Local musician Tom Wisner, who dedicated his songs and his life to the Chesapeake Bay, recently made public that because of the progression of his lung cancer, he has moved to the Hospice House in Prince Frederick, Md. There, according to the Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance-Star, he will face what could be his final battles against the disease.

The 80-year-old has fought lung cancer for more than a year, all the time remaining active in the community. The man who worked for more than 40 years as an educator, starting with the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Md., and moving on to travel to schools across the area, knows no other way to live than through the Chesapeake.

He organized his writings, photographs, artwork and the more than 140 interviews he conducted with those who live along the Chesapeake Bay, and give them to the Calvert Marine Museum.

“They are the songs and stories of the sailing oystermen,” he said of the donated archive. “The sun-tanned, quiet breed of watermen whose lives are bound in the regional traditions to follow on the water.”

And not content to compile his old works, he also worked diligently to record a new CD, “Follow on the Water,” available from the Web site of CHESTORY, the Center for the Story of Chesapeake Life and Culture that he co-founded to encourage artists to celebrate and raise awareness for the Bay.

Though he has stopped performing for large crowds except on rare occasions, he and his band still took time recently to play some of his new songs for Gov. Martin O’Malley. And on Jan. 31, Wisner and other musicians took part in “A Bay’s Life in Story and Song: A Celebration of Tom Wisner” at Avalon Theatre in Easton, Md., giving fans one more chance to hear him and imprint him in their memories.

If you have never heard the musician, the Washington Post’s 2009 profile of Wisner includes three audio tracks of the World Folk Music Association’s 2002 John Denver Award winner. Especially take the time to listen to and linger over “Chesapeake Born,” which might as well be the official song of the bay and its people, and appreciate all that its creator has given to the Chesapeake and the legacy he will leave behind.

“I’m Chesapeake born, I’m Chesapeake Free, I’m Chesapeake bound, flowing with ease…”