Life on Orcas Island with Edee Kulper

Bruce Benton went from Peace Corps work in West Africa to the US Treasury Department’s Deputy-Director of the Office of Raw Materials and Oceans Policy to a career managing the World Bank’s efforts to defeat parasitic riverblindness in Africa. He has written a book of the same. Locally, Bruce continues to work hard to help the Island Rides program. A few years ago, he secured grant funding totaling $800,000 for electric vehicle inf...

Modern-day explorer, Karl Krüger, is preparing for his third leg of a three-summer solo journey through the Canadian Arctic's Northwest Passage. He covered 900 miles combined in 2022 and 2023 on his stand-up paddleboard, and in the summer of 2027 he plans to use a Holopuni outrigger canoe instead to retrace the coast he explored on his SUP, starting in Tuktoyaktuk, continuing past Kugluktuk - his furthest east point from previous s...

Georgette Wong's expertise is in impact investing and strategic consulting to strengthen local communities. She currently serves as Board Chair of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Investment & Audit Committee for The Russell Family Foundation, as well as the Investment Committee of the Orcas Island Community Foundation. She has been the CEO of Correlation Consulting for the past 10 years, focused on clients seeking to integrate ...

A deep dive into Liberty's turbulent early years and what formed her sense of freedom, adventure, and the desire to be who she chooses to be and surround herself with people she trusts. Liberty talks here about biking across Finland, solo horseback riding in Mongolia among horse thieves and threatening bandits, feeling akin to orca whales, writing a series of books for children about a society of mermaids and facing adversity throu...

Not only is Robin Lassen one of the warmest, most encouraging human beings you'll ever meet, she's also a tireless go-getter. While her fine art paintings hung in a local gallery and shop, she was zipping across the sky as a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines ~ a new hire at the age of 69. During summers, she trades the quiet life of Orcas Island where she practices challenging musical memorization on her piano for the on-call, a...

Local legend Jimmy Mudd is known for the “Train Wreck,” a local jam time for any musicians interested, which he hosted every week for decades. I wanted to give an Orcas Island student the opportunity to be an interviewer with me at the radio station, and the school recommended Senior Kairam Bailey, vocalist of a local band called Bonzi. I asked who his ideal guest would be to interview, and the answer was a resounding "Jimmy Mudd!"...

She goes by Liberty, and she lived out her list of hundreds of dreams by the age of 30. She has swum with orca whales in Norway, the only human to have been in a tank with 16-foot Florida alligators with nothing between them and her but a mermaid suit, she's a trained free diver, an equine therapist, a wing walker on small aircraft, a mountaineer, an author of several books, the only female captain in the San Juans, a naturalist, a...

Tenar is one of the few people you will catch a glimpse of out in the sea all year round, even in the cold, winter months. She circumnavigates Orcas Island in a day on her surfski, trains for competitions, and talks about being doggedly persistence over being blessed with a particular skill (though I believe she is an absolute phenom). She's a math lover and instructor, shares her stories of navigating autism, and attributes many o...

Bob Nutt is the kind of guy whose full life has led to having a plethora of skills. He's a farmer and raises sheep with alongside his wife on their Warm Valley Orchard, where they sell apples, peaches, walnuts, handspun yarn, handmade garments, and more. He's a volunteer firefighter with decades of experience, and has done everything from working in the geology field to teaching math to school kids. He just published a book written...

Sam Blackman is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Google Ventures, Founder and Former Head of Research and Development at Day One Biopharmaceuticals, a retired Pediatric Oncologist, an avid writer and storyteller having won two of The Moth's GrandSLAM storytelling competitions, and he has climbed to Mount Everest Base Camp as part of a fundraising campaign to raise $1 million for cancer research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, desp...

After making a living drawing intricate architectural renderings for big design firms representing everything from corporations with fancy building projects to the Port of Long Beach, Frank Loudin struck out on his own, painting scenes that made him famous in his hometown Catalina Island art shows. With his charming brand of self-effacing humor, he's also published two books of short stories while honing a darn good version of home...

Bob Waunch is a retired fighter jet pilot and the founder of the Airhawks Flying Club for local pilot instruction and scholarships. He was pivotal in founding Mercy Flights for people who need non-emergency medical transport to the mainland, instrumental in founding the Orcas Island Community Foundation, and helped coordinate fundraising for the Orcas Island Medical Center. Add to that his myriad forms of generous support to variou...