Last week Jimmy Buffett visited the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory to see how their work is going as their Oil Response Team tries to combat the oil spill in the gulf:

The singer and songwriter met with the University’s President, Dr. Martha Saunders and her team of researchers on June sixth.

Buffett visited USM’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs to talk about their needs regarding the examination of this spill. To help out, Buffett partnered with a boat company from Florida called Dragonfly Boats. Designer, Mark Castlow is creating specialized boats for the lab.

Buffett is donating those vessels to the University. Dr. Saunders said Buffett e-mailed her about two weeks ago saying he wanted to see the lab’s work.

“So he came and met with our scientists and got a briefing on the kind of work we are doing. And Mark Castlow came and we talked about the progress of the boats and so it was a great day. We got to see a great alum and talk about what we can do together toward maybe improving the prospects with this oil spill,” said Saunders.

Jimmy graduated from USM in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in history.

You can donate to the Southern Miss Oil Spill Response fund visit at www.usmfoundation.com/oilspill and read about the Spill Response Team here.

Read more about Buffett and the Dragonfly boats here.

Last week we reported on Briggs & Stratton’s effort to get 240 generators to earthquake-stricken Haiti and how Buffett was trying to help move them through customs (read the story). Laura Timm, director of corporate communications for Briggs, left a comment today on our article letting everyone know they got through:

This is Laura Timm with Briggs & Stratton. Our generators cleared customs today (6-10-10). Thanks to Jimmy and everyone who helped us get the generators in the hands of those that need them most.

Garden & Gun has an article on Buffett’s “grease experiment.” After running his Green Tomato surf van on used cooking oil for a couple of years, Jimmy came up with the idea to supply oil to commercial fishing boats:

Jimmy Buffett has a vision for his golden years. “My dream,” explains the musician, “is to get a big ole tanker truck, with huge holding capacity, and drive it up and down the Eastern seaboard collecting used cooking oil.” This from a man who’s built a mini-empire of concert tours, best sellers, and restaurants, and who could probably rest on his laurels somewhere besides the cab of a semi. “I want to collect all that used grease and distribute it to commercial fishermen along the coast to use as fuel for their boats.”

Buffett’s food-centric epiphany came from a green tomato. Actually, the Green Tomato, his giant green surf van converted to run on used cooking oil, a process that is actually relatively simple compared with using biodiesel. The van is hard to miss, and driving around the United States in search of swells, Buffett found himself acting like an ambassador for the grease engine movement. “I felt like a teacher because I was giving lectures everywhere I went about the benefits of burning grease,” he says.

Along with the usual suspects—surf bums and eco-hippies—commercial fishermen were anxious to hear his pitch. “These guys are always being screwed by the high cost of diesel,” Buffett says. And among fishermen, no one is more familiar with being screwed by high fuel costs and measly returns than the American shrimper. While shrimp prices have declined due to the flood of farmed shrimp onto the market, most of it imported from Asia, the same cannot be said for fuel.

Continue reading this story here.

According to the Palm Beach Daily News, Jimmy Buffett has sold his Midtown estate in Palm Beach, Florida for $18.5 million:

Jimmy and Jane Buffett’s Midtown estate has sold for $18.5 million, according to a deed filed today at the Palm Beach County courthouse.

The buyer has not yet been identified.

The Buffetts paid $4.4 million for the five bedroom-nine bathroom compound on 1.6 acres in 1994. The address is 540 S. Ocean Blvd.

The estate was originally designed in the Mediterranean style by Marion Sims Wyeth but was later remodeled into a British Colonial-style house by Howard Major. In 1969 the Garden Club of Palm Beach showcased the house as part of its annual house and garden tour.

For many years, the estate was the residence of Audrey Emery, the daughter of a Cincinnati industrialist who was married to the late Grand Duke Dmitri Romanov of Russia and later married Prince Dimitri Djordjaze of Monaco. Emery’s son, Paul Romanoff Ilyinsky, served as mayor of Palm Beach for many years.

It was also once the home to Amory and Annette Haskell, who named it Annetteamo. She was the daughter of Standard Oil exec Henry Morgan Tilford.

The estate features a tennis court, pool, guest house and ocean frontage.

The property is currently appraised for $23.3 million by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office.

Update – Here is a Google Maps image of the estate. You can see Jimmy’s Green Tomato surf van parked in the driveway (click to enlarge photo):

(hat tip to Brad for finding that)

A native of the Gulf Coast region, Jimmy Buffett is helping a Vero Beach, Florida boat builder in the oil spill relief effort: “Vero Beach boatbuilder, Jimmy Buffett team up to help recover oiled wildlife in Gulf”

The images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are serving as a call to action for men and women who have built their lives on the water like Vero Beach boatbuilders Mark Castlow and Jimbo Meador, and Meador’s longtime friend, musician Jimmy Buffett.

Days after people began to learn about the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, Castlow e-mailed Meador and Buffett who were in the Bahamas fishing for bonefish. Castlow’s message was simple: “We have to do something.”

Early next week, Dragonfly Boatworks, a small custom boatbuilding company, expects to ship a vessel designed specifically to aid in the recovery of oil-covered wildlife along the marshes of the Gulf Coast.

Named “S.W.A.T.” for Shallow Water Attention Terminal, the Dragonfly crew took the 17-foot skiff from Castlow’s original sketches to the finished product in just 28 days.

The boat is one of four Dragonfly will build and send to university researchers in the Gulf, Meador said.

“We’re trying to get a boat out there as quickly as possible,” said Meador, a lifelong waterman born and raised on Alabama’s Gulf coast. “We’re building it for them to use on oiled birds and wildlife, but we hope they don’t need it.”

The first SWAT is headed to the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory operated by the University of Southern Mississippi. The scientists there were chosen to receive the first one in part because it is Buffett’s alma mater.

The singer, songwriter, restaurateur and author is underwriting the construction costs of the four boats estimated at about $35,000 apiece. Dragonfly Boatworks also is donating much of the expense, and the company is in the process of trying to partner with an outboard engine manufacturer to help with the cause.

Taking feedback and suggestions from Buffett as well as from scientists involved in the recovery effort, Castlow and Meador incorporated many unique features to help on the water. The boat is expected to have a draft of 8 to 12 inches when loaded. A worktable sits in the middle of the deck and is coated with a sanitary gel coat and coarse surface to help keep oil-covered birds from slipping on the surface and adding to their stress.

“This whole disaster really got our ire up,” Castlow said of Buffett, Meador and himself. “We’ve made our livings from the ocean our whole lives. We’re just trying to get a tool into the hands of the people who have dedicated their lives to working with marine life.”

WPTV also has an article on Buffett and Dragonfly.