AUUF Podcasts

Lisa Murkowski is Alaska’s senior U.S. Senator, a third-generation Alaskan, and the first Alaskan born senator. She is Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and also serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where she is the Chairman of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee. Senator Murkowski is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and also is a senior member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Lisa was born in Ketchikan and raised in towns across the state, graduating from Monroe High School in Fairbanks in 1975. She earned an Economics Degree from Georgetown University in 1980, and her law degree from Willamette College of Law in 1985. She practiced law in Anchorage and served in the Alaska State Legislature from 1999 until 2002 when she was appointed to the United States Senate. She has been elected to three more terms since, including her historic 2010 write-in campaign re-election.  She and her husband Verne Martell have two sons, Nick and Matt.

Questions posed in the chatbox were sent to Senator Murkowski and her answers will be linked here. Stay tuned.

Tim Troll has served for the past nine years as Executive Director of the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, an organization he helped start in Dillingham in 2000. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the land trust owns or holds conservation easements on 14,715 acres in Bristol Bay, and has facilitated the protection of another 21,320 acres. Tim came to Alaska in 1978 as a VISTA volunteer for Alaska Legal Services in Bethel. Since then, he has served Alaska in many capacities, including as city manager in St. Mary's, a practicing lawyer in Anchorage, CEO of Choggiung, Ltd., the Native village corporation in Dillingham, and a program director with The Nature Conservancy. Tim is currently on the board of the Alaska Historical Society. The Alaska Federation of Natives honored Tim with its Denali Award in 2019. ​Norman Van Vactor is the current CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC). Born and raised in the Southern Philippines to missionary parents, he flew to the US and Bristol Bay the day after high school graduation looking for a summer job to pay for college, and his heart has never been far from Bristol Bay since. He went from deckhand to tender captain and earned a Bachelor's degree from St. Olaf College a few years later. He spent the bulk of his professional career in senior management capacities in the Alaska seafood industry, splitting his time between Seattle and Bristol Bay. In 2013, Norm and his wife Lynn moved to Dillingham when he accepted the offer to become the CEO/President of BBEDC, which is one of six CDQ corporations in the State of Alaska and one of the largest Alaskan-owned corporations involved in the Alaska fishing industry. Norman is passionate about the Land, the People, and the region's Resources.

Tim showed a movie from12:30 to 20:25 of the service that is available here - 

http://www.akwebguy.com/photos/AUUF_photos/BristolBayRemembers_TheGreatFlu_of_1919.mp4

Norm showed some drone video footage of Dillingham starting at about 22:35. You can find it here -

http://www.akwebguy.com/photos/AUUF_photos/2020BristolBay&Covid-19.mp4

Toward the end of their talk, and before questions, Tim showed some slides of the USCGC Unalga, it's crew, and it's work in Unalaska during the 1919 pandemic. Tim had been working with the Coast Guard historian and the Coast Guard developed a website on the subject, available here - 

https://www.uscg.mil/Coronavirus/Information/Article/2178965/how-80-coasties-saved-an-alaskan-town-during-the-spanish-influenza-pandemic/

Aaron Leggett was born in Anchorage and is Dena’ina Athabascan. He currently serves as the President/Chief of the Native village of Eklutna. Aaron is Curator of Alaska History and Culture at the Anchorage Museum, and also serves as an advisor to the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center. He is a member of the Alaska State Museum Collections Committee, the Anchorage Sister Cities Commission, and serves on the board of directors for the Cook Inlet Historical Society, and the Alaska Historical Society. In 2014, Aaron was recognized by CIRI as its Shareholder of the Year, by the Alaska Federation of Natives as Cultural Bearer of Year, and by the Governor of Alaska for distinguished service to the humanities. Building on knowledge obtained from his Dena‘ina grandmother and after earning a degree in anthropology from UAA, Aaron set out to change the historical narrative. He has played a vital role in indigenous curation in Alaska and has authored numerous scholarly articles and co-authored publications about the Dena’ina language and people.

Aaron used a slide show, available here as a webpage - http://www.akwebguy.com/photos/AUUF_photos/CookUnitarianUniversalistPresentation_AaronLeggett/#5

Note that slides 21 and 22 seem to indicate that there are audio files. There are not.

Dr. Steve Haycox has taught history at UAA for half a century. He continues to teach, research, and write, though not as many hours of the day as a quarter-century ago.

There were slides that Dr. Haycox used and they can be found here -

http://www.akwebguy.com/photos/AUUF_photos/Steve%20Haycox-Forum-Statues/index.html#0

There were also several interesting links that came up in chat -

an opinion piece on Woodrow Wilson and racism -

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/opinion/woodrow-wilson-princeton.html

two articles on the Eklutna people and the Captain Cook statue -

https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Native-Village-of-Eklutna-will-decide-what-happens-with-Captain-Cook-statue-571514411.html

and

https://www.adn.com/opinions/2020/06/30/public-process-needed-on-cook-statue/

Steve Haycox opinion piece - Alaska's isolation, economic dependence fosters unhealthy fear -

https://www.adn.com/commentary/article/alaskas-dependence-fosters-unhealthy-fear/2014/10/17/

Captain Cook's "Voyages of Discovery " -

https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/stories/captain-cooks-voyages-discovery

and

https://theconversation.com/they-are-all-dead-for-indigenous-people-cooks-voyage-of-discovery-was-a-ghostly-visitation-126430

and

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-russia-gave-alaska-americas-gateway-arctic-180962714/

ask vs aks -

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-have-been-saying-ax-instead-ask-1200-years-180949663/

“The Doctrine of Discovery” - a documentary available here -

]http://www.38plus2productions.com

All of these "came up" while Dr. Haycox spoke

Karla Jutzi is Donor Relations and Capital Campaign Manager at Food Bank of Alaska, having joined that organization seven years ago as Director of Development & Communications. Before working to feed Alaskans who can’t count on their next meal, she was executive director at the Alaska Center for the Blind & Visually Impaired for nine years. Karla came to Alaska in 1992 as Assistant Executive Director at NEA-Alaska, the culmination of her 20-year career with several state affiliates of the National Education Association. She started her professional life teaching English to 8th graders. Karla has been happily married to husband Bob Morgan for 16 years and enjoys walking and running around Westchester Lagoon.

