176 WING 5005 RASPBERRY ROAD

KULIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD ANCHORAGE, AK 99502-1998

sTUDENT LOAN REPAYMENT PROGRAM FEDERAL RETIREMENT PROGRAM

TUITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAMs PERSONAL AND rRO~IONAL RECOGNITION

WORLD CLASS TECHNICAL FREE PHYSICAL EXAMINATIONS TRAINING WITH PAY

EARN FREE COLLEGE CREDITS THROUGH THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF THE AIR FORCE

STOP BY AND VISIT US AT THE ALASKA AIR NATIONAL GUARD RECRUITING OFFICE

IN THE DIMOND CENTER MALL (2nd floor above the ice rink)

OR CALL US TODAY

1-800-642-6228

Il'l ANCHORAGE

249-1282 OR 249-1285

OR E-MAIL US AT

RECRUITERS@AKANC.ANG.AF.MIL

AlaJ:ka r:actJ: and T tivia BY SASHA PR..EWITT T~UE NO~TH STA.FF

Number of earthquakes recorded in

May 1995: 540.

The 1964 earthquake contained more than 10 million times more ener­gy than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II and 80 times the energy of the 1906 San Francisco quake.

Alaska's Mt. McKinley is the highest peak in North America reaching 20,320 feet above sea level.

Alaska's Chilkat River con­tains the world's largest con­centration of bald eagles. Nearly 4,000 congregate there in the fall and winter.

Percent of individuals to successfully climb Mt. McKinley in 1995: 42.

Alaska has 586,412 square miles in area with 40,544 miles of shore­line.

Alaska contains 3 million lakes and more than 3,000 rivers.

The number of Rhode Islands it would take to make up Alaska: 470.

Alaska's capital city, Juneau, is the only capital in the U.s. that cannot be reached by road. The only way in or out is by plane or boat.

Deadliest climbing season on Mt. McKinley: May 1992, 11 people died.

Eight major rescues on Mt. Mckinley were carried out in 1995, total cost:: $425,000.

Alaska contains more than 70 potentially active volcanos - the most violent eruption occurred in 1912 when Novarupta Volcano erupt­ed creating the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a part of the Katmai National Monument.

Average age and gender of the typical Alaskan: 28.9 years old and male.

Percentage of males in Alaska: 52, the highest percentage

of any state.

...

Average number of Alaskan

earthquakes measuring

over 3.5 on the Richter Scale that occur each

year: 1,000.

Alaska's 1990 ranking in per capita personal income: 8th in the nation at $23,788. Largest Pacific halibut hooked in Alaska: 395 pounds.

The State of Alaska Award for Bravery-Heroism was deSigned in 1966 by 16 year-old Kathy Shapley.

Alaska's 1996-97 national ranking in state appropriations for higher education: 42nd.

Alaska has more active glaciers and ice fields than the rest of the inhabited world - the largest, Malaspina glacier, is 850 square miles.

Largest Pacific Salmon caught in Alaska: 97 pounds, 4 ounces.

Total snowfall in Valdez in February 1996: 180 inches or 15 feet.

North America's strongest recorded earthquake - 8.4 on the Richter Scale - rocked central Alaska on March 27, 1964.

Anchorage's Lake Hood seaplane base is the largest and busiest in the world with a yearly average of 234 takeoffs and landings with an incredible 800 on a peak summer day.

The number of ground supports that is found along the

~'~ Trans-Alaskan , " .. 'l.', Pipeline:78,000.

Photo Courtesy Of USGS

Source5: The Alaska Almanac

Alaska-Insider Homepage

USGSINMD Alaska Homepage

Anchorage Visitor Association Homepage

p================================================ UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCH0 RAGE

44

.A ,_ /-) \ "!,~

TI6

Ten students go on a back country skiing adventure 6 Avalanchs and find themselves trapped in snowy graves. BY LY~ ~O!Z.DON

UAA graduates move into the marketplace as Alaska Ths l=utUtQ struggles with economic, social, technological and BY T!Z.UE NO!Z.TH CONTENT health care dilemmas.

Rising above the lure of alcohol and drugs, Ron ChinuhukTI 6 A fJativs Man charts his course at UAA

BY ANNABELLE ALVl1E

22 Augis Hisbstt The man who connected Alaskans with radio and BY EILEEN CANN1N~ CAMPBELL television hasa vision for the future.

More than 150 UAA students submitted their year's24 Jutisd ~slsction work in the arts and letters. Here's the best of the

Q & A with Lss BY T!Z.UE NO!Z.TH STAFF

40

PULITZERS PAST AND PRESENT

42

24

Dean Talafous took the job at UAA that promises him the spot- Talafou~ 42 light, for better or worse. Can he build a championship team? BY 5A5HA PR..EWl1T

He's the champion of the weird. Here's more on WhitQk9y~ 44 the man behind the Spam. BY EILEEN CAMPBELL

Listen up all Outsiders, Life in Alaska is Qpinion 4~ more than igloos and rampaging moose. BY WILLIAM K. WoLFRVM

Deep in the Copper Valley, a government research project I-lAARP could revolutionize communications in Alaska, BY KATHLEEN MVRPHY )' 0

A snowstorm that never stops and a man alone ~nowbound in an icy world, Fiction from a True North writer. BY DAMON MOR..R..15

Robert Atwood's death leaves a void in Alaska

journalism. A farewell.

,EEa~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

The side of he mountai broke ...

sending 9 t

~&.-.scading loud snow a d 10 tumbli 9

bo down the mo t,ain.

AVALANCH~ BY LYKA. ~OKDON

TP--.UE NOP--.TH ~T.A.FF

A small group of friends hud­dled for warmth inside a tent at the foot of a moun­

tain near Whitehorse, Canada. Snow blew against the tent on the cold March night, promising a morning of incredible skiing.

The evening's game of Truth or Dare ended on a question laced with an uneasy premonition.

''What would be the worst way to die?"

Someone suggested burning in a fire. Another offered being buried in an avalanche. This thought brewed an eerie silence in the cozy tent. Each pondered this idea and the day ahead.

"I hadn't thought much about avalanches before, I was so naive," Doris Hausleitner said.

It had been Doris' idea for her and 17 classmates to take a senior class trip to the Summit, their favorite back-country ski area.

The next morning they awoke to a winter paradise: two feet of fresh powder The group bypassed its usual ski area for a tempting untouched area farther around the mountain.

The skiing was incredible. "'I kept saying, "That was the run of my life,'" Doris recalled. Excitement and adrenaline left them yearning for more, dreaming of the perfect run. Their eyes turned toward the top of the mountain.

For the final run of the day they would ski the huge bowl from the top. Doris, her best friend Gina Lowen and eight others hiked to the top for what promised to be the perfect run.

"There's none of this half-way up stuff anymore, this is the top," Doris said.

She led the charge, trudging through knee-deep snow. The group hiked beyond the halfway mark and continued into untouched territory. It began to get steep. Each step was a struggle. Suddenly Doris stopped.

"I just started feeling really, really sick," she said. "Something was wrong, I turned around to face my friends and asked, 'Do you really want to go to the top? It was a hard thing to ask because I was the one who had been pushing so hard to make the summit. My ego was at stake."

Doris is a woman who gives up on nothing. She is one of the top cross­country skiers in Canada and the top female skier for the University of Alaska Anchorage. In 1997 she was the NCAA cross-country skiing champion. She is a competitive runner and successful mountain-

Photo by Doug Fesler

biker with a reputation as a dare­devil. But this was no ordinary case of wimping out. Something she didn't understand anchored her to the seemingly stable ground.

One of her friends became annoyed at her delay and pushed by, continuing up.

"[ just stood there and watched him, for no reason," she said. "I should

have been following him." The uneasiness spread through­

out the group. No one wanted to admit fear. One person began to ask, "What do you do if you're in an avalanche ?"

A few yards up the mountain, directly in front of the leader, a crack opened up. In seconds, it cut across the entire mountain. The snow below the crack crumbled as it loosened from its hold. The crack created a loud bang followed by the thunderous sound of acres of rolling snow.

"I saw the crack and I remember turning and jumping with the avalanche," Doris said. Three people were struck facing downhill and never knew what hit them. Doris remem­bers hearing nothing. "My memories of the whole thing are completely silent."

Doris and her classmates trig­gered what avalanche experts later determined to be the largest record­ed avalanche in the Yukon Territory. The side of the mountain broke into a single avalanche, cascading clouds of snow and 10 tumbling bodies down the mountain. The deep rumbling was intermixed with the terrified screams of Doris and her friends. For the victims time stood still. No one knows how long it lasted.

At first Doris didn't realize what was happening. She instinctively held her snowboard in front of her and tried to surf with it. "I remember thinking, 'Wow! This is kind of fun.'" With that thought and her final breath of precious air, she got sucked under the snow.

"I thought, this is scary. This is no joke. It isn't fun anymore."

She gripped her snowboard for dear life. In the mass of swirling, rolling snow, she wasn't thinking straight. The snowboard ~ was the only thing she

•F==========================~=========================~ UN IVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE .

1

had to hold on to. "Finally I had to let go of it because it had my arms pulled all the way back over my head and it was going to rip them off. I fought and struggled against the snow to get my hands back in front of my body.

"At some point on the way down I felt another body pass over me. I knew we were all in it. The weird thing about it is that that was the last time I felt my body. Ijust sort of lost track of my limbs. I knew I was sup­posed to have my hands in front of my face in an avalanche, but finally I gave up on it."

Halfway down, the found by a friend who mountain flattened had ended the tumb~

out, creating a shelf unburied. that slowed down the She was sitting on avalanche. Experts top of the snow and via· later examined the lently coughing up avalanche and said blood. She realized she that if the slide had was screaming. The air stopped here Doris that she craved now and her friends would hurt her lungs. Her not have lived. At this throat, torn by the ice, point they were all ached, Her mind cleared buried so far under and her first thought the surface that they was, "Oh my God! would have suffocated Where's Gina'?" before anyone could There were two peo­have found them. ple still buried and her

"It was like being best friend was one of buried in cement," them. Doris said. "The snow "I looked around me was wet so it packed and there was just really tightly. I snow everywhere and thought I was going to clothing, snowboards crack a rib it was so and pieces of skis lit· tight." tered around," Doris

The avalanche had said. "I thought, 'Oh my not completed its God l She could be any­tumble. It burst from its rest and poured over the ledge, shooting its riders up to the surface.

"I can remember the light chang­ing from black to much lighter," Doris said. She knew because under all that snow she had her eyes open. The force of the snow moving past her face made it impossible for her to keep her eyes and mouth closed.

Doris kept remembering the movie "Alive" and the scene

& where a woman died in an

~

avalanche with her mouth packed with snow. "I could only think of my poor mom finding me like that. I want­ed her to think that I died well,"

To keep her mouth empty, Doris forced herself to swallow. The coarse snow tore at her mouth and throat.

When the avalanche came to its final rest, a full three-quarters of a mile from its birth, Doris fought for her life. She panicked with the frus­tration of being out of control.

"I'm too young to die, I'm too young to die!" The words pounded in

time. I'm going to sleep now, and hope that it's not painful.'"

She swallowed the last mouthful of snow and forced a peaceful look on her face, "No matter what, I wanted to look peaceful for my mom."

A horrible screaming awakened her, screeching words she couldn't understand. In her hazy mind, she realized the voice was her own. "I was screaming, 'I'm alive' I'm alive!'"

In her struggles, she had gotten one of her red gloved hands to the surface. To this day, she can't

remember it. She was

~~= TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

"----------------~----------_.- ~

Photo by Doug Fesler where l' I sat down, and

her head. She thought of her mom, knowing her mother would never get over her death,

A sensation suddenly came over her. A calm, almost peaceful relax­ation. She stopped her fight and accepted her fate.

"I totally accepted that I was going to die," she said. "That's what scares me now, It wasn't even a horri­ble thing. It was like, 'Okay, I've tried and I've had a good life and now it's my

I'm not a very religious person, but I very loudly prayed to God to help me find Gina. I stood up and walked 50 meters (about 30 feet) down the mountain."

She passed a place in the snow where she could see a body was buried. She uncovered a man's face He begged her to finish pulling hi out, but she left him with only hi face uncovered. She had to find Gina Doris doesn't know how she foun where Gina was buried.

Something led her farther down the mountain. She stopped at a place where there was no hint of a buried body, but she began to dig.

"I walked and walked and I sat down and I unburied her foot," Doris

.- said. "The next thing I unburied was her head right next to her foot. I thought she was broken in half. Her face was purple. She wasn't breath­ing."

Doris screamed, "Don't leave me, Gina l Don't leave," as she frantically clawed at the snow that entombed her friend. Gina was in one piece, but bent severely backwards.

When Gina's body was nearly uncovered, her eyes opened. "But she didn't see me. Her eyes were blank and they looked right through me," Doris said.

Suddenly Gina began to move. She struggled through the snow and stood up.

The 10 bewildered survivors stood on top of the avalanche. No one was thinking straight. Some looked for lost gear. "We started thinking, "Oh God, we still have a quar­ter of the mountain to go. What if it starts again?'" Doris said.

