Over the coming months, community leaders from across the Mid-Shore will gather in various festive ways to celebrate the extraordinary contributions of YMCA of the Chesapeake CEO Robbie Gill.

When Robbie arrived in Talbot County in 2005, the YMCA at the Easton Peachbossom site was already a success story. Through the generosity of the W. Alton Jones Foundation and the dedication of visionary board members, the Y’s presence has since then significantly improved the lives of countless families in and around Talbot County. However, that transformative impact was primarily limited to the county, leaving many nearby counties – particularly further north – without access to similar opportunities.

While others had recognized this gap in mission delivery, it was Robbie’s leadership skills and strategic vision that made these much-needed changes. His ability to unite teams and mobilize resources has brought the YMCA to life in Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties. Today, with two new campuses in Chestertown and Centreville, representing nearly $50 million in funding, the Y has expanded its reach and delivered life-changing programs and services to even more communities.

The Spy recently invited Robbie to our studio to reflect on these remarkable achievements and to share his thoughts on the future. During our conversation, we asked him to explore the question that never seems fully answered: “What’s next for YMCA?”

This video is approximately eight minutes in length. For more information about the YMCA of the Chesapeake please go here.

The Spy continues our ongoing series of long-form exit interviews with some of the Mid-Shore’s most important leaders and stakeholders, with a look back with Steve Rideout, the recently departed mayor and former Virginia judge.

It’s pretty rare that members of the bench transition into locally elected officials as a second career. With a healthy government pension, judges tend to focus their retirement years on improving one’s golf game rather than being a mayor of a challenged community like Cambridge. But that is precisely what Steve Rideout eventually did for the last two years.

For those who know Steve Rideout, this comes as no surprise. Intellectually well-wired for complex institutional issues and a long-standing sympathy for the disadvantaged, he has made the well-being of Cambridge his top concern for the last 15 years. From winning a seat as a city council member to serving on nonprofit boards, he has been extremely generous with his lifelong skills to make the city a better place to live.

For the record, Mayor Rideout was very clear that he would only serve one term as mayor during his campaign, and he has kept that commitment. After two years, Steve did not seek re-election, and instead, he and his wife will be moving to a retirement community in Western Maryland to be closer to their adult children.

We caught up with him via Zoom for some reflection on those years of service.

This video is approximately 24 minutes in length. 

It is no secret that the Eastern Shore, like all of Maryland and the rest of the United States, faces an acute shortage of healthcare professionals, and demand from an increasingly aging population of residents is only growing. The question is what to do about it.

One way to help solve the program is to make a very special appeal to young adults, like teenagers, eager to find a way forward for their future, who might find free tuition and the ability to remain in the communities they love an attractive opportunity.

A community event hosted by Londonderry on the Tred Avon on January 7, 2024, aims to address the Eastern Shore’s healthcare workforce shortage by introducing students and families to educational and career pathways at the University of Maryland at Baltimore Health Care Schools.

This video is approximately eight minutes in length. For more information about this event, please contact Erica Hardeo, Director of Community Engagement at Londonderry on the Tred Avon 410-820-8732, ext. 204

It’s not every day that a highly respected art museum decides to make a car show its flagship exhibit for the year. But it is also safe to say that a show featuring the work of Carlo Bugatti and his family is no ordinary car show.

It might be a bit misleading to call the Academy Art Museum’s upcoming exhibition, “Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection,” a car show at all. While the exhibit will indeed feature four beautiful Bugatti cars, the world of Bugatti on display will be a story of multigenerational art, design, and cultural modernity.

While some might cite the famous guests who stayed at a legendary hotel as a measure of its historic stature, the first criterion really should be the countless memories created over a long period of time.

That would be the case of the Tidewater Inn in Easton. It does indeed have an impressive list of famous visitors since it opened its doors in 1947, but those living on the Mid-Shore will more than likely remember memorable anniversaries, weddings, first dates, or the chef preparing one’s goose shot earlier that morning.

It seems that thousands from Chestertown to Cambridge have made a special trip for a special occasion at the Gold Room, Hunter’s Tavern, or walking down the grand staircase in the lobby,

That was one of the many takeaways from the Spy’s interview with two long-tenured Tidewater employees, Lauren Catterton, director of marketing, and Don Reedy, the hotel’s director of operations, last week. Lauren and Don talk about those special moments, the hotel’s remarkable arc over 75 years, and what the future holds.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about the Tidewater Inn please go here.  With special thanks to the Talbot Historical Society for their help with images. 

Raising $500 million for a new hospital would make any large urban institution think twice before launching a fundraising campaign so one can only imagine the long debates that UM Shore Regional Health’s CEO and his trustees and staff had as they stared at the most expensive capital project the region has even seen.

Building a new modern health center in 2024 dollars is an extraordinary effort, not only in assembling of funding and the state and federal level, but asking dozens of Mid-Shore residents for multi-million dollar commitments to cover the balance needed of approximately $50 million.

But that is exactly what UM Shore Regional Health is in the process of doing. And with the same careful design planning that was so critical in winning over Annapolis decisionmakers earlier this year in approving the project.

This is the second of a two-part series on the new hospital.  Last month, Ken discussed how he and his team finally won state approval after 15 years of advocacy. It can be viewed here.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For information about UM Regional Shore Health, please go here.