While the Eastern Shore is not lacking in the number of conservation organizations working to save the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem, with such outstanding groups as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, and ShoreRivers leading the way on big initiatives, it sometimes falls to smaller, grassroots-based environmental non-profits that fill the gap on the hyper-local level.

One of those groups on the Shore, whose work on plastic bag bans, the removal of carry-out packaging, or even the planting of trees, also  happens to be one of the oldest in American history. The legendary Sierra Club, founded in 1892 by conservationist John Muir, has been active in Maryland for almost as long, but it was only recently that its Lower Eastern Shore Group was chartered to lend their voice and volunteers to some of these critically important initiatives as well as mobilize political action efforts in order to have greater influence in Annapolis and Washington, D.C.

The Spy recently sat down with Susan Olsen, the current chair of the Eastern Shore’s Sierra Club program, to catch up on what the organization has done since it formed five years ago, and also to talk about its tree planting program in Cambridge, and the Maryland Human Rights Amendment will make the state’s constitution recognize the right for all of its citizens a stable, healthy environment.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about the Sierra Club in Maryland please go here.

The Spy heard the sad news that former Washington College professor and nationally known author Robert Day passed away in his native state of Kansas this morning.

Bob Day had been the driving force behind Washington College’s highly-regarded literary programs in the 1970s and 1980s, bringing to the Eastern Shore some of the most distinguished writers of the era, including Allen Ginsberg, Katherine Anne Porter, William Stafford, Toni Morrison, Joseph Brodsky, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Anthony Burgess, Edward Albee, poet Billy Collins and William Kennedy.

The Spy staff will be preparing a more expansive tribute to Bob over the next few days. In the meantime, we thought our readers would enjoy our interview with him from 2010 when he talked to us about his life of teaching and writing.

Since the lifetime learning organization Chesapeake Forum started its Distinguished Visiting Scholar program three years ago, they have had remarkably good luck in attracting excellent speakers for their annual fundraising program, but they also have seemed to perfectly calibrate the subject of those talks that connect with national topics of great interest.

Last year was a good example of this when scholar and author David Blight addressed the Forum after his award-winning book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom was published. 

And this year, the Forum continues this tradition on January 20th when Mars Mission scientist, Pamela Conrad, will talk about man’s quest for discovering the universe and the once unheard future where humans will become interplanetary creatures. 

The Glen Burnie resident is a remarkable individual to talk about this journey. For many years, she has been in the forefront of NASA’s work in exploring Mars with the Perseverance Rover and its companion, the Ingenuity helicopter, with her long association with the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution and Goddard Space Flight Center.

But Dr. Conrad brings something beyond her stellar background and years of dedicated research. Amid an already demanding career, she chose to become an Episcopal priest. In fact, she is a rector at the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church when she’s not working on the Mars mission.

So it was this special combination of science and religion, according to John Miller, one of Chesapeake Forum’s board members, that made Conrad the perfect selection for a stimulating conversation about the challenges that come with space exploration and man’s moral responsibilities that come hand-in-hand with these bold acts of discovery.

The Spy sat down with John a few weeks ago to discuss Pamela Conrad’s work and her upcoming Zoom discussion. 

This video is approximately five minutes in length. To make reservations for the Conrad program please go here.

Exploration, Adventure and Science
with Pamela Conrad
via Zoom
Thu Jan 20, 4:00 – 5:30 PM