They scrambled for the bottom, sliding and running as qUickly as pos­sible. Doris picked up her snowboard and tried shakily to ride down, "I said to myself. 'If I don't get on my snow­board now I won't ever.'"

The most serious injury sus­tained by the group was a sprained knee. Doris went to the hospital to have her throat examined and then went home. Even though she felt like hugging her mom incessantly, she didn't tell her parents the events of her day. "I was worried they wouldn't let me go back."

That evening her parents heard about an avalanche on the news that had involved some high school seniors. They asked Doris if she had known any of the people. When she told them they were very upset. They never stopped her from returning.

Later that spring, after the snow melted, the group returned to the mountain to retrieve their lost gear.

"It was scary to see," Doris said. "The area was littered with our hats, gloves and gear."

The experience changed everyone involved. A few, like Gina, vow never to back-country ski again. Although it hasn't stopped Doris from skiing, she still fears suffocating. After the avalanche, she had nightmares that she couldn't breathe. She would awaken panting for air. The "wump" sound of settling snow and the cracking of a frozen lake cause her to panic.

"That day our lives changed for­ever," Doris said. It gave her a per­spective on life that few 18-year-olds understand. She realizes that much of what she concerned herself with was trivial. "It made me realize what

UNJYERSITY 0' ALA "KA ANCHORAGE

Photo by Doug Fesler

was important in life Friendships and family are really all you have when you look at the big picture."

Now Doris understands that warning feeling in her stomach She listens to that warning when it comes. She has avoided two avalanches, and has watched them slide without her. One time she warned a group of people who didn't listen. They triggered an avalanche that came down on top of her. It was a small avalanche and she was only buried up to her waist.

"But it was a hundred times scarier the second time," Doris said.

Photos courtesy of Alaska Mountain Safety

Center Inc.

~talcin A Claim BY JE D MILLER., LAU 11-...1 EEli-...I CKSON, JILL SHAW AND MELISSA EICHHOLZ Ti<...VE NOi<...TH STAFF

A generation of Alaskans is slowly leaving the stage.

The founders who pushed for statehood and carved development into the landscape of the 49th state are passing.

A new generation now steps for­ward into a new century to shape Alaska's future. There is still much work to be done.

Will our oil reserves run out? Will the indigenous peoples of Alaska govern themselves? Will the state be transformed by technology or will the ruggedness of Alaska be con­sumed by the global economy?

Our governor tells us to buy Alaskan. But the real question is should we be investing in it?

From ensuring that the remotest villages have leading edge health care to preparing the stu­dents of tomorrow, the infant state of Alaska, with all of its vastness and isolation, heads into the future with a second generation of pioneers.

Will the harsh wilderness eventu­ally consume the efforts of the Alaska peoples, or will the determina­tion of a half million souls turn the beauty and remoteness of the North into a stable homeland for the future

generations?

Economic Well Being

Within the 19 million acres of Northeastern Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the sun never rises in winter, and never sets in summer. Beneath this land where the Porcupine Caribou herds migrate each spring to have their young, there is oil. Geologists are convinced this coastal plain con­tains more oil than any other onshore region in the United States.

Will this oil keep Alaska's trea­sury plump and Alaska's citizens sated with annual dividend checks? Or, will environmental concerns and politicians keep the oil below ground, leaving this economic resource for another generation?

In the debate about industrial development verses the environ­ment, it's the state's economic strategy that remains unchallenged. Will Alaska's future be hitched to short-term solutions or to long­term planning for economic well being?

Gov. Tony Knowles said that Alaskans must solve two problems going into the year 2000: we must better manage our natural resources and diversify our economy.

Fishing, oil, timber, and mining, the backbone of Alaska's economic structure, are limited natural resources. All could fail to prOVide the same income they bring today. Alaska, Knowles said, needs more.

"Our challenge is to get beyond just natural resource extraction and to (compete) in a global economy," Knowles said.

If ANWR oil never flows, if timber jobs go the way of Ketchikan's pulp mills and if salmon are eventually replaced by commercially farm­raised varieties grown overseas, what is Alaska's future?

Hayden Green, dean of UAA's College of Business and Public Policy, believes Alaska's future is already in the bank in the form of the Permanent Fund.

"Alaska has a $20 billion nest egg," Green said. "It could last forev­er. It is (invested) in stocks and bonds. The only thing that Alaskans would have to do is to make a deci­sion to qUit putting it in their pock­ets and spend it on government. You could run the whole state govern­ment off of it."

Technological Development

The images of igloos, tundra, bush and mountains are juxtaposed in Alaska today with satellite dishes. With more than a half million square miles to link together, Alaska stands to benefit from satellites, fiber optics and the technological revolu­tion.

The two major problems facing the future of Alaska's technology include overcoming the vast dis­tances information must travel and

TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97 =========================================================================d

On AlII lea' f:utUH! helping Alaskans to become more technologically literate,

Red Boucher, a former lieutenant governor and a man considered by many to be Alaska's "grandfather of communications," believes education is the answer to the state's techno­logical needs.

It's the responsibility of each individual student to "get on that computer," he says. "It turns on the exploring route in your mind,"

Boucher envisions an Alaska where everyone in the state is both educated and connected.

"I have always had the vision of connecting our people in the state, so that everyone has the same opportunity," Boucher said.

He envisions a future time when a young Native boy or girl in a rural Alaska village can sit down at a com­puter terminal and earn an education at any university in the nation.

One UAA student who is taking advantage of the technologies on­line is Greg Storey, a history and journalism major involved with the Alaska Telemedicine Project,

Storey agrees with Boucher when it comes to the importance of being literate in the ways of the World Wide Web.

"Right now you've got 10 year olds who are creating Web sites and actually getting paid what a profes­sional would just because they know how," Storey said.

Storey sees Alaska becoming a

main hub for information and commu­nication throughout this region of the world.

"Alaska has an advantage in its location. We could become a business culture for multimedia creation and Internet service providers," Storey said.

Other problems both Boucher and Storey cite are the growing gap between those with technology and those without it and the squeezed bandwidth, or pipeline, through which the information must flow.

'Where we could improve is in a unified direction and (the state Legislature) making more policies which state 'this is what we want to do, this is where we want to go,''' Storey said,

The most pressing problem is the bandwidth, Storey said.

"There is really only one way out of the state," he said. "There's one pipe and it goes to Seattle. That matters if the pipe fails. Also, if the whole state or half the state is using the Internet at one time, we're all crammed through one source."

Alaska might be behind in terms of education and bandwidth, but Storey believes Alaska will be able to keep pace with the fast-growing technology.

"The way the new technology functions, we could be ahead of everybody within six months," he said.

Health Care

In the village of Red Dog Mine, a physician working alone in a rural c1in­ic seeks a second opinion.

He takes an X-ray of a patient's chest where he suspects a tumor might be growing, There is something there, but he cannot be certain what it is. Along with notes and his own analysis, he connects with a special­ist at an Anchorage hospital,

In seconds, the medical files download to the Anchorage physi­cian's hard drive and the diagnosis is confirmed: it is a tumor.

Such routine could be the future for Alaska's rural health care sys­tem.

Health insurance isn't getting cheaper and Alaska will not be isolat­ed from the push for managed care and cost containment that is driving the health care industry in the Lower 48.

Already, Alaskans have seen funding for rural health clinics cut by more than half. For those Alaskans who spend their lives in a village with­out a traffic light and where the only paved link to the Outside is a landing strip, on-line medical care is here.

"It takes health care where it's needed," said Dr. Fred Pearce, who is leading a unique $2 million research grant to study how best to link rural health care needs with urban health care technology and ~ expertise. The benefits

::================================================================= UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCH0 RAGE .

11

for Alaska could be tremendous, Pearce said.

Telemedicine dovetails nicely into the trend of health care today: cost containment. Managed care pro­grams are booming throughout the country as a means to reduce health-care costs. Alaska, by virtue of its geographic isolation, has been practicing a rudimentary form of managed care for years. A physician working in a rural village was that community's sole link to health care.

Yet health care costs rose when patients were flown to Anchorage or other cities for diagnostic needs. Telemedicine makes it possible to bring the expertise to the Bush. Consultations conducted electroni­

cally reduce costs and speed the process of defining why someone is ill.

While telemedicine can provide the link between rural physicians and urban providers, one of Alaska's con­tinuing problems is finding physicians willing to settle into village life.

"Through the use of telemedicine, health care professionals do not need to be isolated," Pearce said. The program will be geared to providing continuing education for rural health care workers. "It's about the ability to communicate," he said.

In the years ahead, he believes, Alaska could be exporting its health expertise to isolated regions of Japan, Russian and Scandinavia.

"We can capture a unique corner of health care's informational technolo­gy," he said.

Native Rights

Some Alaskans call this state the Last Frontier, but for some resi­dents this is no frontier. This is simply home.

The Tlingit, the Eskimos, the Aleut, the Athabaskan are among the Native people living here with unique customs and traditions. In this melting pot of cultural diversity, Alaska's future is being forged as Native citizens struggle with how to, or how not to, assimilate in a dominating white culture that

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surrounds them. Sovereignty and subsistence are

today's hot-topic issues fueled by Natives striving to keep cultural traditions alive and to provide food for their families and challenged by those who believe Alaska citizenship means equal opportunity to the land and its resources.

Many of the answers to such issues could come from the U.s. Supreme Court. State legislators and Gov. Knowles are spending $1 mil­lion to fight a federal court decision giving Indian-country status to Alaska's natives. If the Natives pre­vail, they will self-govern, self-judge, self-jury and self-police themselves, along with having environmental

control of their land. "Sovereignty is the major issue

today for natives," said Paulette Moreno, a Tlingit,journalist and poet. "The government is spending a million dollars to fight something they don't understand."

Ryan Olson, a UAA student and Tlingit native, said if the courts rule against the Native position, then the Native communities will be run by legislators in Juneau.

"If a crime is committed in Attu, who would be better able to convict the perpetrator? Juneau? Anchorage? The Ninth District Court'? Washington, DC? Or the Aleut people of Attu in a judicial system that has worked for them

for thousands of years," he said. Subsistence and sovereignty go

hand in hand. Subsistence gives Natives the right to take what they need from their land when they need it. But Alaska does not recognize that right on state land and Olson believes that is wrong.

"Currently the state of Alaska does not consider us Aboriginal people, but Alaska residents only," said Olson.

Despite the federal bureaucracy, deadlock, and political diplomacy, the issues of subsistence and sovereign­ty are more heartfelt, Moreno said.

"Some of the Native people have their guards up, " said Moreno. "They don't want the government to tell us

a d pub.Ii

UAA is an EO/AA employer and educational institution

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE ~* Photo by Adrian Tobeluk, Nunapitchuk. Alaska

how to run our own tribes." if you want an education you better ing budget. The Anchorage School Toni Kahklen-Jones, director of be prepared to pay more to get it. District faces the challenge of meet­

UAA's Native Student Services, says Each year, the state Legislature ing the needs of two rapidly growing that subsistence is the essence of Native culture.

"(Subsistence) isn't a sport. Survival is the heart of being," she said.

Moreno said that sover­eignty does not mean that Natives don't like movies or French fries or milkshakes; it means that they just want to take back what was theirs.

"I see courage reborn, and faith and hope reborn again among our people," said Moreno.

Educational Opportunities

Whether you're a junior in one of Anchorage's high schools or a junior studying at UAA, you should save a few extra dollars over the summer. The trend in the state today is that

populations, bilingual and special­need students, while at the same time, struggling to reverse a startling drop-out rate.

Currently, there are nearly 48,000 students enrolled in the Anchorage School District, with the ratio of student to teacher approaching 40 to 1. By the yea 2000, enrollment is expected increase to 50,000 students. More students will be in

Anchorage. Alaska

cuts education's budget. University administrators are tacking on new fees for technology and parking. Tuition keeps rising.

There appears to be no light at the end of that tunnel.

Alaska's public schools are facing expanding enrollment, increasing classroom sizes, and an ever-shrink­

Anchorage's public schools than people living in Fairbanks, the

state's second largest city. "What we are seeing more an

more is a movement of the state not assuming continued responsibilit for increased cost and placing it bac on the taxpayer," said Anchorag School District Superintendent Bo Christal.

Traditionally, Anchorage resi­

~======= TRUE NORTH I SPRING 97

dents have fought paying local taxes and have voted down bond proposals aimed at improving education.

To make matters worse, overthe last decade state government has increased the budget less than 2 percent while educational costs have risen nearly 28 percent, Christal said.

State funding for the University of Alaska has remained virtually flat for the last 10 years. When rising costs for inflation are factored in, university officials see the steady level of funding as a loss.

"Last year, we were one of only a few states in the nation to take a cut," said Wendy Redman, UA's vice president for university relations.

What will next take a hack from the budget-cutting ax? It could be current programs.

"We're about as far as we can go, we're starting to cut muscle," said Board of Regents President Michael Kelly. "If we don't stop the erosion of

the university, it will do it serious damage."

