Gail Francis is the featured speaker for the next Thursdays at the U presentation at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire – Barron County.
Francis will present “Bliss(ters): Hiking Mexico to Canada” from 12:30-1:30 p.m. April 18 in the Blue Hills Lecture Hall in Ritzinger Hall. The presentation also will be livestreamed at ricelaketv.com.
Gail Francis
The Pacific Crest Trail is a stunning path that runs 2,700 miles from Mexico to Canada. Beginning in the deserts of Southern California, it ascends into the High Sierras before carrying into the forested mountains of Northern California, Oregon and Washington.
Francis set out to make this journey just before her 40th birthday and will share what it took to complete the hike, as well as what she thinks anyone can learn from it. Her entertaining delivery will be accompanied by slides, and there will be time for questions.
Francis is the strategic director of RE-AMP, a network of 130 organizations with the shared goal of equitably eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the Midwest. Prior to joining RE-AMP, she founded the Labor in the New Energy Economy program at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
Francis is the author of “Bliss(ters): How I Walked from Mexico to Canada One Summer.” She lives in Duluth, Minnesota, where she and her spouse operate Superior Small Batch, a vegan food company.
The Thursdays at the U weekly series is free and open to the public thanks to support from the UW-Eau Claire – Barron County Foundation. Neither seating reservations nor parking permits are needed for in-person attendees. There also is a livestream option and recordings are archived on the Thursdays at the U webpage.
The next lecture in the series will be April 25, with Dr. Lauren Wentz, professor of biology at UW-Eau Claire – Barron County, presenting “Something’s Burning: Waste Incineration.”
For more information, call the campus at 715-788-6244 or email Dr. Linda Tollefsrud, the series organizer, at tollefla@uwec.edu.
