Bob Whitman is called “The FBI’s Indiana Jones.”
Teddy Roosevelt and recovering stolen art subjects of February premier lectures
LifeLong Learning brings you two wonderful Premier Lectures in February. Tickets are $15 per person and may be purchased in advance online at www.lifelonglearningatpc.org, at the LLL Center Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to noon or prior to any lecture. All lectures begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Renaissance Theater.
Friday, February 10: The Teddy Roosevelt Story
In this, the centennial anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service, Joe Wiegand brings his one-man show, The Teddy Roosevelt Story, to PebbleCreek. Wiegand, who was here two years ago in a show focusing on Roosevelt’s adventures, will use this appearance to recount the role Roosevelt had in the preservation of important public lands. A masterful impersonator, Wiegand has spent this past year in the guise of Roosevelt, touring the country and celebrating the centennial year of the National Park Service. He will use this appearance to focus on the role Roosevelt played in establishing the National Park System.
Roosevelt signed The Antiquities Act in 1906 authorizing presidents to proclaim and preserve “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures and other objects of historic or scientific interest” on lands owned or controlled by the United States as “national monuments.” It also prohibited the excavation or appropriation of antiquities on federal lands without permission from the department having jurisdiction.
Arizona owes much to Roosevelt, who authorized the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in 1902, setting the course for our state’s subsequent growth. Prior to becoming president, Roosevelt had a distinguished career in law enforcement, government and the military. He led the Rough Riders of the First Volunteer Cavalry up San Juan Hill.
Saturday, February 25: Recovering Stolen Art
Notorious art heists from museums, private collections and art galleries often make the headlines, but it is the investigative work behind those headlines that leads to the successful return of the pieces to their rightful owners.
Robert Wittman, who has been called “The FBI’s Indiana Jones,” founded the FBI’s national art-crime team and served for 20 years as the agency’s investigative expert in the field. He helped recover the golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior, the Rodin sculpture that inspired the impressionist movement, the war bonnet that Geronimo wore at his final pow-wow, an original copy of the Bill of Rights and the Civil War flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments. He also assisted international police and museums in recovering stolen items and is responsible for recovering more than $300 million in stolen art and cultural property around the world.
Whitman will tell the true stories of incredibly daring undercover recoveries and the details of how he cracked art-crime cases.
Author of the New York Times best-seller, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, he also wrote The Devil’s Diary which recounts his dramatic discovery of the long-lost, private diary of Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler’s “chief philosopher” and architect of Nazi ideology.
LLL February Monday Lectures
LifeLong Learning’s Monday Morning Lectures, which begin at 10:00 a.m. in the Renaissance Theater, bring experts in widely diverse fields to PebbleCreek this February. Tickets are $4 per person in the lobby prior to the lecture.
Eduardo Pagan
February 6: Separating Myth from Fact in Arizona History
True or false: the Pleasant Valley War was a crisis in the Arizona Territory that was wrapped in legend about a bloody feud between two families living in Tonto National Forest. It was so violent that as many as 50 men died and it cost the territory its statehood for almost 30 years.
Eduardo Pagán, Ph.D., returns to PebbleCreek to share his research on what really happened in the Pleasant Valley War, the subject of his forthcoming book. Always popular with PebbleCreek audiences, Pagán will describe how this war pitted American Indians and their mixed-family allies against white cowboys and how the war led to myths about Indian violence.
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser
February 13: Separation of Mosque and State
Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim who founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, frequently briefs Congress on the threat of political Islam. We are fortunate that this internationally recognized expert will be here to talk about why Muslims can best follow their religion in an environment that protects the rights of individuals to practice their faiths as they choose.
Jasser advocates for separation of mosque and state, saying the purest practice of Islam is one in which Muslims have complete freedom to accept or reject any of the tenants or laws of the faith, as opposed to the theocratic Islamic regimes that use Islam as a way to control Muslim populations, not to glorify God as they portend.
Sharman Hickman
February 20: Hickman’s Family Farms
Shoppers are familiar with the Hickman’s Family Farms cartons in the egg section of the grocery, but do they know what it takes to bring those eggs to market?
Sharman Hickman is among the third generation of Hickmans who are responsible for the farms that produce 750,000 eggs an hour. She will talk about the changing field of egg production.
Ted Blank
February 27: The Mars Curiosity Rover
What do you know about Mars?
