Downtime: An Oral History of Lee's Summit Underwater Recovery 60th Anniversary Edition

For sixty years, a small team of unpaid volunteers has answered calls that most people never hear about. No headlines, no fanfare. Just a pager going off in the middle of the night and a group of divers who show up anyway.

Downtime is the story of the Lee's Summit Underwater Recovery Team, told entirely in the words of the people who lived it. Originally written by Eric Howard and John Monson in 2000, this 60th Anniversary Edition reprints that first oral history in full and adds a second volume of new voices, new recoveries, and the years that followed.

Together, they cover six decades of service to the community: the early days when the team built itself from almost nothing, the recoveries that stayed with members long after they surfaced, the moments of dark humor that kept them sane, and the hard work of keeping a volunteer organization alive through the decades.

This is not a polished institutional account. It is the real thing, told the way the members themselves tell it, around a table, in their own words, with all the weight and the wit that comes with a lifetime of showing up.

For anyone who has ever been part of this team, known someone who was, or simply wants to understand what it means to serve a community in the quietest and most demanding way, this book is for you.

AVAILABLE JUNE 2026