Thanks so much to the 260 people who joined us for our Special Showing of the movie, Boys in the Boat. We loved celebrating Anacortes’s history and long tradition of rowing with you, and we are grateful for the support of so many community members. We are proud of our maritime history and connection to rowing. Anacortes has been home to multiple Olympic Rowers, including Don Hume, who graduated from Anacortes High School, who learned to row in the Guemes Channel right outside of this theater, and who rowed in the stroke position for the University of Washington Crew in this movie.
The event
- We started with a pre-party at the tent at Rockfish Grill & Anacortes Brewery. The activities in the tent took us back to 1936. Ben Starner was on hand to play music from the era, and we showed the documentary “Boys of ’36”. Tim Hume, Don’s nephew, was there, along with our guest speakers from the University of Washington Eric Cohen and Nicole Klein. OARS, AWA and Anacortes Community Rowing joined the party celebrating rowing in Anacortes today. Rockfish served Anacortes Brewery beer, and kept the ambiance going with soft lights and heaters going.
- In the lobby before the movie, guests walked the red carpet, read pages from Don Hume’s Olympic journal and saw other memorabilia from the 1936 Olympics, and took photos with oars made by Pocock himself. They enjoyed interpretive historic panels from the Anacortes Museum that describing Anacortes’s Rowing Heritage and Don Hume’s life in Anacortes.
- We started the movie with introductions from Leslie Eastman from the Samish Canoe Family who told us about how the water that surrounds our town has been filled with rowing since time immemorial, and Tim Hume, whose uncle was on the 1936 Boys in the Boat crew.
- After the movie, we were joined by Eric Cohen and Nicole Klein who are experts in UW rowing history, as well as by Tim Hume for a panel discussion, audience questions, and to watch the footage of the actual 1936 race.
- I have two more friends here to help me welcome you, Leslie Eastman from the Samish Canoe Family who will tell us about how the water that surrounds our town has been filled with rowing since time immemorial. And Tim Hume, whose uncle was on the 1936 Boys in the Boat crew.
Thank you
Extra Special thanks to Anacortes Cinemas, Rockfish Grill, Tim Hume, Eric Cohen, Nicole Klein, Leslie Eastwood, OARS, Anacortes Waterfront Alliance, Pat Barrett, and all of our volunteers. I’d like to give special thanks to Jessica Kidder and her team at Anacortes Cinemas and Rick Star and his team at The Rockfish Grill whose hospitality we are enjoying and who worked hard to make this night special. Thank you to OARS, Anacortes Waterfront Alliance and Pat Barrett, who have helped connect us to the rowing community that is alive and well in Anacortes today. Thank you to all of the Downtown Anacortes volunteers, particularly the ones who are working tonight and Laurel Harrison who has had such a big part in making this happen with very little notice. I’d like to thank the Anacortes Museum and Bret Lunsford for bringing Don Hume’s time in Anacortes to life in the panels installed in the lobby, and I’d like to thank Tim Hume for sharing the historical documents that you were able to explore in the lobby.
If you have feedback or photos that you’d like to share with us, please send them over to info@downtownanacortesalliance.org.