Four years ago the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars and it has been exploring the Red Planet ever since, sending back photos and data and helping NASA scientists understand the planet’s climate and geology and prepare for eventual human exploration of the planet.
Ted Blank, co-founder of the Fountain Hills Astronomy Club, is a passionate sidewalk astronomer whose lifelong interest in space exploration led him to become a solar system ambassador for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
He will share some of the latest information and photos coming from the Curiosity Rover and explain how a team of thousands of dedicated scientists and engineers from the United States and Europe built and tested the rover.
A very busy February
February is one of LifeLong Learning’s busiest months. Please note that if you have registered but cannot make the event, please let us know so someone else can take your place. Email [email protected] or stop by the LLL Center any Tuesday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Details about these events can be found at www.lifelonglearningatpc.org.
Classes (Pre-registration required)
February 1: Ballet Behind the Scenes
February 7: Arizona History I
February 7: Ancient Cultures, Ancient Skies
February 8: Bicycling
February 9: Arizona History II
February 16: Food Art II
February 23: Birds of PebbleCreek
February 28: The Civil War
Monday Morning Lectures: 10:00 a.m.; $4 per person
February 6: History Detective
February 13: Separation of Mosque and State
February 20: Hickman’s Family Farms
February 27: Mars Curiosity Rover
Premier Lectures: 7:00 p.m.; $15 per person
February 10: Teddy and the National Parks
February 28: Recovering Stolen Art
Trips (Pre-registration required)
February 4: Opera: Madame Butterfly
February 10: Amazon and the Water Reclamation Center
February 11: Ballet: Romeo and Juliet
February 15: Federal Reserve Bank
February 22: Sedona Film Festival
Special Events
February 2: TED Talk
February12: Sunday Series II
February 9: Cinema Society
One of the Dwarf Cars created by Ernie Adams
Boyce Thompson Arboretum
Seats available for four LLL trips
When the LifeLong Learning trip team plans its activities, it searches for the unusual as well as the tried and true. Seats remain on several trips, including those to places never visited before by LifeLong Learning.
To sign up for any of the trips listed below, visit www.lifelonglearningatpc.org or come to the LLL Center in the Eagle’s Nest Activities Center any Tuesday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. and noon.
Saturday, February 11: Ballet — Romeo and Juliet, $145
Watch the most famous love story of all time unfold through the talented dancers of Ballet Arizona, an innovative and provocative professional ballet company that creates, performs and teaches classical and contemporary works.
The ballet begins at 2:00 p.m. in Symphony Hall. After the performance you will walk two blocks to the historic Hilton Garden Inn, built in 1932, featuring an original art-deco design and a restored grand lobby. After a tour of the hotel, you’ll enjoy an Italian dinner at Nook.
Wednesday, March 15: Dwarf Car Museum and Shamrock Farms, $70
Car collectors flock to Scottsdale for the Barrett-Jackson Auction, yet many are unaware of the very different collection found in Maricopa at the Dwarf Car Museum.
The cars are the creation of Ernie Adams, who built his first dwarf car in 1965. The collection at the museum includes street-legal cruisers, replicas of classic cars and racing cars — all in proper proportions — just smaller!
Following the visit to the museum, LLL will bring you to Shamrock Farms for a tour of one of the largest family-owned and operated dairies in the United States. Founded in 1922, the farms produce a full line of dairy products from their herd of more than 10,000 cows.
Friday, March 3: Agritopia, $55
Right in the middle of Gilbert is an example of one of the hottest trends in real estate: Agritopia, an “agrihood.”
It’s a new way of integrating agriculture into a community that is designed to break traditional barriers between people — block walls, wide streets, lack of front porches — and instead favors walking over driving and encourages community.
Built around a farm, the neighborhood has 450 residential lots as well as agricultural and commercial tracts. Lunch will be at Joe’s Farm Grill, which serves food grown in the community.
Tuesday, March 28: Boyce Thompson Arboretum, $55
If you’ve never seen the desert in full springtime bloom, you’ll want to join the trip to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, 80 miles east of Goodyear.
With the guidance of a park docent, you’ll see some of the arboretum’s treasures, plants from the world’s deserts, towering trees, captivating cacti, sheer mountain cliffs, a stream-side forest, panoramic vistas, a desert lake, a hidden canyon, specialty gardens and more. Because of the arboretum’s diverse habitats, 270 species of birds have been recorded here, including many rare and unusual migrants.
All fees, including lunch at Gold Canyon Resort, are included.