Legislators in Juneau see a dif­ferent picture. Dennis DeWitt is a legislative assistant to Rep. Eldon Mulder, who chairs the subcommit­tee in charge of UA's budget. DeWitt said the state is in the red and sim­ply cannot afford to keep paying out current appropriations.

UAA Chancellor Lee Gorsuch said he doesn't believe the students of the university are as successful as they can be with this kind of thinking. Legislators say they support educa­tion, but don't want to fund it prop­erly, he said.

"The Legislature says education represents about one-third of every­thing we spend money on, so if we have to cut, educate is going to have to be cut along with the rest of it," Gorsuch said.

What is it going to take to get more money from the state to pro­vide a better education for future

generations? No one, it seems, has a clear answer to that question.

Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer said she is working to educate lawmakers about the importance of academic studies.

"My role is an advocate for edu­cation funding support and quality improvement and technology innova­tion," she said. "Education isn't just for the person who received it, it's also for our economy and our commu­nity and our democracy."

Gorsuch welcomes that view­point from Alaska's lawmakers, but wishes the legislative action was more consistent with legislative claims.

"This is the field of dreams," he said of UAA "Alaska's future isn't going to be in its natural resources, it's going to be in its human resources."

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and Ilikista Ventures, Inc. Ilikista holdings include, partial ownership of Alaska

Newspapers, Inc. (which publishes the Tundra Drums, Bristol Bay Times, Dutch Harbor Fisher­

man, Arctic Sounder, Bering Straits Record, Cordova Times, Valdez Vanguard, and Seward Phoenix Log);

and partial ownership of Stewart Title Company of Alaska,

Fairbanks Title Agency, Title Agency of Juneau and Stewart Title Company of Kenai, Inc.;

and Alaska Warehouse Equipment & Supply, Inc.

==~~~~~~F==~~~~~=UN1YERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

I

RON CI-lINUI-lUK:

BROTI-I~R

Of: TI-I~ M O~~

BY ANNABELLE ALVITE children," Ron says. "I want my chil­

FOR.. TR..UTH NOR..IH dren to know my experiences and the hard lessons, so they won't make the

"He's a ghost. You know he's there, same mistakes."

A diligent student, Ron's backpack often strains with

. books. He carries an insulated coffee mug in one hand and a

. sturdy, black molded plastic briefcase in the other. His

stride is strong, sure, rarely in a hurry. He wears jeans and good walk­ing boots. He takes the bus or rides

"I love the challenge of learning," Ron says. ''I've always dreamed of becoming a (college) student."

Today, Ron is a full-time student at UAA. His pleasant, easy manner and boyish appearance reveal nothing of the long, painful struggle he's with­stood to get where he is today.

Ron endured childhood rejection and abandonment, the death of loved ones, attacks on his cultural tradi­tions and values, and jail. His two marriages failed. He was trapped in the same mire of alcohol and drug abuse that has claimed the lives of many Alaska Natives. But Ron drew on the early teachings of his grand­father, a Tlingit chief, and the teach­ings of other elders. Trained to be a warrior, Ron fought to overcome the

obstacles. And won. "I live for my children's

16~ ~~== TRUE NORTH I SPRING 97

his bike to school, the headset of his Walkman snug on his head.

At 43, Ron looks to be in his late 20s. His face, like a Yupik mask, is open and quiet, but intense. His eyes are sharp and clear. The mask has a story to tell.

Ron is a single parent with sole custody of his four young children, ages 7 to 12, and still very much a father to two adult sons who live on their own. With no car and dependent on financial aid, he budgets down to the penny. He bakes bread, muffins and birthday cakes. He works hard, he struggles and he perseveres.

Ron never met his natural father, who came from the Yupik region in Alaska. His parents separated when Ron's mother contracted tuberculo­sis and was sent to the sanitarium in Sitka. She was pregnant with Ron.

Photo by Lara Gibb-Stone, True North Staff

Ron's father, a commercial fisherma kept the older brothers. Ron bare remembers them and does not ev know how many there were. When t fishing season reopened, Ron' father could no longer care for the The boys were given up for adoption.

"There was no other way in tho days. It's all just a part of liVing," R says. One of the brothers might s be alive; but the rest have pass away. His father is dead, too. R learned of it when he moved Anchorage two years ago.

I"-Jew to the city, Ron was kneeli on the floor unpacking. He had h back to the window and felt eyes him. "They were penetrating throug my whole body." He turned and sa someone's eyes peering at him, jUs above the window sill. The stranger eyes widened when their gaze m Ron thought, "Uh-oh, what did I wrong?" He got up and went over the front door to meet the sho elderly Native woman.

"You must be a Chinuhuk," s said. Ron drew back and asked ho she knew that.

"You look like your father," s told the stunned Ron.

Rita had been asleep in her hou next door when "something told h that someone she needed to kn was out there," Ron says. She woke

up and crossed the yard to investi­gate, "Rita had known Dad," Ron explains. "She told me about my father and that he had died a few years ago,

Ron falls silent, gazing ahead at nothing, The sun is bright, He blinks. His eyes are slightly red, moist, "Even when I tell the story, I get ",," He does not finish,

''I'm the last Mohican," he says, "the last of the Chinuhuks, All my brothers are dead," He feels the responsibility of that role,

Ron's mother, half-Mexican and half-Tlingit, remarried when he was about three months old, Her new husband was Tlingit, Although he is the only father Ron knew, he recalls with a touch of bitterness that his stepfather always treated him "like the redheaded stepson bastard," In traditional Native culture, "redhead­ed" means hot-tempered, belligerent. A troublemaker, Ron admits to being all of these,

At age 5, he viciously beat up another boy his age and stopped his heart, Ron would have walked away, but an old man watching the con­frontation called out to Ron, Deeply respectful of elders, he stopped. The old Native warned Ron about the consequences of killing someone. Ron listened, Following the elder's instructions, he revived the boy.

Ron's stepsister, Rebecca Anderson, confirms the story. "All the guys in this village, they werejust mean and ornery boys. You didn't even want anything to do with them.

"My brother (Ron) wasn't differ­ent," Anderson says, "That's the way they were brought up in (Sitka). There was so much competition between the different clans,"

Ron explains it differently. ''We were taught from an early age how to fight, to be warriors. I teach my own children how to fight, Meditate and talk, but as a last resort, know how to fight,"

Of his stepfamily, Ron is close only to Anderson, who is four years younger, His face lights up and he

speaks warmly about her, the first­born of his stepfather and then the only daughter in the family. "We used to work together, going up into town to get (our) pictures taken by the tourists," Ron says.

"Ron was a loving, caring brother ." like my guardian angel when I was small," says Anderson, "He had no other choice but to watch over me and make sure nothing happened (to me)." Today, the roles are reversed, She still sends him food packages from where she lives with her own family in Sitka,

At the age of 3, Ron announced, "I don't like playing games no more, I need to grow up to be a man now," Teachings by elders traditionally begin at a very early age for Native children,

Anderson says their grandfather was "still spry and active, still full of knowledge" when Ron was 3, The young boy idolized the revered Tlingit leader, And so, when the time came

Ron studies in front of a piece of art­work that his son made representing their clan,

Photo by Lyra Gordon, True North Staff

to begin his training, Ron says, "I requested my grandfather,"

The Tlingit chief was a man of great wealth, not only materially but in wisdom. He was the head of their

clan in the Native village around which present-day Sitka was built, For Ron, he was "a living example" of kindness, fairness, love and respect,

"(My grandfather) was the epito­me of mankind to me," Ron says. "Everything he did and dealt with, even the way he breathed, I would take that in and ask (myself), 'Why he is doing this and that and so on?'"

"He taught me everything I knew about the ocean, and still know. (I could) go back and make a living out of it,just from his stories alone."

He remembers the traditional stories, magnificent and intricate parables that teach the clan's histo­ry, about life, the spiritual world and "respect, honor and duty." The sto­ries, and learning to retell them, formed the core of Ron's education, his sense of who he is. He tells one,

"The men in the village train hard for a big sea lion hunt. The nephew of the chief of the village was a big fel­low, but people would taunt and ridicule him because he acted lazy and let the smaller kids beat him up, He always walked away, He had nowhere to live because his parents were dead. He ate the food scraps given him. Normally, relatives would have taken him in, but not if he didn't earn his keep, At night, however, he secretly trained himself for the big hunt.

"When the day of the hunt came, he was allowed in the boat with the other warriors as a bail-bucket boy, When they got to the island of the sea lions, the nephew proved his strength by viciously killing many sea lions. The other warriors saw his strength and feared his retaliation because of their mistreatment of him. They fled the island leaving the nephew behind. He collected the sea lion carcasses so they wouldn't be wasted and waited for his people to return for him, The sea lions saw this and respected him. They invited him into their world, He learned all he could about them. They helped him return to his village. When his

people saw him, those who :\7 F==~~~~~~~~~~~~= UNIVERS1TY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

17

~======== TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

Like many UM students, Ron balances his classwork. with his family.

Pictured with Ron are his sons, Jamie and Byron.

Photo by Lyra Gordon, True North Staff

had taunted him ran and hid in the woods. But he found them, forgave them and called for peace in the vil­lage. He taught the people how to live with the sea lion."

Like the nephew, Ron was related to the village chief. But he felt he had no real family. He was taunted and perceived as a 'good-far-noth­ing.' He was neglected. He also disciplined and trained him­self. He showed others how strong he was and he gained their respect.

"It's up to the individual to become a leader," Ron says

From the time he was 4, Ron spent a lot of time commercial fish­

ing with his stepfather and grandfa­ther, but they rarely spoke to each other. Ron was extremely alert and intelligent. At night, he would sit up

by the wheel in the pilot house, alert­ing his stepfather to rocks, logs and other debris. By age 5, he was taking care of the boat's engine. His stepfa­ther needed him, but resented him as well.

"My dad and I didn't get along lik cats and dogs on a rainy day," Ro says.

His sister says it was jealous Her father couldn't accept that hi wife had married before and tha she brought with her another man' child.

There was religion, too. Ron' mother had left the family's Russia Orthodox church and joined th Seventh-day Adventists. She wa no longer with the family on week ends. Both Ron and his stepfath resented that deeply Even more, h says his mother's new churc taught her that Native ways we wrong. This drove an additional ri between husband and wife. And t husband took it out on Ron.

Ron was generally neglected a home and his mother was powerle to help. The young boy often we hungry He was just fed scraps, there were any left. "

I broke into stores and started

feeding myself," he said. "(I broke into) about 15 to 20 different stores, some of them being the same ones because they had good food" But one night he let his guard down. At age 9, Ron was arrested.

His parents signed him away and he was bounced around in missionary foster homes for several years. The first foster family was of his mother's church ."Seventh-day Adventists," he says, his eyes narrow menacingly He turns away, a low growl of disgust boiling up in his throat.

"They told me our totem poles were graven images raised up before God and so (my grandfather) was a heathen. So when he passed away, they didn't let me know ...." His voice trails away in what is still a bitter, silent anger.

"My mom was pregnant with her last child and talked to the foster parent to relinquish custody of me to her." She told them that "I had proven

myself (to be) straightened up and pauses. "I know now there are other saw the light, finally." ways to say goodbye."

At age 13, Ron went home. "The Six months later, his mother, first thing I said was, 'I'm going to go weakened by tuberculosis, died in see Grandpa.' labor; the baby was And they said, stillborn. It was the 'You don't lowest period in his know? life. Grandpa's He knew he could dead.''' Ron's not stay in his moth­eyes widen er's home now. and his voice Alcohol and drugs drops almost invaded his life. He to a whisper. lived with foster fami­

"All of that lies until he turned 18. bombardment By then, he was about the neg­ "already a good fight­ative aspect er and alcoholic." about my cul­ He worked allover ture so welled Southeast Alaska. up inside of Between jobs, Ron me, I went out would sporadically and beat up stay with his stepfa­two guys that day. (It was) the ther, always leaving soon after frustration of knowing I could never because the two continued to clash. say goodbye to my grandfather. "He The old man was drinking heavily, too.

Ron holding mukluks made from his first Caribou kill.

Photo by Lara Gibb-Stone, True North Staff

P.O. Box 1966S0 Anchorage. Alaska 99519·6650Municipality ~ Telepholle, (907) :~4:3-44.'31of· ~ Fax (907) :343-4499 http://W\\.....".ci .anc!toraw' .akllS

Anchorage . ~ OFFICE OF TIlE ~IAYOR

Rick' Mysl rom

Greetings,

As Mayor, I consider it a privilege to acknowledge the accomplishments of the Journalism and Public Communications Department of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

This issue of ''True North" is a testament to the creative, journalistic and professional efforts of the Department.

I congratulate both the staff and faculty on your excellent publication_

Sincerely,

Mayor UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

Years later, however, Ron visited his stepfather for the last time and told him, "Dad, I finally learned to love you. So when you go to the other side, you tell mom thiS so she won't have to worry."

"I had finally learned to accept him as being the best he could give," Ron said.

