UPCOMING CLASSES
September 13: Hedrick Smith, The Future of American Democracy
Click a class name to learn more — and to register!
If you have any questions about classes, please email us: silhseducation@gmail.com
Hedrick Smith
Author, Speaker, Reporter, Producer
Saturday, Sept. 13, 1 p.m.
Shaw Community Building
Many on Shaw are familiar with Hedrick Smith through his erudite, entertaining, and thought-provoking talks on Shaw over the last 10 years. With the American political landscape having experienced a dramatic shift over the past year, you won’t want to miss this confident, authoritative, and charismatic presenter as he shares his insights on what lies ahead and the future of democracy in America.
Short Bio:
Hedrick Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and Emmy Award-winning producer. Over 26 years at The New York Times, he reported from Saigon, Cairo and Paris; across the American South; and served as Moscow and Washington bureau chief. He shared the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for the Pentagon Papers series and won the 1974 Pulitzer for international reporting from Russia and Eastern Europe.
He has earned several national Emmy Awards and nominations for more than 50 hours of documentaries for PBS and its “Frontline” series, including the groundbreaking “Inside Gorbachev’s USSR” and a portrait of the Sept. 11 hijackers, “Inside the Terrorist Network.” His most recent PBS film is “Winning Back Our Democracy,” which follows grassroots movements securing political reforms.
His best-selling books include “The Russians,” “The Power Game: How Washington Works” and “Who Stole the American Dream?,” an examination of how the nation split into two Americas. He hosts the YouTube channel The People vs. the Politicians and runs reclaimtheAmericandream.org. He is completing a new book, “From Promise to Peril: The Outlook for American Democracy.”
For 25 years, Smith and his wife have spent summers on Orcas Island. They have owned a home in Olga for more than 20 years.
This event is brought to you by the SIL&HS Education Committee.
Pho in one hour
a cooking class for hungry adults!
July 12 at 11am • Community Building • Cost per person: $10
Pho is Vietnam’s most iconic and beloved noodle soup — a fragrant, soul-soothing bowl of silky rice noodles, tender meat, and a deeply flavorful spiced broth. The broth is traditionally simmered for hours with beef bones, charred aromatics, and warm spices like star anise, cinnamon, and cloves. Our favorite local chef Ghim Sim Chua will teach you how to recreate all that comforting depth in just one hour, using a pressure cooker. It’s a perfect antidote to those cold wintery Shaw days!
All food for cooking will be supplied; we will email you a list of utensils and supplies to bring.
This class is limited to 20 participants, and you must register.
To register for this event, click here. (Note that this class has reached its limit, but — if you want to sign up — we will put your name on a waiting list and we will let you know as soon as we can if a seat opens up.)
R/V Kittiwake Expedition to search for Pacific Spotted Ratfish nesting sites [Sold Out]
Tuesday, July 15th
1 –4 pm
$40 / person
(This trip is limited to 12 people. Minimum age for this trip is 18.)
We will gather in the parking lot at the Ellis Preserve and then walk down together to the dock to board the R/V Kittiwake and head out!
You’ll be out on the water for approximately two hours, helping characterize the biodiversity of potential ratfish sites with two net deployments. Each haul will bring up fish, invertebrates, and kelps that we’ll identify — and you’ll help contribute to groundbreaking research.
This expedition is led by Karly Cohen, PhD. Karly is a research scientist at Friday Harbor Labs and is excited to have Shaw community members aboard the R/V Kittiwake for an exciting expedition in search of the lost nursery sites of the Pacific spotted ratfish! Known for their distinctive rat-like beak, these fascinating creatures are abundant throughout the Pacific Northwest waters. Over the past five years, Karly and her team have discovered that these fish migrate through the San Juan Channel, leaving eggs along the way.
Karly is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Florida in the Fraser lab looking at the evolution and development of teeth, denticles and odontodes. These are some of the earliest vertebrate traits (over 500 million years old)! Using an arsenal of bioimaging techniques, she asks questions about fundamental laws acting on phenotypic evolution through the tools and adaptations of fishes; she asks how different lineages have solved common mechanical and ecological problems. Karly received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington and Friday Harbor Labs in 2022 and graduated from The George Washington University with a Masters in Science in Biology in 2019.