Mayoral Candidate Profile: Pamela Hoke
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Friday Harbor Mayoral Candidate Pamela Hoke is ready to show the community that she’s more than an artist, teacher, brand consultant, and nonprofit volunteer — although she has been those throughout her 12 years on San Juan Island. She’s also a highly educated and qualified free-thinker with a specific vision for the mayorship: creative leadership and collaborative governance.
Finding her way
Raised in a little town on Lake Erie in Ohio, followed by spending most of her adult life working near the coast of Florida, Hoke has a type when it comes to where she lives.
“I have a thing for small waterfront towns!” Hoke laughed. “I know small, touristy fishing towns very well.”
She was raised in a mixed-politics family in Ohio, where she later studied business and fine arts for her bachelor’s degree before moving to Florida to teach high school art. During that time, she began her work with local governments and nonprofits by starting her own business, Natural Brand Studios, as a brand and creative communications consultant.
“Pam worked on multiple community projects and major donor sponsorships from my company Toyota of Stuart for the organizations she was involved with, like The Soroptimist Christmas Parade, Alzheimer’s Community Care, Helping People Succeed, High School Sports’ support, Stuart Fireworks, Seafood Festival, Bikes for Children at Christmas, Local Veteran groups, and many more,” said John Pierson, current philanthropist, investor, and former owner of Toyota of Stuart, Florida. “Her kind, thoughtful personality and eagerness to help folks is right out front, but she also has a very sharp business and overall awareness mindset.”
Eventually, Hoke’s fascination with nature and work with local ecopsychologist Dr. Michael Cohen brought her to Lakedale for a camping trip, where she fell in love with San Juan Island.
“This island just hit like a thud in my whole body. It made a ‘home’ in my heart,” she shared about her first visit. “I remember sitting at the ferry landing and looking over and seeing a For Rent sign. And I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, my life is about to change.’”
Twelve years later, Hoke is running for mayor.
Called to public service
Moving to Friday Harbor brought the nature connection and peace she was looking for, but it also brought the most challenging decade of Hoke’s life. A breast cancer diagnosis forced her to downshift the pace she was used to keeping, followed closely by the earthshattering heartbreak of helplessly witnessing her spouse, Tim, ultimately lose his battle with alcoholism.
“This community helped me through that, and it was amazing,” she said, describing the town as a warm hug. “That’s why I’m here. I’m signing up to give back.”
She describes that period of her life as a slower time, perhaps comparatively to her time in Florida working with the county commissioner, organizing the seafood festival, volunteering as a program lead with MartinArts (the local art commission), and serving on the board of directors for the local Soroptomists nonprofit, all while holding down her own business after six years of teaching at the high school.
In Friday Harbor, after losing Tim, she focused on painting as she gave her body and heart time to heal. Always the overachiever, she also spent that time teaching as a substitute, volunteering with local nonprofits such as Wolf Hollow Rehabilitation Center, the San Juan Islands Museum of Art, and the Friends of Lime Kiln Society, and offering brand consulting services to organizations like the San Juan Community Theatre.
“Pam has worked zealously behind the scenes to strengthen the support for and presence of the arts in Friday Harbor,” said Diane Martindale of the San Juan County Arts Commission and the SJIMA. “She understands the economic impact the arts have in our community.”
All the while, she paid attention to what was happening in the town and the local issues.
“When I got here, I was hearing all the same arguments and a lot of similar stuff that was going on in my other small towns,” she said. “I saw the same old things happening again, and wanted to be a part of the solution.”
She felt the call to public service and graduated with her master’s in public administration from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2024.
Building bridges
Hoke sees that it’s a time of divide and turmoil, not only nationally, but on Friday Harbor’s smaller local stage. When asked about her involvement with Indivisible and the Democratic Party (she worked on the Harris/Walz campaign in Michigan last summer), she acknowledged that she’s openly trying to help the Democratic Party.
However, she also went on to call herself a “purple pedestrian.” Purple for the mix of blue and red politics, and pedestrian to remind herself that we are all humans walking on the same planet.
“This is a non-partisan race,” she said as a reminder. “I’m a very blue-ish purple, mainly because of the environment and art. However, I can absolutely see the views and perspectives of many people who feel unheard and misunderstood. I have family members who voted for Trump, I worked on the Harris campaign – I am not afraid of having those conversations.”
Hoke believes that mutual respect is the answer — and to stop the shaming.
“I feel like I’ve been called to that progressive movement to show folks there that we need to stop the shaming,” she said. “I’m a bridge person. I’m very skilled at building bridges between divides. Between people fighting in board meetings, people not getting along — that’s my superpower.”
Hoke explained that now is a time for the community to come together with a resilient strategy, regardless of identity politics. She advocates for a human-first approach rather than a party-first strategy.
“The role of mayor is to bring the community together during times of stress,” Hoke explained. “It shouldn’t be on the backs of staff or solely on the Sheriff’s Office. We need a mayor who can do that in the coming years.”
Local attorney and activist Susan West has seen the impact of Hoke’s work in Friday Harbor firsthand.
“Pam connects people from different circles – the arts, business ownership, politics, the legal world – to bring together resources to make things happen,” West said in an endorsement letter. “She has lived on the island long enough to have many good connections, but not so long that she is unwilling to embrace change. And she sees beauty everywhere.”
Her platform
Hoke has what she calls “The Big 8” issues on her campaign website, which can be found at pamelahoke.org. Especially notable in the list is her promise to bridge divides on issues around affordable housing, expand access to essential health care and clarify/simplify the tech used to keep the community apprised of what’s going on.
One throughline of her goals is to create collaboration between various groups. She discusses bringing government, small businesses and farmers together in partnership to build the economy. In another section, she shares ideas for nonprofit collaboration to avoid redundancies and infighting over resources.
“Our community needs to make things more reciprocal both in the on and off-season,” Hoke said. “The solution is collaborative governance. We need to create alliances to make a resilient strategy. A leader should be able to come in and say, ‘Let’s work this out and make it work for everybody.’”
Each week of July, the Journal will profile a different mayoral candidate. Information regarding the election can be found at sanjuancountywa.gov.