At 21, Ron married an Alaska Native woman. They had two children and settled in his wife's home of Metlakatla in Southeast Alaska. Logging, fishing, con­struction and any­thing to do with heavy eqUipment brought in good money. He was well-known and liked.

drugs and alcohol. Metlakatla is alcohol free, but

Ron and his buddies would often make rum runs at night to nearby Ketchikan. His wife liked to drink, but she knew when to stop. Ron didn't. Eventually, they divorced and he moved to Ketchikan.

He remarried and divorced a second time, His second wife had been embroiled in drugs and alcohol, too, but when she got "into crack'

cocaine, everything just went haywire." He left her, took their four children and sought refuge in Tok Junction near the Canadian border.

Eventually he People listened to Ron holds the choker made for him by his and his first wife him. He found work second wife, began talking about on the Alyeska Photo by Lara Cibb-Stone, True North Staff reconciliation, but Pipeline Yet, the she asked him to more the money flowed, so did the wait, He felt a sense of urgency and

asked if the owl, a harbinger of deat in Native culture, had spoken to he No, she told him, but much ha happened and she felt more change coming-they would talk,

Less than a month later, a aCCident at sea changed all that. Th fishing boat she was riding in hit rock and flipped over. The anchor five hundred pounds of ocean weathered metal, crushed her

Ron smiles and his eyes gliste as he recalls his first wife. "I wa preparing myself to be with he again."

He looked to Tok, a town with fo Native Villages nestled nearby, as place to heal. He tried several tim to stop drinking.

In 1991, the divorce from hi second wife was final and he wa given custody of their children. A about the same time, his last DV conviction sent him to prison and court mandated alcohol-abuse pr gram. It was the threat of losing his

For more information on any of these propenies contact

Gail Bogle-Munson, CLS or Bob Martin, CCIM at (907) 564-2424

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-¢:=========== TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

children forever and the thought of also attends UAA. He them growing up in foster homes as recently moved out he had-never knowing their father, on his own, He and and him never being the father he Ron are working to wanted to be-that brought about bring Jamie's his decision to stop drinking, Ron has brother, Ron's been sober almost four years now. second oldest son,

His grandfather told him that to to Anchorage. Ron be successful you had to "be able to wants all of his wear different pants," Ron is an children together. accomplished fisherman, carpenter, "(He is) bound and trapper, hunter and electrician, But determined to be a he knows that times have changed different (better) and like the warrior, he must prepare role model for his himself. He chose to pursue a degree children," says Loy in electronics at the University of Bigelow, his Alaska Anchorage, counselor in

Ron can mimic animal and bird Native Student calls, He can track a moose in a Services. blizzard at night He knows the "ways He and his of the ocean '" all the good spots, children walk miles all " He wants to pass on to his children over the city, all the traditions and teachings given throughout the him by his grandfather and other year, On these elders, walks, like a gander

His oldest son, Jamie, is 21 and leading his goslings

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around, he points out the birds, the mountains, the streams, the fish, the sky, the trees, the plants and the moose. He teaches his children about the behavior and purpose of each one. He tells them traditional stories and remembers his grandfather, The Chief. This was the man who not only taught Ron about life, but more importantly, openly loved and accepted him.

He remembers the training of a warrior. "You have to be ready at any

moment to ". defend yourself, fight for the village, for a cause," Ron said. "To be prepared for

everything, I have to be educated as much as I can, in as many areas as I can. You have to know more than one

thing to get by in life.

This wood carving was made by the

elders of Ron's grandfather's village, It

is in the likeness of his grandfather

lJ"hdiJ C".d ;\11I1<:.I"c. • 1'.0. B", J(X)O lie.,". AI.I,k., ')l)7~> ('J07) ()~n-2226 • 122 1st /\\<:. 1-'.111h.lI1b. AI.I,k.1 'J')70] (')07) ~,2-21>2'

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGlE

By EILEEN CANNlNC; CAMPBELL FOP--" TP--..UE NOP--..TH

A ugie Hiebert's downtown Anchorage home and office in Spenard are filled

with awards and tributes to his achievements in broadcasting: the Goldpan Award, Alaska's Broadcaster of the Yea~ an Honorary Doctorate in Public Service from the University of Alaska, and others so numerous that he hasn't had time, he says with a chuckle, to hang them all on the wall yet

Attached to each award is a tale of adventure, a story about the unique challenges and extraordinary people of Alaska.

Like the story of how he and his friends devised the system of check­points to make sled-dog races more exciting. Or how he scrambled to work out glitches in new satellite technology so that Alaskans could watch their first live television broadcast-Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon.

Hiebert's four decades in broad­casting have been filled with innova­tion and triumph as well as hardship, There were times when he nearly lost everything. Although he loves to tell stories about the past, he is focused firmly on the future. He is not one to rest on his laurels. At 80 years old, he is still fiercely committed to what has always been the theme of his career-connecting people. And he sees the work to be done as an opportunity for young people to prove they have the pioneering spirit Alaska is so famous for.

Hiebert was born in 1916 and grew up working in the fruit

orchards owned by his

~

AUQ'~ 1-l'~B~RT

linking Ahu:1aI to the lowet Lt~ for radio, and so thankful to Hiebe and his colleagues for bringing it them, that they would go out ofthei way to show their appreciation.

Hiebert still gets a little chok up as he remembers the miners wh when they were in Fairbanks to bu supplies, would take an expensi~

taxi ride out to the station to sa "Thank you."

"That's pretty heady stuff for 22-year-old," Hiebert says. "Th people in Alaska are different fro any other place I've ever been. Th accept you for what you are an judge you according to what you d no matter where you come from. lot of young people have gotten th start here. People who wouldn't ha had a chance outside (Alaska). -mat' because everyone here has sta from scratch,"

Hiebert worked his way up fro assistant engineer at KFAR, to chi engineer and technical director Midnight Sun Broadcastin Lathrop's company. He designe built and then managed KE Anchorage's first radio station.

When Lathrop died in 1953, left Hiebert $25, 000 Hiebe combined this money with t investments of 25 Anchora business people who believed in vision for Alaska. Hiebert form Northern Television Inc. and built first television station in Alaska. Dec. 11, 1953, KTVA went on the air,

"I knew television was ve important for Alaska because it IN

so isolated, It was also obvious th more and more people were coming here. TV was a way to keep tho people connected to the rest of world."

These days, because of mode communications - television, t

~~= TR UE NORTH / SPRIN G 97 ========================================================~

parents in Eastern Washington. As a boy he had an aptitude for electron­ics and spent his free time bUilding makeshift receivers and transmit­ters, and tinkering with his ham radio.

When he was 15 he figured out a way to reach across the distance separating him from his best friend-he could use the barbed wire fences connecting the farms to transmit Morse code. Already he was demonstrating the ingenuity that would lead to his success in Alaska.

Hiebert was working as an

Augie Hiebert started KTVA in 1953

Photo by Kerre Martineau, True North Staff

announcer and engineer at a radio station in Bend, Ore, when Austin Lathrop, a millionaire entrepreneur, invited him to help build Alaska's first radio station, KFAR in Fairbanks. Hiebert was ajunior engineer with no college education and little experi­ence

Alaska was the perfect training ground, the perfect place for a young person to make his mark.

It was 1939. Alaska was still a territory, and its wealth was just being discovered. People moving up from the States wanted a connec­tion to the "Outside"- the term Alaskans use for the the Lower 48, There was a great demand for skilled workers with the ingenuity and ener­gy to ma~e communication possible.

KFARs listeners were so hungry 22

Internet, electronic mail-Alaska seems much less isolated than it did back then. Like hundreds of other Alaskans, Hiebert is "online"; he likes to hit a site now and then and he e-mails his friends and col- ...................­leagues who live far away. But Hiebert still believes that the most important thing to Alaskans is what is going on right here in Alaska.

"Localism is going to be the bedrock of the future of television in Alaska," Hiebert says. "Whoever can figure out what the local community wants to participate in will be very successful. What is going on right here, in their own commu­nities, is of primary importance to people. They want to hear about the things that affect their everyday lives."

Hiebert believes that keeping Alaskans con­nected with each other is vital to the health and growth of the state. Many times he has risen to the challenge posed by Alaska's mountainous terrain, magnetic distur­bances and vast size to connect all Alaskans, including those living in the Augie Hiebert: linking Alaska to the lower48. Bush. He believes that if urban areas have access to modern communications, the Bush should, too.

Hiebert stresses this point again and again. "It's absolutely essential to keep all of Alaska linked together," he says.

He believes that the current lack offunding for communications to the Bush is one reason Native groups are seeking sovereignty. "They feel they have been forgotten. They feel they are not in the mainstream of what Alaska wants and what Alaska does. And somehow or another they have to protect their own interests. But

Photo by Kerre Martineau, True North Staff who want to prove them­

Hiebert's tendency to be outspo­ken is one reason his career path hasn't always been strewn with acco­lades. His fierce independence in run­ning his stations has sometimes earned him criticism and put him in the center of controversy. When he decided not to air a 1972 episode of the show Maude which dealt with the issue of abortion, he received what he calls "vitriolic" letters of protest over his censorship. He also received let­ters praising his courage in sticking to his principles.

Criticism for making difficult

UNJVERS1TY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

our interests should be the same. We are all Alaskans. This lack of commu­nication is not healthy. It's not pro­gressive and it's not what Alaska should be."

decisions is one hazard of being a pio­neer. Making mistakes is another. But the rewards for people who follow their vision and take chances can be great.

Shortly after Hiebert moved to Alaska, he wrote a letter to his par­ents about his life here. What he wrote showed how deeply he was affect­ed by the unique people and opportunities offered: "Alaska, living here, working here with accompanying problems and experiences has con­tributed deeply to my mental development. I think it has done a job a lifetime somewhere else would have failed to do. And it's been of immea­surable value."

Four decades after he came north to make his mark, Hiebert believes that Alaska is still the land of opportunity.

"People who believe that they have to go "Outside" to be success­ful are making the biggest mistake of their lives," he says. "There is no place with more opportunity than Alaska. This is the greatest place in the world for young people

selves." He believes that Alaska still

needs people with the pioneering spirit.

"This is an exciting time in com­munications," he says. "Everything is changing so fast and there is a lot of work to be done. We need people who are willing to stretch their abilities, their field of vision. That's what I think pioneering is, it's being willing to take a chance."

A collection of student work

LITJFJECCYCCILJE CQ)JF A §Jp>CQ)NCGrJE AN]]]) illICQ)~ ITT ~JE1LA TJE§ TCQ) TillIJE A1LA§JKA IffiACCillIJEJL((J)JR{

MICHAEL HINMAN

N on-fiction Winner

L ike a cat, a sponge has several lives. One sponge can be counted

on much like any otl1er sponge in the family, having 110 impulse of its own, it will lie around the house until put into use.

The first life of a sponge is in the fairly clean kitchen. I can justify the term 'fairly clean' because only a single guy with a 'fairly clean' kitchen would have a sponge in the first place. The others would need a backhoe for the garbage and a flame-thrower for the creatures they are trying to get rid of

that grew out of the leftovers.

~ Do", ,nyon, "m,mb" the

original "The Thing"? "I hold these items to be self evi­

dent...that all kitchens are 110t created equal."

So it comes to pass that all sponges will not have the same life span and that some, in the case of my brothers, will be kept alive through various life support mechanisms well past their natural time of dying.

This begs the question, is it ethical to keep a sponge alive thorough artifi ­cial means when its quality of life is not as good as it could, or should be? After all, it is trusting you to be the judge of when its life is over.

The means of pt'eserving the life of a sponge are directly proportional to the, I won't say cheapness, but how about frugality of the owner of the sponge. The more frugal, the more

effort put into life-extending measu instead of just procuring anoth sponge. Of course, you never Imow h attached the father is to the sponge.

These methods include an oce sional soaking in bleach to kill any I' forms that may have developed in re dence. This can be tantamount to doom and death of entire civilizatio In some cases.

Another method is to occasiona let the sponge float in a luxuriant b of boiling water. This has the ad benefit that the water can be used wh it cools down: this is a tip for those areas where water may have to thawed or carried into the residen Yes, I do lmow people who regula carry water in.

