AUUF Podcasts

Rich Curtner is the Federal Defender for the District of Alaska. His office is responsible for providing indigent defense services in federal court for all of Alaska. He supervises a staff of 18, including six attorneys. Curtner has been a public defender for 40 years. He started in the Franklin County Public Defender Office in Columbus, Ohio, while in law school. After ten years, he was an office supervisor and felony trial attorney, handling a number of death penalty cases through trial and appeals. In 1985, he joined the faculty at Ohio State College of Law as supervising attorney in the law school clinical programs. Curtner moved to Alaska in 1987. After spending five years at the state Public Defender Agency in Palmer, he joined the Federal Defender Office in 1992. After short stints in practice and as Training Director at the State Public Defender Office, in 1996 Curtner was appointed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as the Federal Defender for Alaska. He has served for many years as a member of the Board of Directors of Alaskans Against the Death Penalty, and is a strong supporter of the Alaska Innocence Project. A long time handball enthusiast, he is Chairman of the Alaska Chapter of the United States Handball Association. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Gary has been The Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship's called minister since 2012.

Mike Dunham has lived in Alaska since 1955. He moved in 1967 from western Alaska to Anchorage, where he continues to reside. For the last five decades, Mike covered the Anchorage creative arts scene as a journalist for a number of broadcast and print media, including the Anchorage Times, Anchorage Daily News, KTVA and Alaska Dispatch News. He received several national and regional awards in broadcasting and print journalism before retiring this year. He has written two books connected to the 150th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska, The Man Who Bought Alaska: a short biography of William H. Seward and The Man Who Sold Alaska: a short biography of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, both released in February 2017.

Gary Holthaus has served as the called minister for our Fellowship since 2012. 

Ann McKay Bryson began her career as an educator in the Anchorage School District in 1979. After decades as a classroom teacher, she moved to the district office and began providing professional development skills to ASD teachers and principals with a primary focus on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). For the past five years, Ann has served as a professional learning consultant for CASEL (the nationwide Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning) for school districts in Oakland, Reno and Anchorage. She has three daughters (together with husband and AUUF volunteer George Bryson) and for a brief period in the 1990s had the privilege of serving as AUUF’s Religious Education Director.

Jessica Cler grew up in Wasilla and has spent nearly her entire life here in Alaska. She graduated with BA in Political Science from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2006. She spent 7 years working in the conservation community before joining the team at Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest & Hawaii in 2013 as the Alaska Public Affairs Manager. When she is not busy fighting for reproductive health, rights, and justice with her team at Planned Parenthood and their amazing volunteers and activists, she can be found spending time with her family, exploring Alaska’s outdoors, traveling, or escaping with a good book. Kristin Bogue, M.S.ED. is the Alaska Education Manager for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands. Kristin has over 10 years’ experience in Community Health Education, Higher Education Administration, Program Management, and Career Counselling. In addition, she has had the pleasure serving as an academic coach through the Foster Care-2-Success mentorship program and as an adjunct faculty member with the University of Alaska Anchorage. Outside of work, Kristin enjoys hiking in the snow with her partner and 9 month old Australian Shepard, Loki.

Jessica Cler grew up in Wasilla and has spent nearly her entire life here in Alaska. She graduated with BA in Political Science from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2006. She spent 7 years working in the conservation community before joining the team at Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest & Hawaii in 2013 as the Alaska Public Affairs Manager. When she is not busy fighting for reproductive health, rights, and justice with her team at Planned Parenthood and their amazing volunteers and activists, she can be found spending time with her family, exploring Alaska’s outdoors, traveling, or escaping with a good book. Kristin Bogue, M.S.ED. is the Alaska Education Manager for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands. Kristin has over 10 years’ experience in Community Health Education, Higher Education Administration, Program Management, and Career Counselling. In addition, she has had the pleasure serving as an academic coach through the Foster Care-2-Success mentorship program and as an adjunct faculty member with the University of Alaska Anchorage. Outside of work, Kristin enjoys hiking in the snow with her partner and 9 month old Australian Shepard, Loki.

Father Fred Bugarin is one of very few priests ever ordained in Alaska. He immigrated from the Philippines with his father in 1963 and attended Anchorage’s first Catholic junior high school before graduating from West High School in 1967. Ordained to the priesthood in 1975, he served four decades in parishes from Wasilla to Kodiak to Anchorage. Father Fred retired as pastor at St. Anthony’s in Anchorage in 2015. For the past year he’s been working in his native Philippines with an environmental project called “Eco Genesis” -- partly inspired by Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “On Care for Our Common Home.”

Note that the 11:00 AM service is a traditional service. There is music, inspirational readings, a presentation by the speaker usually followed by discussion.

Father Fred Bugarin is one of very few priests ever ordained in Alaska. He immigrated from the Philippines with his father in 1963 and attended Anchorage’s first Catholic junior high school before graduating from West High School in 1967. Ordained to the priesthood in 1975, he served four decades in parishes from Wasilla to Kodiak to Anchorage. Father Fred retired as pastor at St. Anthony’s in Anchorage in 2015. For the past year he’s been working in his native Philippines with an environmental project called “Eco Genesis” -- partly inspired by Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical, “On Care for Our Common Home.”

Note that the 9:00 am service is presented as a forum. The speaker makes her his presentation and that presentation is usually followed by lively discussion.

Erin Freel Graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 2000.