“What goes around, comes around”
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Did you know Sodus Point produced a World Champion? Well we did and his name was John McMahon and he lived and grew up here in Sodus Point. John was a carpenter’s apprentice, an airplane mechanic and even a Tugboat hand but his heart was never in these jobs. Locally he was best known for his home made boomerangs. Many people here still own his boomerangs. Oh yeah he could throw them too and he was really good at it! What John really wanted to do was be a beachcomber and throw his boomerangs but our beach was too small and John needed a bigger venue for his dreams. While serving as a third class boatswain mate in the Coast Guard in 1957, he discovered Padre Island and as they say “The rest is history”!
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Butch McMahon (Boomerang Billy’s Brother) shows off a homemade boomerang his brother made.
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He became such an iconic figure on Padre Island that Charles Kuralt did a segment about him on his “On the Road with Charles Kuralt” TV series.
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Billy Boomerang died of cancer in the late 1980s but his legend has only grown over the years. A popular beach bar is named after him in his honor. Here is a 2011 article about him:
http://southpadretv.tv/a-bit-of-down-under-702/
