.

Longtime tour guide Ernie Nelson of Ocean Shores was the host on one bus that included Congressman Kilmer and a number of others from the inner Harbor who had never experienced the Interpretive Center or visited the new development at Oyhut Bay.

“Everybody was very impressed with Oyhut Bay and they were extremely impressed with the Coastal Interpretive Center,” Nelson said. “A lot of these people work in Aberdeen or Hoquiam so they rarely get out this way. There weren’t many people who had been to Oyhut Bay, even people from our area in town.”

For Kilmer, it was the second year he had been on the tour that began in Hoquiam.

“In fact, he did a little speech at the beginning of the event,” Nelson said. Later, he and Kilmer talked often about what the tour was all about.

“We stayed away from politics pretty much,” Nelson said, “and he was really impressed with the tour and with what is going on in Ocean Shores.”

There were 23 people on the bus that Nelson served as tour guide for. He also was responsible in part for the route that resembled a circular tour of both the ocean-side and bay-side of Ocean Shores.

Nelson said the tour also included “royal treatment up at Seabrook,” where town founder Casey Roloff also served as host. The tour included a view of the new Seabrook main street under development, along with the more recent additions of new retail and the Town Hall. On the way back, the four buses stopped at Lytle Seafoods on State Route 109 where Mike Lytle provided an oyster feed.

Nelson, who also is known for starting the annual Ocean Shores Flag Day Parade and helping to launch KOSW community radio, has been a part of the Showcase Grays Harbor tours for about 10 years.“On past tours, we visited Ocean Spray or a polyester company out in East County that makes a fireproof fabric. … Mike Lytle told us he loves having us come by. He said he probably sells more in one two-hour visit than he will sell in a week.”