In the advent of a normal spa lifetime, the sponge will serve its stro

~~~=TRUE NORTH / SPRING 91

from the University of Alaska Anchorage

and naive youth in the kitchen, where it will meet little of the nastier side of life. It will be protected from less desirable aspects of life by a good father. After all, everything that gets spilled in the kitchen was at one time or another going to be eaten by the bachelor, right?

of course a spill or a leftover could have taken on a life of its own. At that point the natural tendency of the Alaska Bachelor to hunt is useful. We can track down that errant former­food product and kill it ... handily. Unless of course it has grown too large and furry, then we just let them go wild into the woods.

Now you know where those pesky garbage bears come from.

Well, back to the sponge. A good sponge-father lets the young

sponge reside in the l~itchen well into its prime and middle age. Here, the sponge will get a lifetime of knowledge that most people don't even think about, but then that is why I am writing

this drivel because most people aren't Alaska Bachelors.

The sponge learns that cleaning eggs off dishes is not to be put off, unless of course you need new pave­ment for that spot to keep the snowma­chine or the cars that don't run.

The sponge also learns that it is best for people to eat all the food on the plate to avoid having to clean the plate more rigorously later.

Thus all the fat bachelors are just avoiding more cleaning and don't believe in compost heaps, unless they call it leftovers or the garbage.

Fathers let sponges reside as long as possible in the btchen because they know, through other sponges before them, what lies in store for the naive sponge. The real world awaits with all the s" t that adult sponges live with every day.

Though the sponge thinks it knows everything and has seen all that is worthwhile, that same sponge will look

back on its life and notice how easy things were in its younger, more care­free days.

After the kitchen, the sponge enters dreaded territory, the BATHROOM.

Now some may argue that the sponge will take a trip through other cleaning rooms first. I disagree.

Any Alaska Bachelor worth his snow will not have anything worth cleaning with a sponge in any other room of his abode. The bachelor will have "stuff" (one man's junl~ is another man's stuff), but it shouldn't be cleaned with a sponge. Stuff should be cleaned with something other than a sponge. The bachelor might even include a lit ­tle cleaning substance with the whisk broom, paper towel, bacl~hoe or front­end-loader.

So off the sponge goes to the dread­ed land of no return.

Why is it called the bathroom? How many bachelors

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

take a bath? How many bachelors have a bathtub clean enough for a bath?

It is really a shower room, but that sounds like there are a whole bunch of other guys that use it too, kind of a locker room. At all costs, Alaska Bachelors will avoid something, like calling it a shower room, that might make us less macho in front of our peers.

But come to think of it, why should Alaska Bachelors care? Our peers are bachelors too. Who cares about impressing them, I want to impress women.

Other possible names might be the BM Room, the No.1 room or more vulgar names if it doesn't get cleaned often.

At any rate, the sponge will end its life in here. Now even given the death sentence of being moved to the bath­room, a sponge might yet live a long, productive time. Especially if the guy is a good shot or sits down.

This is a good tip guys. Sit down for # 1. Less splashing means cleaning the dreaded bowl less often. You can all

thank Nick for that one, but is he tech­nically a bachelor? He does live with a woman. My brother (a confirmed bach­elor) claims he knew about this trick long ago, but he never transferred this bit of knowledge on to his baby broth­er.

The sponge makes its entrance into the bathroom fairly easily. The coun­ters and sink are usually the first things assigned to the now-veteran cleaner. The poor thing doesn't realize what awaits it because there are no other sponges to ask for advice.

WARNING: this should serve as a clue to the sponge that something unpleasant awaits.

However, sponges being what they are - not too smart but able to drink a lot - they usually don't pay any atten­tion to the things that surround them. Or care about the consequences.

Then the sponges get transferred over to the bathtub. A good sponge will be able to exist between the two areas for a while, but not for long due to the nature of the job. Scum (soap) will eventually drag down the previously

upstanding member of the cleanin community.

The death sentence is handed dow when the toilet bowl needs a swabbing This is the last act for any sponge. B this time the sponge is in its last da anyway. If it has the unfortunate luc of belonging to some bachelors - tho who impose life-extending measures it will resemble little more than th green-scrub backing with little else th was formally absorbent materi attached.

Death is the only practical solutio After all, who wants to use a span after using the thing to clean a toilet That's why toilet brushes have very fe friends among the other house cleanin items. Who wants to hang out with toilet brush?

You never see them in the compan of a dish towel or the kitchen spong They're ostracized by paper towel Even the vacuum is reluctant to ha out witl, them. And nature abhors VaCUU111.

1UWTCO)[JceIHIAJE3JLJE SAM TROUT

MOther" Category Winner

~=======TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

llJNTITTJLJEJID

MICHAEL COOPER Honorable Mention

!========:====:====:====:====:====:====:====:====:====:=: UNl VERSlTY OF A LASK A AN CH0 RAGE ============~

LARA SOX HARRIS 2-D Winner

JEREMY LINDEN photojournalism Winner

ceAlRII JB3CO)[J TCOJF JE Th1I

CHARLIE KAIRAIVAK 3-D Winner

FLEMING JEFFRIES Multi Process Winner

STACEY SMITH Fiction Winner

S he saw the mall incident, the panic and loss of her way, as one of

those isolated experiences, libe falling down the stairs or falling in love. of course if she had bept walking she would have found herself somewhere familiar. But she panicbed, turning a couple of wild circles, did a jolting two­step this way then that way, then sat on a bencb. An old man, bent at an acute angle, crept up to asb if she was obay. Everyone else went widely around, as if she was contagious.

When Perry found her, he said, "For God's sabe, Helen, what could possibly happen to you in a mall?"

"That's not the issue," she said. "The issue is I was lost. That's the issue." She held her bags in front libe a battle shield.

"I said I would meet you at the water fountain." He shuffled bis feet, his angry Cbarlie Chaplan move. Tbey had been married four years. He was thirty-five, ten years olel than sbe -- to tbe weeb.

"I didn't see you tbere," sbe said. "You weren't there." She turned and stormed through the mall, bnowing be would follow her. She was saving face, moving blindly past a catastrophe.

Outside, Helen heard the loud whir of a new go-cart trac\;~ in the far lot. Sbe saw the flashes of red and blue and green as they sped round and round the tracb. It frightened her, thinbng about going so fast.

Tbe air was cool, and as they reached the car, Helen felt her panic move libe a pendLdum, toward a cen­tral, more stable location. She turned to Perry, having forgiven him a little. "Did you bnow you can determine the temperature outside by counting cricb­et chirps?" She had read this some­where.

He shoob his head. "1 don't hear any cricbets."

"Tbat's beside the point," she said. "You count the number of chirps in fourteen seconds and add 40. That's how you do it." She waited for him to unlock her door. She hadn't been dri ­ving mucb lately, not since it started bothering her - the way everything moved so quicbly. It gave her vertigo.

Perry gunned the engine and Helen ducbed into the car. Where was she going? In the long run? It had been only six months since she finished her BA in psychology - and found herself dangling at tbe end of an academic experience, without practical sl~ill.

Helen stared at her hands as they pulled out of the lot. She wondered, who hired such a person?

The next evening, as Helen cooked dinner - spaghetti and Caesar salad - Perry came home from worb and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Hei Iwchaneb," he said in Polish. Languages had always come easy to him. Most things came easy to Perry. He spoke fluent Polish and Russian, and worbed as translator for an inter­national food warehouse tbat recently expanded business to Poland.

"Really?" She continued chop ­pi ng tomatoes. She cbopped them smaller and smaller.

"I said hello. How can you not know one word of Polish. You pick up everything else."

"I'm just not interested. I have to be interested." His big mustached ticbled her ear.

"I want you to learn one word," he said. "You picb."

"F* *k. How about that word." "How about something else?" "That word or nothing." "Obay, pierdolic." He let go of

her waist and inspected a cut on ber th.umb. "Where did you get this?"

"I don't remember.n

She stared at her thumb and frowned. It wasn't a bad cut. Maybe a paper cut. It was libe the thumb had experienced something

without her. "Do you Imow accidents are the leading cause of death in some states??"

"Is that so?" After dinner, Perry surprised

her with a box of chocolates. "What's this for?" she asbed. He sl1rugged. She hugged the box and followed l1im to the fuzzy couch that sagged on the right where he normally sat. Perry put his arm around her and turned on the TV.

"0 0 you bnow depressed people see the world in a more realistic and unpadded way?" she said. "They see how dismal and tragic the world really . " IS.

"Dh-huh." He patted h.er absently on the Imee.

She picbed up a chocolate and broke open the back. When Perry was­n't looking, she returned it to the box. She brobe open a few more before find­ing one with a fudge center. Chocolate was the only thing that appealed to her lately. "Well?" she said. "Do you thinb that's true?"

"What...? Sure, so they need more padding."

"I lost my padding to the acade­mic institution," she said and pinched tbe soft layer around his waist. It oozed over his pants lil~e an over-filled mill" shabe. He told her he was "filling out" as if he was a growing boy. Why did men think a little extra weigbt made them loob bappy and content, but made women look lil~e they had let them­selves go? Helen took a eleep breath and sucl~ed in her gut. "I think I'll find a job tomorrow." She got up and went into the bitchen.

Perry followed and got a soda from tbe refrigerator. "Oooooh," he said, staring at the counter. "There's a murderer in the house."

"I wasn't involved," Helen said and wiped up the tomato guts. "It was implosion - completely self-inflict ­ed."

"You need to get out

~*UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

more,' Perry said, lying next to her in bed, his head resting on the flat of her naked belly. "You could lower your standards. Why don't you get a job at Johnny Jumbo's?"

she covered his head with the bed sheet. How could he suggest she work at a greasy spoon, as if she was a high school drop-out? "I hate the smell of grease. It's a poison:

He peeked from under the sheet. "How about a video store? You know all about videos: He tickled her stomach.

"I can't. It's not the videos, it's the people: she sat up, pushing him away. "They'll kill you for a new release: She stared at the ceiling and thought she saw a spider, but couldn't be sure without her contact lenses. She didn't like the idea of it hanging over her at night.

"Maybe they need help at the veterinary clinic:

"Animals always sense my fear: she pointed to her right calf, at the scar. It looked libe the teeth of a saw. "Did you know a greyhound can run forty miles per hour?"

"How about a sales clerk?" "I don't know: "A house wi fe?" "I'm not sure: He turned onto his side, facing

away. She tugged at a lone, curly hair on his back. He was getting a promo­tion next week, as a manager of inter­national affairs. His boss said he was an indispensable asset. She wished she could say something flattering, or at least sincere. But she said, "Do you know what your odds are of being struck by lightning?"

"Less than yours: "One in six hundred thousand: "Ouch," he said when she pulled

out the hair.

"Maybe Perry's having an affair," Helen said to wendell. She

met Wendell three years before in a bar, where she had stopped to ask direc­tions to the Emerald Tower, a classy restaurant where she was supposed to meet Perry for dinner.

wendell had talked her into staying for his specialty drinb -- on the house. He called it Wendell's Windstorm, which turned out to be a Long Island Ice Tea with extra booze. "So you're lost," he had said, a towel draped around his long neck, which looked longer because his shirt was open by three buttons, revealing a puff of blond hair.

"Not exactly. I guess I've gotten myself turned around -- I'm not a very good driver: She hadn't meant to say the last part, but certain people had a way of drawing things out. Helen had found she enjoyed Wendell's warm, self-assured manner. He was an every­body's-friend-kind-of-guy.

"What do you think?" Helen asked. She clanked a plate against the drain.

"He's not having an affair," Wendell said. "I think you're being paranoid:

"Maybe he's having an emotion­al affair," she said.

"Instead of a physical affair?" "Yeah, an emotional affair that

has the potential for becoming a physi­cal affair: Her shoulder had begun to ache, so she grabbed the phone with her wet hand. "Do you know fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce?"

Perry and Helen drove Nortb, on their way to the Olympic National Park for the weekend. They were on a get-away, a weekend rejuvenation in Perry's words. They would be camping in a tent - something Helen had never done before. The walls were so thin in a tent. she anticipated feeling vulnera­ble. "Washington might be a better place for me, "she said. "It might have more options:

"Przestan pieprzyc," he said. "We've been through this:

"What did you say?" "I said cut the bullshit: T m just trying to weight all the

possibilities. It's realistic, you know, to weigh all the possibilities:

He sighed, a soft flow of air. "Just let it go: Letting it go was easy for Perry. Letting it go was as easy as turn­ing on the TV.

She stared at the side of his face. He hadn't trimmed his nose hairs lately. They were black and crept out the side of his nostrils like spider legs. She had red somewhere there were 32,000 species of spiders. "Itsy bitsy spider. .. :

"What?" "Nothing." He grasped her hand. He took

quick glances from the road. His hand felt rough and chapped over hers. "Honey, you lmow I love you. I just want to see you with some direction:

Helen pressed her face against the window, feeling the cool glass libe ice against her cheek. She watched the trees whiz by, a blue of blue spruce. Then the forest abruptly ended in a great swath of clear-cut. Ahead she saw a deer standing motionless and vulner­able in the treeless expanse. Why was it crossing in the open, exposing itself to predators and hunters? As they got closer, she realized the deer was actual­ly a stump. She drew her face away from the window as drops of rai n began to splatter against it. Maybe Perry would go for a motel. "Down came the raIn -­

