ASU topic: Rowing solo across ocean

JONESBORO — Tori Murden McClure, the first woman to row alone across the Atlantic Ocean, will talk about her voyage and other ventures during a lecture Tuesday at Arkansas State University.

McClure, who rowed a 23-foot boat 3,300 miles from the Canary Islands to Guadeloupe in 2009, is the fifth lecturer in ASU’s Honors Lecture of the Year series.

She will speak at 7 p.m. in the Carl R. Reng Student Union auditorium. Admission is free.

“The Honors Lecture of the Year aims to stimulate campus discussion through academic discourse about an issue that affects higher education,” said Rebecca Oliver, director of the ASU Honors College.

McClure, president of Spalding University in Louisville, Ky., will sign copies of her book, A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean, after her lecture.

In addition to her Atlantic voyage, McClure was one of the first women to travel over land to the geographic South Pole, skiing 750 miles on an ice shelf to the pole. She was also the first woman to climb Lewis Nanatuck summit in Antarctica.

She has served as a chaplain at Boston City Hospital, was an executive director of a shelter for homeless women, worked as a public policy analyst for the mayor of Louisville and worked with boxer Muhammad Ali.