Diving for history: Ed the Diver and Christie B dive the Prairie River

History isn’t just found in museums or textbooks; sometimes, it lies buried in the muck at the bottom of a riverbed, waiting for the right people to bring it to light.
The Prairie River became the center of a unique community preservation effort Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, when local veterans and a pair of professional “dirty divers” kicked off a three-year run-up to the 100th anniversary of the historic former American Legion Hall, often remembered as the Legion Lounge, which will take place in 2029.
The river cleanup and historic preservation kickoff represented a joint effort between Jeremy Gunther of the Edward A. Burns American Legion and the nationally recognized underwater recovery duo, Ed Beaver, known as “Ed the Diver,” and his fiancée and fellow diver, Christie B.

The Legion connection: Honoring the past and future
The old American Legion Hall, built on land granted by the City, opened to the public in 1929. For over 70 years, it served as a lively social hub for veterans and community members, hosting meetings, weddings, and dances, before being sold to the historical society around 2000 and eventually reverting to the City. Structurally sound and listed on the local historical registry, the centennial building is a local treasure that organizers refuse to let fade into obscurity.

For Gunther, the event was about much more than dredging trash; it was about bringing active, visible engagement to Merrill’s patriotic community.
“We want to make sure that when a hundred years comes in 2029, that it is not simply overlooked,” Gunther said. “This is our kind of cornerstone kickoff event to what we’re working on as a three-year run-up to that celebration.”
“I think the lesson and the valuable piece is what’s here, right here, right now,” Gunther said. “It’s one thing for veterans to sit around a table in a building and feel sorry that there’s not more to do and not more involvement. Our goal is we’re trying to get out there.”

From real estate and factories to “dirty diving”
The catalysts for the underwater cleanup, Ed Beaver and Christie B., bring a mix of environmental passion and a unique personal history to their work.

Ed, a former law enforcement student who spent years working in factories and construction, found his true calling underwater. He began diving in 2017 to recover lost fishing lures in the Menominee River in Marinette, Wis., but quickly realized the discarded hooks and miles of monofilament line were a death trap for local wildlife.
“We love to scuba dive. We love to travel across the Midwest and clean up,” Ed said. “We try to encourage people to just bend over and pick up a couple items, and if everybody did that, it could make a big difference.”
Christie B’s path into the river muck was even more unconventional. Formerly a high-end luxury real estate agent and investor, she left the corporate world to dive full-time. Her introduction to Ed is a love story that made national headlines: After hearing about “Ed the Diver” on a radio show she co-hosted, Christie bid on and won a mud-covered Barbie doll Ed had salvaged from the Wolf River and auctioned for charity. On her 40th birthday, Ed hand delivered the Barbie in a tackle box, asked her to dinner, and “the rest is history.” After getting certified, Christie joined Ed’s underwater recovery business, operating through edthediver.com.
“I went from selling luxury real estate and being a real estate investor to now becoming a full-time dirty diver. I would not change it for the world,” Christie said. “Every time we go out, it’s always a new adventure. We never know what we’re going to do.”
Now engaged, the couple travels across the Midwest, cleaning up waterways and inspiring others to do their part.

Reclaiming the Prairie River
The dives in Merrill took place over two days. The first was a pre-dive Thursday afternoon, Aug. 13, shortly after Ed and Christie arrived in town, and the second occurred during the public event Friday, Aug. 14.
Braving the murky waters, the divers focused their efforts on a significant stretch of the Prairie River. Their operations covered and cleaned the riverbed between the First St. and Polk St. bridges, including the waters directly behind the historic former Legion Lounge building and behind Stange’s Kitchenette Park.
In preparation for the public dive, Ed predicted the river’s historic banks would yield quite a story.
“I don’t know what we’re going to find along here when we dive today, but it’ll be a surprise,” Ed said before slipping under the surface. “With the history here, I think there should be a lot more stuff going down here.”

The work they do isn’t just about the immediate physical cleanup; it is about leaving a lasting impact on the natural environment and local communities — a concept Christie refers to as the “ripple effect.”
“What we’re doing is going to last for so many generations out there,” Christie said. “It seems like every water we go to, it needed to be clean.”
By restoring the health of the Prairie River and shining a spotlight on the historic American Legion Hall, Jeremy, Ed, and Christie have indeed set a powerful ripple effect in motion.

Items retrieved from the dives
Not everything found in a river dive is historically significant. Sometimes it’s just evidence of littering or fishermen losing their poles or lures. Occasionally, Ed and Christie come across some real conversation pieces, like the Lionel Richie “head” they found near Rhinelander. When they posted a picture of it on social media, it sparked all kinds of “Is it me you’re looking for?” comments that resulted in Christie B getting an education in 1980s music and pop culture

Often, the dives turn up lost items, with many of the same type of item presenting a theme, like sunglasses, cell phones, and even jewelry and keys.
During their local Prairie River dive, most of what the couple discovered could best be classified as modern debris and rusty junk: scooters, rusty metal, tires, car parts, cans, a bicycle, rubber, and unidentifiable items.
Providing education, encouraging good citizenship, and offering diving services
Ed the Diver and Christie B provide a variety of recovery diving services, helping to extricate snowmobiles or vehicles from the water, attempting to locate valuable items that have been lost like cell phones, and wedding rings, and they spend a lot of time presenting educational programs to schools and groups. In addition to their own river clean-up efforts, they are also hoping to spark a wave of good citizenship in others, inviting students from a young age to pick up trash and throw it away when they see it or even to return shopping carts to their corrals. When one person takes an action, it’s an isolated incident, but they are hoping to inspire many others to take action, thus inspiring a wave of good citizenship in communities everywhere.