"What?" "Nothing:

Helen never mentioned the nwtel to Perry, and they spent the weekend huddled in the tent listening to rai n that sounded like pennies against the nylon fly. He had tried to mabe love to her but she said it was too

held the phone with her shoulder "Oregon has plenty of options: 11Umid.

~h;l"he did:~~,~e~:~: /SPRI::'~:e =:w=:a=:s=:h=:in=:g=:to=:n=:.=:"==============B=:a=:cl=:~ =:a=:t=:h=:om==e=:,p=:e=:r=:rY==sa=:t=:a=:c=:ro=:s=:s==~

the table sipping brandy. "For God's sake, Helen." It was because of her, she knew, the pain in his eyes. She felt empty. Why can't she help him? Or her­self?

"I'm lonely," he said. "I've thought about cheating."

"You have?" "I haven't, not yet." "I'm sorry." she tried to reach

for his hand, but he pulled it away. He had shaved his mustache, and his naked lip hung mournfully. she thought he looked handsome, yet unattainable in his need. "I'm sorry," she said again, hating herself for not knowing what to say, for not stopping him from walking into the living room. She began to sob, unexpectedly like a hiccup. It felt strange and overdue.

The next day Helen called Wendell and told him about Perry. She said she was losing him. "Let's talk about it," Wendell said. "Why don't we go for a ride at the new go-cart track? It will make you feel better. It works for me. "

"I don't know - I don't like that sort of thing." Helen felt her insides wind up. She had never driven a go­cart. But what more did she have to lose? "I'm not a good driver," she said before hanging up the phone.

At the track, Wendell climbed into a red car. Helen chose a black one with blue racing stripes. Behind the fence, a little boy with an orange Popsicle pointed at her and shouted, "That one's the fastest!" A group of children moved closer to look.

Helen put on the helmet. Wendell yelled, "Hey! You're on back­ward." she turned it around, fumbling with the straps.

The track worker help up a flag. "Get ready .... Go!"

Helen floored the gas pedal and bumped into the car in front. The dri­ver, a teenage girl, turned around and flipped her off.

Out on the track, Helen timidly weaved from one side to side, blocking the traffic behind her. Someone yelled, but she couldn't tell what was said. She pressed the pedal a little harder and weaved to the right, bumping into a rail. Gradually she picked up speed and caught up to the car in front, the one with the teenage girl. They squealed around the corner, and Helen pushed the pedal in all the way. she passed on the left, nicking the other car's tires. She passed another car, and another. Finally, she was in front. She watched the faces in the cars - Wendell's face, other faces - rosy, laughing blurs. The wind burned her face. It stung her eyes. The acrid smell of rubber filled her nose. Each time around she felt an

unloosening, an unraveling like a ball of yarn.

Then she saw the man with the flag, waving it. She kept going. He leaped over the rail yelling, "Hey, lady!" Behind the fence the little boy with the Popsicle was pointing at her, jumping up and down. There were more people on the track, waving their arms. She saw Wendell waving, his mouth formed into a tipped-over "0". Round and round, her hair came loose around the helmet. She felt the vibration of the gas pedal and the smooth plastic of the steering wheel. Round and round -- the nuts and bolts spun loose in her head. She continued until sbe was alone on the track. Tbe people waited on the side, waiting for her to run out of fuel. Finally the go-cart sputtered and lurcbed, coming to a rougb stop.

The tracl< worker ran over, his face blistered with rage. "I could call the police," he said. Wendell grabbed her arm, leading her outside the fence. He wanted to go. Now. He was trying not to laugh.

Helen let the fell of the go-cart ride carry ber toward the car.

"We have to go," Wendell said. He was doubled over, still laughing, Helen felt ligbt and bubbly all over. She felt the little blips of her heart. When they reacbed the car, sbe climbed into tbe driver's side - tbe helmet forgot­ten on her head.

MICHELLE LUTHER Honorable Mention

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

IT.

b, n,

st

Je

SHANA PRICE Poetry Winnerv

c A sweet young wife curls up next to her snoring busband and snivels when he doesn't touch her,

s while a scared little girl in a pink lace dress k tenses at the caress of her perverse uncle s

And a wrinkled old bachelor strokes bis dog's coat t and asks himself where the time has gone, a while a victim of AIDS and mother of two

wonders why the time passes so slowly.

b And tears leave trails on the cheeks of a widowed bride d as she puts away her last wedding gift, h while a little girl in Detroit squeezes her only teddy

in the false haven of a brown refrigerator box. v

And a handsome 19 year old thinks, "Mom is always home by 5:00" as he watches the blood run out of his wrists,

Sl while the young parents of a gun-shot victim "J pray for a pint of 0 negative in the next few hours. f.

And glass is breaking in a Boston apartment as a jealous fiancee knocks his girl against a picture, while a bright-eyed junior high student cries to her mother that nobody "likes" her.

And an acquitted murderess sits under an apple tree o and wishes she wasn't who she is, ti while a frightened old lady looks into her hallway mirror n and wonders who is looking back IT

c( And a brunette kneads her pink cotton nightgown Ie while she sobs in the loose embrace of a love seat, kl while a "nice young man" inches away from his date st and wonders why the couch is so small.

And a filthy bag lady stands on the corner of Third and A and mumbles, "If I only had money... : to a passerby,

01 while a dignified lawyer wearing an expensive suit caresses the cool surface of the flask inside his jacket.

And a 20 year old college student tries to concentrate on a paper and wishes he had passed on that last dime sack,

af while a hazel eyed Korean sits in front of her computer and wishes she could stop thinking about the faces of loneliness.

lIJNTITTJLIEJID

ANDREI CIUBOTARU Honorable Mention

JJllJJRUIlEIIJ) §lEJLlECTITCO> N

JHI(Q) W(Q)~A]ffiILJE :MIEN'1rJ!(Q)W§

Bonnie Morrison: Multi-Process

Mitsuko rkeno: 2-D

Aaron Morgan: 2-D

Kendra Coco: 2-D

Michelle Luther:

Multi-Process

Michael Cooper photo

viad Basarab: 3-D

Kelly Hebert: 3-D

Andrei Ciubotaru 20

F====================================== U NIV ERSITY OF ALASK A AN CHORAG E =======*

ChancsllOt Lss QOt~uch

"You nQQd to rnak9 youtS:Qlv~ hQatd"

m When you decided to apply ~ for the job of becoming the

chancellor, what were your goals for the university?

Well part of my motivation was that I had lived here

a\\ since 1971 and I felt the

on university had missed many opportu­

tic nities to significantly grow and

na contribute to Alaska's development. I

In had also served on the local school

co board here for six years and was

lei frustrated that the students didn't

kr have any options of attending a local

sb institution and have what they would call a campus life.

m How much do you feel you've

au ~ really been able to accom­plish?

IA We've made a good step forward by having (a 560­

af bed new dormitory) on campus. I hope to have 2,500

within the next seven years. ~ That will transform this

~~= TRUE NORTH ~

Photos by Kerre Martineau, True North Staff

institution by having that many people living here and they'll create all kinds of activities and interests so that student life will suddenly take on a whole new dimension. I think realisti­cally we can attract another 500 high school graduates out of the south central area. That's economi­cally good for the city. When a stu­dent goes outside they spend about $20,000 a year and that $20,000 would be spent here and be a big part of the economy. So, if an additional 1,000 students decide to go here instead of the outside, that would bring an additional $20 million a year to the Anchorage economy. That would make us a much bigger player.

We're doing some exciting work around the library and I think it's qUite conceivable that we will have a new library within the next three to five years. That's probably one of our least adequate resources that we have now. It's very undersized given the size of the student population.

But far and away the biggest

/ SPRING 97

disappointment is that the Legislature continues to undervalue education and we get less money today than we did five years ago.mWhy is that?

~ A I think the Legislature has gotten themselves into a political predicament. The predicament is that no one

wants to pay taxes so we've repealed all our taxes when we discovered.. North Slope oil.

So the argument is, well if oi production is declining and we're get­ting less money and no one wants to pay any taxes and no one wants give up their dividend, then you've go to cut the budget. So even though people say we support education ana we don't think education should be cut, the Legislature says education represents about a third of every­thing that we spend money on so if we have to cut, education is going to

have to be cut along with the rest of it. Or they'll say we'll give you the same amount of money we gave you last year. But the same amount of money last year doesn't pay for the increased cost for utilities or health care benefits or compensation and so

" forth.

I Can UAA ever truly growmand be a successful insti ­tution if that is the prevail­ing mind set in Juneau?IA No, I think the mind set will have to change. Every time we try to accommodate getting less money, the

argument is that you must have had more than you needed before we did the cut. So some people tell me that until I actually start eliminating programs and people scream ...then I won't get any attention.

So one strategy is that at some point you just have to make the

, decision that the public has to be educated that you can't preserve

1 quality and continue to cut. So at • some point programs are going to

have to be eliminated and maybe entire schools will be wiped out.

m Do you think we'll ever be ~ equal with UAF?

~ We have twice as many

I A students and less money. We get 38 percent of the budget. We have 62% of

the students. So it's a big issue.

Why is that so?

Well it's an historical acci­dent. UAF developed all these programs when UAA didn't exist. It was our orig­

inalland grant institution. Anchorage really developed its own institutions about 40 years ago initially with the Anchorage Community College. The group in Fairbanks always opposed a

university here. They felt Anchorage's gain would be Fairbanks'loss.

Politically, what happens is that the Fairbanks campus is very important to the Fairbanks commu­nity because economically it is a big part of the Fairbanks community. Their legislators are very cohesive in their support for the university. They all argue that the university should get its money. Our Anchorage dele­gation is much larger and they don't support the university in the same way the Fairbanks delegation sup­ports theirs partly because they have a lot of other fish to fry.

So how do you convince them Anchorage legislators that ~ they need to be on UAA's

side?

rA You get organized. That was part of the reasonA behind my effort to get this university advancement

structured. So that we would actual­ly try to have an organized campaign to get students, faculty and staff to actively become involved with legisla­tors, get them into the classroom, have you talk to them, so they get a chance to hear about what your con­cerns are, why you think the university should be getting more money, what it means for your future. That's what really has to happen.

. What active ways does UAA contribute to the community?IA We're a big employer. We hire a lot of Anchorage residents. We're a big consumer. We buy a lot of

goods and services. We're a major contributor to the economy. Second, we're a major supplier of future professionals in the community.

This is the place. This is the field of dreams. Alaska's future is not going to be in its natural resources. It's going to be in its human resources. We are not going to be able to compete on the basis of

selling our labor as cheap. There are a couple of billion Chinese who are going to be able to outbid us. All we have to contribute is our brain power and our technology and that is developed at this university. The future of the state is connected to the vitality of the university to give people what they need. Without it, Alaska is going to enter into a long, slow period of decline.

What would you say to am high school senior who ~ walks into your office and

says "Why should I come to UAA? You have all these problems, you're not getting the funding, you're library is going to hell in a hand basket, you have warring teacher factions and you have a nonexistent student life - why should I come here?"

rA I did a survey of students

A last spring and we asked the students if they were satisfied with the learning

opportunities they had here and 86 percent said they were either happy or very happy with the quality of teaching that occurred on campus. So if you're interested in having pri­marily good teachers our teachers here are probably as good or better than you're going to get anywhere else

So don't be misled by the lack of campus life. Don't be misled by the argument that goes on inside the faculty. When you go inside that classroom the faculty are focused on you. They know your name. They're interested in your success and you won't find that at most other universities. So the reason to come here is that faculty care about you.

m You mentioned more ~ student housing and trying

to bring more programs into the university. If higher enrollment is your goal, is this necessarily a good thing? Are classes going to get more crowded?

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

When I say we are going to cuIA I think the financial IA The big issue for us in south programs, students need to sa pressures are that we are going to have to get bigger.

My guess is (if) we are going to have to go larger classes we should be selective about it. Here we are talking about 100 to 120 not 250. But then (we'd) try to ensure that everybody in that freshman experience would still have a couple of classes that were small. The reality is that there are economies of scale.

If you divided our number of faculty by the number of students you'd find that we're somewhere around 16 to 1, 17 to 1. Most public universities are 22 to 1 We're going to have to start looking more like other universities just out of economic necessity or we're not going to be able to offer the programs.

mUAA has been threatened with losing accreditation because of its library. What do you intend to do about

our library problem?

We feel we should have a strong library so we have made it an issue. It's a painful process. If you're

getting less money from the Legislature, where are you going to take it from e That's the dilemma. We're going to have to take (the money) from somewhere else and in same cases that could mean we have to take it out of academic programs and cut some academic programs. We'll have to face the music.

mYou've mentioned a couple of times about cutting programs to save money. Nearly half of the UA money

goes into research. Is there talk of moving research money into preserving programs?

a

central Alaska is where is the educational equity. Why