[email protected]phone: 907-244-3308www.foodbankofalaska.org

Feeding America website - map.feedingamerica.org/

Food Keeper (USDA): www.foodsafety.gov/keep-food-safe/foodkeeper-app

If you are in need of help with food, rent, or any community services, you can call 211.

David Postman has been the Chief of Staff to Washington Governor Jay Inslee since 2015, after serving as Inslee’s executive director of communications since the start of the governor’s first term in 2013. Before joining the Inslee administration, Postman served as a senior director at Vulcan, Inc., the company headed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.  David had a 26-year career as an award-winning journalist in Oregon, Alaska, and Washington.  He was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News from 1984 through 1992, after a short stint at the Anchorage Times and 18 months with the Alaska Public Radio Network.  He was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan and spent 14 years working as a political reporter for The Seattle Times.  He and his wife, Bev, have two sons.

Neal Fried is an economist with the State’s Department of Labor, Research & Analysis Section. He produces economic data and analysis on issues facing Alaska and is the primary author of articles in the Department’s monthly magazine, Alaska Economic Trends, on economic forecasts, cost of living, beer and coffee, construction, income, and wage trends, the military, health care, transportation, oil industry, labor needs, rural economic trends, the 1989 oil spill, Mat-Su Valley's economy, and numerous other topics. He served on the Governor’s Oil and Gas Policy Task Force, Anchorage Economic Development Committee, the Alaska Public Media Board, the King Career Center’s Business Industries Advisory Committee, the Pacific Northwest Economic Conference board, and currently serves on the UAA College of Business and Public Policy Advisory Board. Neal earned his economics degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1978. Last year he was recognized as UAF’s Alumnus of the Year, and he has received the Governor’s Denali Peak Performance Award. Neal was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Vienna, Austria. He and his wife Mary have two children.

Neal used slides during his talk which you can access here -

Neal's slides

The slides will open in a web browser and you should be able to advance the slides by using the arrow keys on your keyboard or by clicking on the slide with your cursor. You MAY be able to follow along as Neal speaks ...

Also, John McKay read an essay by Bill Moyers in honor of Flag Day. You can find it here -

Flag Day

In Rev, Shelley Page's Valedictory as she ended her time with us as Interim Minister and because her last day (for a while) also fell on our celebration of Flower Communion, she decided to intrigue us with details of Norbert Čapek. Shelley left us with this list of source material.

For Faith and Freedom: A short history of Unitarianism - by Charles Howe

(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/353671.For_Faith_and_Freedom) 

In the AUUF Library:

The Epic of Unitarianism: Original Writings from the History of Liberal Religion - by David B. Parke

(https://www.uuabookstore.org/The-Epic-of-Unitarianism-P16858.aspx)

Racovia: An Early Liberal Religious Community - by Philip Hewett

(https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2161753.Racovia)

A History of Unitarianism: Socinianism and its Antecedents - by Earl Morse Wilbur

(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5223661-a-history-of-unitarianism)

Norbert Fabian Capek A Spiritual Journey by Richard Henry

(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1676564.Norbert_Fabian_Capek)

David Hulen is editor of the Anchorage Daily News and adn.com. He’s been a reporter and editor at the ADN for more than 30 years. As a reporter, he covered rural Alaska, traveling extensively across the state. He was one of the first reporters on the scene for the Exxon Valdez oil spill, was one of the writers of the “People in Peril” series and reported from many rural communities. He was a longtime local news editor at the ADN and helped lead digital transformation efforts there. He became managing editor after the purchase of the ADN by Alaska Dispatch in 2014, was named editor in 2015 and remained in that job after the ownership changed in 2017. He’s married to an Anchorage public school teacher.

Anchorage Daily News - COVID-19 Local News Fund

Give to support Anchorage Daily News as it covers the coronavirus crisis in our communities. -

https://givebutter.com/anchoragedailynews_COVID-19_fund

THE LOSS OF LOCAL NEWS: WHAT IT MEANS FOR COMMUNITIES

(Article referred to during David's talk)

https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/loss-of-local-news/

Teresa Gray is Executive Director of the Anchorage-based nonprofit, Mobile Medics International. She moved to Alaska in 1999 and owned and operated Alaska’s only paramedic schools (in Wasilla, Anchorage, and Fairbanks) for five years before selling them to the university. Teresa worked as a flight medic and paramedic supervisor until retiring in 2010 and then did some consulting for ambulance services around the state. In 2015 she did her first humanitarian aid mission to Lesvos, Greece, for the Syrian refugee crisis, with an organization out of Ireland. In 2016, Teresa started her own non-profit, non-governmental organization that sends volunteer medical personnel to humanitarian crises and natural disasters around the world. Mobile Medics International has over 150 international and US volunteers ranging from MDs to EMTs, with an interpreter, and dental and veterinarian divisions. 

You can visit Mobile Medic's website at 

www.mobilemedicsinternational.orgs

You can find Teresa's slides HERE. They are available as a movie that you can control as a slide show using your computer's space-bar to sop and start. If you follow Teresa's talk closely (starts at 4:25) it is possible to sync the slides with her talk.

Note that there are two "bleeps" during the forum recording inserted for security purposes.