We all know about how Michael Phelps and the Mike Rowe are Marylanders, but there's a lot more to our state than just them! They may not be as flashy or glamorous as Olympians or TV stars, but they're still super cool (and why wouldn't they be? They're from Maryland!)

Ann Brashares

Did you love The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series back in high school? Of course you did, because what could be cooler than a story about friendship and magic pants? Nothing. Nothing is cooler than that. She grew up in Chevy Chase, though she now lives in New York. Boo! Come back to the Old Line state, and bring your pants with you.

                                                                              via Random House

Matthew Henson

Henson was the first African-American to explore the Arctic. He hung out with well-known explorers like Robert Peary, and was remembered as being butt-kickingly awesome at navigation, sled-dog driving, and learning the Inuit language. Though it's disputed as to whether Henson's team or another was the first American team to reach the North Pole, he was definitely one of the first to set foot there. Here he is looking fierce in a fur coat:

                                                                                     via Wikipedia

Spike Jonze

If you saw and loved Her, you can thank Rockville, MD. The director is a native of Maryland, and has been nominated for four Academy awards (winning the Best Original Screenplay in the 2014 Oscars, thank you very much!) He also directed Being John Malkovitch and Where the Wild Things Are, and about a zillion music videos as well. Jonze is also a big skateboard guy, and co-owns Girl Skateboards. 

                                                                      via Vulture.com

Hilary Rhoda

This beauty is from Chevy Chase, and now she's gracing magazine covers all over the world! Rhoda has scored ads for Ralph Lauren, Givenchy, and Gap--just to name a few. She even got to model the famed Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian. And she's doing crazy well for herself. In 2013, she was named the sixth highest paid model by Forbes magazine. You go, girl! 

                                                                   via Hilary Rhoda's Twitter

Nora Roberts

Silver Spring native Nora Roberts has written at least fourteen trillion New York Times best-sellers (okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but according to her Wiki, every book she's written since 1999 has been a best-seller, and she's written more than 200 books in her career!) She's the name that absolutely everyone knows when it comes to romance novels, and she gives back after so much success, creating the Nora Roberts Foundation to help support literacy and the arts. She and her husband own a hotel together in Boonsboro, which is just as romantic as her stories, don't you think?

                                                                via Wikipedia

Charles Bonaparte

Oh man, what didn't this Baltimorean do? I guess we can start with the fact he created the predecessor of the FBI, was related to Napoleon Bonaparte (his grandfather was the dictator's youngest brother) and spoke at the first graduation of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, encouraging the young women who were graduating to aspire to the same goals as men who had gotten their degrees. Way better than Napoleon, dude.

                                                          via Wikipedia

This post was written by Route One Apparel blogger, Eva Niessner.