should students here receive half as much toward their education as students who live elsewhere. The argument is that it doesn't necessarily mean we want to take it away from Fairbanks, we just want an equal amount here.

I need students to make that argument. It sounds self-serving for me to make it. You need to make yourselves heard about why you think this is unfair. Some how, students need to organize themselves to saying: "This is not right. This is not fair. This is not smart. We should not have to tolerate it."

'Why? You don't have enough t start with. Where am I supposed t go to get an education? I live here. work here. Myfamily is here. Whatal I supposed to do?"

At some point, students hav to get to that level of indignation an express themselves in a political wa that people will listen to them. The are not going to listen to me.

Our whole political system i based on interest groups. Student have to become an interest groul where you say "If you want my vo~

you have to show me you deserve ii Are you going to support increase funding for the University of Alask Anchorage, yes or no?"

WHATEVER YOU DO, QUALITY ALWAYS COUNTS. At Evergreen, we take pride in the quality service we provide. Evergreen has been serving Anchorage for forty years and we can appreciate work well done. We are proud to support True North, and would like to congratulate the staff on an excellent publication.

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PtOfi I~ of Ala~ka COMPILED BY JILL SHAW

TR..UE NOR..TH STAFF

Sydney Laurence: 1865-1940

Sydney Laurence is best known as the Alaskan Impressionist

He was well traveled as a war correspondent and illustrator for a

London magazine. He covered the Boer and Zulu wars in Africa, the

Boxer Rebellion in China and the Spanish American War He caught gold

fever and sought a fortune in Alaska He never made one. He moved to

Alaska in 1903 and lived in Juneau before moving to Anchorage.

After a fr'ustrating time with the gold industry and a gan­

grene scare, he set up camp in Denali. on the southside of the mountain

and sketched. At the end of the summer he had 40 drawings and inspi­

ration to last him a lifetime. He captured the wilds on canvas.

His work has been shown all over the West Coast and in the

Smithsonian Institute. Today his work can be found in Anchorage

museums and banks and is owned by private collectors He died in

Anchorage in 1940

Howard Rock: 1911-1976

His Eskimo name is Wehahock Directly translated it means

rock. A man appropriately named.

Born in Northeast Alaska in 1911, he would become one

Alaska's most influential Natives when he was in his 50s. He published

and edited the Tundra Times Originally the newspaper had a different

and Eskimo name. The name was changed to something that would fit

all Alaska Natives, not just Eskimos The masthead was designed with

Aleut, Indian and Southeast Indian.

He incorporated "Inupiat Paitot," Eskimo for "the people's her­

itage" and "Dena Nena Henash," Athabaskan for "the land speaks' into

the masthead as well. The Tundra Times went to press October 1962.

It serves today, as it did for Rock, as a medium for Native organizations

views and to keep all the Natives of Alaska informed about issues that

might interest them.

In 1975, a year before he died, he was nominated for a Pulitzer

Prize and shared Man of the Year honors with Us. Senator Ted

Stevens,

Wally Hickel: 1919 - present

Wally Hickel is one Alaska's premier entrepreneurs. He was

also governor, and secretary of the Interior for Nixon, and entrepreneur

again. He topped all that off by winning the 1990 election. He was gov­

ernor, again. Traditionally a republican, he surprised the democrats and

repUblicans by winning on the independent ticket. Wally is a real go­

getter.

He started the Yukon Pacific and tapped the natural gas

reserves He just keeps going and going.

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

caller was looking for someone else. He jumped the chance anyway.

"I was trying something new where if you f everyone knows it, but if you hit it, it's big:' says. The potential hits and misses in the clas room scares the hell out of him. And he loves it.

Students enjoy the fresh approach and m relaxed atmosphere Campbell brings into t classroom. With his trademark broad-rimm hat, Levi's and cowboy boots, Campbell is not typical professor, especially during final exams,

People down the hall can hear Campbell's co bell and police whistle, ajolting signal to studen who are immersed in writing what seems to be simple story, that new "information" has come

"It was bizarre," said journalism stude Grayling Martin. Martin had Campbell t Beginning Newswriting last fall. "It was a sit tion of what can really happen, where deta' come in and change rapidly."

Campbell could easily have had a career as mortgage lender. He was working at Natio Bank of Alaska when he stepped back to look his life and decided he wanted to go back to lege, finish his degree and be a reporter.

"I decided to get on with this before I resign myself to work at the bank for the rest of my lit he says.

So, he and wife Diana packed up and went the University of Oregon, where he received bachelor's degree in journalism in 1982. The you couple moved back to Anchorage and two yea later, daughter Megan was born.

Today, between his duties as chair of t Journalism Department, treasurer of the Alas Press Club and advising new journalists aero the state, Campbell always has time for his s dents.

"They're very important," he said. "They're t only reason I'm here."

TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

r

r

s PULITZERS PASJ

FINDING A NEW CHALLENGE BY MELISSA. EICHHOLZ TR..UE NoR..TH STAFF

After working as a reporter and editor for 15

years, Larry Campbell was having a hard time get­ting scared anymore.

For the bulk of his career, he worked at Alaska's top daily newspape~ the Anchorage Daily News. He lead the world in coverage of

the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He was part of a

team of reporters who received a Pulitzer Prize for

Public Service in a series of

Photo by Dr. Larry Pearson storie;:, loo~in~ at the state s indigenous

Native populations and their difficulties. For years, he mingled with government offi­

cials, environmentalists and criminals alike, writ­ing about who they were as well as what they were doing.

Now, he needed a new challenge. Something that would put him back on the edge. So he decid­ed to leave the Anchorage Daily News and take a full-time teachingjob at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

"I came here to scare myself," he says. "It was­n't easy leaving the Daily News. It was almost embarrassing to have that much fun and get paid for it. But the only thing I found to be more fun than that was when I first started teaching."

Campbell's teaching career actually began as a fluke. He just happened to be at the right place at the right time when he answered the phone,

a asking him if he wanted to try something new. The

AND PRESENT REACHING A MILE TONE

BY MELISSA EICHHOLZ TP-..UE NOP-..TH STAFF

Nearly every journalist dreams of one day receiving a Pulitzer Prize for the work they do. Once reaching that goal, however, some find they don't know where to go from there.

Terry Wimmer, the University of Alaska Anchorage's Atwood Chair of Journalism professor, found he had just that problem.

"I was looking for a goal when I came up here. I had just reached a milestone," he said.

In 1996, Wimmer and his team of reporters from the Orange County Register received a Pulitzer for investigative reporting after they wrote more than 230 stories about a fertility scandal in California. The stories uncovered doc­tors at the University of California Irvine fertility clinic who stole eggs from more than 60 women and profited from the births of at least 10 chil­dren conceived by those eggs.

"It's a story of the breakdown in the ethics of caring," Wimmer told The Northern Light newspa­per last fall.

It was because of his work at the Register that Wimmer was called to come to Alaska and fill the Atwood chair.

"(The chair) is designed to remind us how they do journalism in the real world," said UAA's Journalism Department chair Larry Campbell.

A native of a small town outside Princeton, W.va., it didn't take long for Wimmer to find his niche once he flew North.

"He took to the state, he took to the depart­ment and he took to the students," Campbell said.

Since he has been here, Wimmer has kept him­self busy. Along with teaching three courses each semester, Wimmer has been an advisor for UAA's local radio station, KRUA, and for a local high school newspaper. He has given various lectures

throughout the community, including talks on medical ethics to the university's nursing pro­gram students.

This summer, however, after nine months of teaching and because of prior obligations, Wimmer will be returning to his job at the Register, where he has worked for 10 years.

"If wishes came true, I'd be here," he said. "But I made a commitment to the paper and I need to fulfill that commitment."

Wimmer began his journalism career before graduating from West Virginia University in 1976, where he wrote for the school paper. He worked briefly with the Bluefield Daily Telegraph and then put in 10 years at the Charleston (W.va.) Gazette. This June, he will return to his alma mater to receive the honor of Journalism Alumni of the Year.

Now that the time has come for him to leave the students and newfound friends of the Last Frontier, Wimmer returns to his preVi­ous life with a new dream.

"I am recharged," he said. "I have a list a mile long of things I can do to be a better teacher. I have learned so much."

Bonnie DoucettelThe Northem Light

1996-1997 Atwood Chair of Journalism

fE~i============================================~ UNIVERSITY 0 F ALASKA ANCHORAGE

T A Joutnsy on res T

s Too Ttial!: & T tiOOlwon!: of UAA I-lockay Coach Daan Talafou~ J

BY SASHA PK.EWITT

1!<...UE NO!<...1H STAFF

There was a time in his life when the only reason University of Alaska

Anchorage's head hockey coach Dean Talafous climbed out of bed each morning was the thought that his life could not possibly get any worse.

It shouldn't be like that for a man who had great success as a high school, college and professional player He led the University of Wisconsin to its first-ever NCAA championship, skating away with NCAA tournament MVP honors.

After that, he enjoyed a successful eight-year career in the NHL playing for the Atlanta Flames, Minnesota North Stars and New York Rangers.

After his playing days, Talafous went to the University of Minnesota as the top assistant coach helping the Golden Gophers to a pair of WCHA titles and four consecutive NCAA hockey final four appearances.

This guy had been an NCAA champion, played in the Stanley Cup finals and was about to take his first college head coaching job.

You would think things couldn't get any better. 1

In 1989, Talafous was hired by 1 the chancellor at the University of s Wisconsin-River Falls to clean up its infamous hockey program. He didn't expect it to be easy, but this was something else. A living, breathing, c wide-awake, it's-never-gonna end nightmare.

The tiny community of River Falls did­n't want anything to do with a coach whose teams played clean, worked a

hard and went to class. They wanted blood, violence, and glove-drOPPing,

42~

UM hockey head coach Dean Talafous talks to his team on the first day of practice

Photo by Bill Roth, Anchorage Daily NeI,

helmet-flying, jersey-ripping fig hts. Professors on campus organized

a petition drive trying to get him fired. If that wasn't bad enough, his entire team quit his first season.

"The coach that was at Wisconsin-River Falls before I came had a lot of success," Talafous said. He was charismatic. He captivated the whole community, but his style was brawling, physically intimidating and violent. But the people in that little town loved it."

Midway through his first season, Talafous found himself wide awake at two in the morning, agonizing about the mess his life had become.

"Why am I in this?" he asked himself. ''We're in last place, I hate to lose, I'm stressed to the max, and I don't have any friends."

Talafous knew how he wanted his team to play - with honor, with

~====== TRUE NORTH I SPRJNG 97

dignity, within the rules He was going to settle for less.

"If I can't succeed in coaching way, then I'd prefer not to be in game," Talafous said. "But I'm n going to compromise on principles"

Despite having achieved suee~

at every level of hockey, his team WI in last place. No one was coming the games. He was ready to quit ~ game he loved.

After suffering another crush' loss near the end of his seeD season, Talafous had a revelation.

He walked out into the eri evening airforthe long, mind-numbl five-hour bus ride home. His te sat exhausted and dejee Talafous gazed out the window a thought:

"Why am I killing myself2 Why a doing this to my team? I know the

is a better way but what if I try my ideas and we still lose?"

And then the revelation came. "What the hell," he thought. "It

can't get any worse." That night, Talafous filled an

entire legal notepad with his ideas and systems on how he felt hockey should be played.

"I think there comes a point where you just throw caution to the wind," Talafous said. "You just take a deep breath and say, 'I might as well try it.'''

The next day he implemented his system and slowly, the team began to win.

"I remember when he switched systems," said Chris Brown, a former UW-River Falls player. "Some of us thought the same thing .. .'this isn't going to work, why don't we try something new?' But I don't think that system worked the way he wanted it te until my senior year. It took that long to perfect"

In Talafous' final season at River Falls, 1995-96, the squad held t;he No.1 national ranking. It set league records for fewest goals allowed and averaged a stingy 2.6 penalty­minutes per game. His team led the nation in penalty-killing.

In 1996, Talafous was honored by the American Hockey Association with the Edward Jeremiah Trophy, given to the College Division National Coach of the Year In his last three seasons, he had a record of 66-23­10 and posted an awesome 13-3 record in the NCAA tournament.

His nightmare seemed a distant memory. Talafous had fought adver­sity and won. Then the head coaching position opened at UAA. It intrigued him. It was at the Division I level and part of the prestigious Western Collegiate Hockey Association.

'Why can't I do for UAA what I've done for River Falls?" he thought.

He applied for the position. Hockey wasn't always an integral

part of Talafous' life. Born in Duluth, Minn., on August 23, 1956, the first boy and the fourth of six children, Talafous skated on local ponds for

fun. "It was always figure skates or

something used from a garage sale," Talafous said. "I never played hockey. Ijust skated because it was fun."

An all-around athlete, Talafous played football and basketball. At 6­foot-4, if he'd been born in Indiana or Kentucky, Talafous might have become a hotshot basketball player. He used to drive his mother crazy shooting hoops for hours and hours.

Then, when he was 12, his family moved to Hastings, Minnesota. Here, a 20-minute drive to downtown Minneapolis, he found hockey.

"I don't know what it was, but the game was me," Talafous said. "Hockey fit."

