The Trudy Sundberg Lecture Series, three years in the making, will bring its first speaker to Whidbey Island stages on May 6–7.

Two talks by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Hedrick Smith will inaugurate the annual series, which honors the memory of a longtime and beloved Whidbey Island teacher.

“We’re so grateful for the tremendous support we’ve received from Trudy’s family, friends, the communities and Sno-Isle Libraries Foundation to launch this series in her name,” said Dr. Marshall Goldberg, a retired physician who chairs the Lecture Series Planning Committee.

Smith will speak about his most recent book, “Who Stole the American Dream?,” an analysis of the growing gap in income and wealth in the United States.

Smith will speak at 7 p.m. Friday, May 6 in Zech Hall at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley, and at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 7 in the Coupeville High School Performing Arts Center.

A question and answer session will follow both events. The Langley event will also include an informal reception, which begins at 6 p.m.

As a New York Times reporter, Smith was a member of the news team that broke the Pentagon Papers story in 1971, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. In 1974, he won another Pulitzer for his reporting on the Soviet Union and its allies. Smith also won an Emmy Award for his documentaries on the PBS series “Frontline.”

Sundberg, who died in 2013, touched many lives with her passion for education, the arts and civic engagement. She was known as an activist and innovator whose causes included the Whidbey Island Democratic Club, League of Women Voters and Whidbey Camano Land Trust. She was also founder of the Save Our Kids Crusade anti-violence coalition and numerous book clubs.

Family members, friends and the Sno-Isle Libraries Foundation began in 2013 to establish the Trudy Sundberg Memorial Fund. The fund is in place to underwrite a lecture series that will explore Sundberg’s areas of interest, including education, literature, history, the arts, civic engagement and politics.

“The effort has just been amazing, a real tribute to Trudy’s impact on the community,” said Sno-Isle Libraries Foundation Executive Director Paul Pitkin.

The lecture series will be part of an annual programming initiative for adults on Whidbey Island, promoting reading and lifelong learning and covering issues of local, national or global interest. The fund may also be used to enhance library resources and access to information for residents of the Sno-Isle Libraries district.