From sunrise te sunset Talafous called the local rink home. It was here his career as a player and coach began.

Talafous' coaching philosophy is based on the inspiration, the motiva­tion and challenges of three men.

From high school coach Don Saatzer, Talafous learned a no-nonsense work ethic Saatzer demanded discipline and teamwork. His motte was "No excuses."

From the late University of Wisconsin coach, "Badger" Bob Johnson, Talafous learned the importance of staying positive and having fun.

From former New York Rangers General Manager/Coach Freddy Shero, Talafous learned the type of player it takes to win.

"He's a team guy," Talafous said. "He loves the game, he's a competitor and he accepts his role on the team."

Using these philosophies, Talafous hopes to re-create at UAA the success he achieved at River Falls.

Once again, Talafous was hired to resurrect a program and replace a popular head coach.

Initially, the fans welcomed him. Talafous is easy to like. He has an

oddball sense of humor and is rarely without a smile. Talk with him for a few minutes, look into his sparkling,

continued on pg. 55

Talafou~

College &. ProfM~ional CaMet Recotd &. Highlight~

1973 NCAA National Title &

Tournament MVP

1974-75 18 Games Played

1Goal & 4 Assists

1974-78 277 Games 90 Goals & 61 Assists

1978-80 123 Games Played

23 Goals & 36 Assists

1985 -89 Assistant Coach 2 WCHA Titles 4 NCAA Final Four Appearances

1989-96 Head Coach •.-_1­

119-105-20 Record 1994 NCAA Division III ~~~

National Title ~~ l1'~

;:;F================================================== U NIY ERS lTY 0 F ALASKA AN CH0 RAGE

Mt. Whitekay!::

The MQn Behind the ~I>Qrn

BY EILEEN CANNING CAMPBELL Penises of the Animal Kingdom, The this show offends anybody, we tha sign on the women's restroom you very, very much I"FOP-" Tf<....UE NOf<....TH

1 commands, "Lay or Bust", This is Mr, Whitekeys, Head Fol

Finally, after keeping the crowd and flamboyant owner of the Fly waiting, the creator and star of Night Club, and he's about to tell

t's Friday night in Spenard and tonight's show rises from a table at all about life in Alaska, devoted fans from allover the

the back of the club. Mr. Whitekeys has been shockin state are lined up outside the While struggling into a delighting and disgusting Alaska

Fly By Night Club, many making a year- two-sizes-too-small black tuxedo with his multimedia variety show f Iy pilgrimage to see the longest run- jacket, he threads his way between almost 15 years, His wickedly fun ning show in Alaska, that great tables to the stage, look at life in Alaska is now in bo Alaskan tradition-the Whale Fat form. "Mr, Whitekeys' Alaska Bizarr Follies Revue, published two years ago, is full

Ushers fill every seat, seating anecdotes, pictures and newspap strangers together to fill tables, Oil clippings from Whitekeys' extensi\ company executives and their fur- archive of Alaskan lore. It's also full draped wives sit across from con- insights about life on the las struction workers in Levis and plaid frontier by Alaska's nuttiest an flannel shirts. Longtime residents, most enigmatic celebrity. newcomers and tourists order beers, Whitekeys is notoriousl martinis and margaritas. The bravest tight-lipped about his past and h of the crowd indulge in appetizers private life, There is a stri from the only menu in town that taboo against callin features delicacies made with him anything b Spam. Spam Puffs, Spam the name h Nachos and Coconut Beer- coined for hims battered Spam are all half long ago. Even hi price if accompanied by a employees an bottle of champagne, and friends call hi are free with a $100 bottle "Keys". He has spe of Dom Perignon. the past 25 years car

The room, decked fully cultivating th out in tacky bar para- image of the eccentrl phernalia, is a carefully musician, of the "sleazy nightclu cultivated shrine to bad owner" with a twisted outlook. H taste. Inflatable beer bottles, Photo Courtesy ofAlaska Northwest Publishing plays the role extremely well. strings of tropical fruit Christmas Who is the man behind t lights and rows of plastic tinsel a platform plastered wit political Spam and the jokes? Who is this ma dangle from the ceiling. Posters of posters and tabloid centerfolds, who wants to be known only as M big-breasted women in tight T-shirts exclaiming, "Hillary adopts alien baby." Whitekeys? Friends, acquaintanc adorn the walls. There are also a few The star takes his seat behind the and Whitekeys himself will only reluc more elevated works of art: Our Lady keyboards, dons his glitter-covered tantly offer pieces of that puzzl of the Seward Highway, a female top hat and loosens his Mickey Mouse Fitted together they reveal a renai

torso sculpted of asphalt and tie. The spotlights hit the stage and, sance man, a man of many talent painted with a yellow dotted in a deep-chested master of achievements and intellectu

I 44 line, and a poster of ceremonies voice, he announces, "If interests.

4 ~ ========= TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

But tonight, onstage at the Fly By Night, he is Mr. Whitekeys the showman.

He and his cast of follies dance and sing original numbers written by Whitekeys himself Their crazy antics and bawdy lyrics evoke a scene from the Benny Hill Show. These people will say or do almost anything to get a laugh.

Alice Welling, dressed in a gaudy red sequined gown with a black feather boa draped around her shoulders, taps a tambourine on her hip. "Sourdough" Mike McDonald, in his uniform of overalls, flannel shirt and felt miner's hat, sits behind a drum set that he dwarfs with his impressive bulk. Ed Bourgeois wears a white polyester suit and a wig of high hair, a hairstyle composite of Elvis and fundamentalist preacher Jerry Prevo. He swivels and thrusts his hips, dancing like the King.

Whitekeys grabs his cordless microphone and steps from behind the keyboard to center stage. He talks eXCitedly, shaking his head and pumping his arms. He raves about a hotel and bar halfway between Nenana and Fairbanks, "one of Alaska's greatest watering holes," Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn. Every time Whitekeys mentions the name of the place, the crowd gleefully chimes in. "Skinny Dick's HALF WAY INNI" He encourages the audience to purchase souvenirs adorned with two humping polar bears, and is pleased to announce that Skinny Dick is moving his establishment to the town of Clear. The new inn will be

The plane in the side of the Fly By Night Club attests to the craziness that goes on inside.

called: Skinny Dick's Clear Inn. Whitekeys loves being part of a

place where people thumb their noses at tradition, where, as Whitekeys says in his book, people maintain their own standards of tact and taste. He loves living in a state where the most popular bumper sticker states, 'We Don't Give A Damn How They Do It Outsidel"

He came to Alaska in 1970 "It just happened by chance," he recalls. "For some reason, for about a year, every time I turned around I heard some tall tale from Alaska that was so outrageous that it could not possibly be true. And I realized that if even a quarter of the things I had heard were true, thiS was the craziest place I'd ever heard of in my lifel I had to come and see for myself"

It turned out to be all that he hoped. He got a job playing piano at Chilkoot Charlie's, one of the wildest bars in the state during those crazy

Photo by Kerre Martineau, True North Staff

Pipeline days "Back then the bars were full of partyers until five in the morning," Whitekeys says. "Playing in a band was like being in an endurance contest." The band members had to be creative just to keep going. They amused themselves by changing their name every hour. They were the Oosik Music Company; Bitchin' Ernie and the Grunts; or Rudy Palmtree and His Exotic Fruits

The owner of Chilkoot's was impressed with Whitekeys' nutty creativity and put him in charge of the advertising department

"I can remember hearing Whitekeys doing the ads for Chilkoot's on the radio when I was a little kid," says Tim McKittrick, the Follies staff photographer "The ads said, We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you l' He was kind of a legend even back then."

Whitekeys had become* a major player in what 45

~==============================================~ UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

McKittrick calls "Anchorage subculture." He became friends with Bill Sabo, an artist, University of Alaska Anchorage art teacher and, back then, a frequent visitor to Chilkoot Charlie's. Whitekeys and Sabo began an artistic collaboration. Together they created Our Lady of the Seward Highway and another female torso with nails protruding from the surface titled, "Not Tonight Honey. I Have a Headache." Whitekeys had found a kindred spirit, as well as another outlet for his creative genius.

Whitekeys remembers those days fondly. "It was crazy back then. Anchorage is slowly turning into a normal town, with normal people. But it's still pretty crazy. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't play by anyone else's rules. Everything that happens here is nuts. Everybody that lives here is nuts. It's just a hilarious place to live."

Whitekeys' show is a celebration of crazy people living in a crazy place. He sings about duct tape, moose nuggets, and Congressman Young (''What If Don Was One Of Us2") He rants about volcanic ash and dust, and awards a prize to the owner of the dirtiest car in the parking lot. He tells plenty of jokes about Teresa Obermeyer, the absurd politician who challenged Ted Stevens for his U.s. Senate seat. Obermeyer and Senator Stevens, played by Alice Welling and Ed Bourgeois, engage in debate Fly By Night style, singing at the top of their lungs. "Any bribe you can take, I can take faster. I can take any bribe faster than you l No you Can'tl Yes I can l No you Can't l YES I CANI"

And, of course, Whitekeys always includes plenty of references to his favorite on-going joke, his signature lunchmeat-Spam. He sings a song about judging the Spam recipe contest at last year's Alaska State Fair. He caused a scandal by refusing to taste an entry. "The rain poured down, the Ferris wheel revolved, it

was a shitty day for all involvedl" A picture of the

offending item flashes on

~

the screen. Spam chunks, in green Jello. The audience moans.

Whitekeys started his show as a last ditch effort to keep people coming to the club after the crazy oil boom days passed by. He had no idea it would be such a hit or would last so long, and he attributes its popularity to the fact that Alaskans love to laugh at themselves.

"I have this idea that Alaskans like to laugh at themselves a lot more than most people," says Whitekeys. "New Yorkers are like that, there's a lot of inside New York humor. People like to laugh at their whole situation there. There is some other regional

"I'M JUST A SLEAZY GUY

WITH A SLEAZY SHOW"

humor like that. But most people don't. People in Seattle don't. They take themselves very seriously. But I think Alaskans realize they're in a pretty ridiculous place to start with. And they love to laugh about it."

Whitekeys sure knows how to make 'em laugh. He is a keen observer of human behavior. He has a sharp eye, a wicked wit and a formidable intellect. McKittrid says Whitekeys' repertoire includes everything from dog poop to physics, and he can recall a particularly heated discussion they once had about an obscure mathematical formula.

The title of intellectual is a piece of the puzzle that doesn't exactly fit Whitekeys' Fly By Night image. Nor does his reputation as a shrewd businessman.

"He never talks about his private life," says Maggie Joyner, an ex-Fly By Night cocktail waitress. "But one insight into his character is that he is very, very serious about his

========= TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

business. You'd never suspect th side of him when you see him up stage," she says, "but he's t consummate businessman."

Without business training experience, Whitekeys built successful business in a spot whe several had failed before. But rejects the image of himself as businessman. "No, no," he says. ''I' just a sleazy guy with a sleazy sho

He keeps his private s shrouded in mystery by speaking riddles. He will give only this cl about his education 'let's just s that I am a scientist," he say "Science is my life"

That makes sense to Joyner. " likes to figure out formulas, to p together the right elements," sh says. "It's why he's so successful"

Whitekeys bobs across th stage playing the concertina a singing his Alaskan Polk "Wintertime, springtime, autumn an summer. Any time somebody do something dumb, an Alaskan do something dumberl" Slides flash illustrating the point. Two detou signs set up to point toward ea other; a water tower bearing th acronym PMS; a state highway sig pointing to the landfill, campgrou and correctional center, all in t same direction; and a local advertis ment for "Imitation Crap Meat Whitekeys roars, "And it isn't ev~

the real thing!" His delight in making fun

people may be one of the reaso Whitekeys is so protective of hi private life. "He says things in h show that offend a lot of people Joyner says. "I think he needs to pr tect himself."

Welling, fellow Folly, has different perspective.

"As Keys gets older," she say "more and more he wants to keep hi private life separate. When he wa young he spent so much tim promoting himself He's earned th right to keep his private lif separate." Alice waves her hand i the air like a game show hostess "But really," she laughs, "Keys'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~==I

46

middle-class life is not what's inter­esting about him, the fact that he takes the garbage out just like every­one else....'

Whitekeys agrees. "It's boring," he claims, but he doesn't budge an inch. He's a master of evasion. It's like a game with him.

"Here's an easy one. Where did you grow up?"

"Isn't it obvious that I never grew up?" he snickers.

"OK, where did you spend your childhood and adolescence?"

"Mostly in the yard," he fires back. The truth is, he spent a great

deal of time in the garage. Whitekeys had a "garage band" when he was in high school in Phoenix, and some of the members went on to become successful rock and roll musicians, playing for acts like Linda Rondstat and Jefferson Starship. Whitekeys is a natural musician. He taught himself to play the guitar, organ, piano and harmonica. His ear is as sharp as his

tongue and he has boasted that he can write a song about anything.

Did he ever dream of becoming a serious musician himself? "That's a contradiction in terms," is his only answer.

His love of music didn't keep him from earning straight A's and becoming valedictorian of his graduating class. He pursued a medical career, following in the footsteps of his father all the way to one of the premiere medical schools in the country, Duke University.

Whitekeys makes light of his high grades and educational achievements. And he does not care to discuss his stint at Duke. "It was a crappy schoo!," he sneers. "Nobody else would let me in." But it is obvious being in the South was a miserable experience.

"Nobody goes to the South because they want to go. And if they do they find out right away what the big mistake was. They have this very

odd attitude down there in the South. They have two divisions: you're either a Yankee or you're from the South. If you're from the West itjust doesn't fit into that whole scenario and they just don't, they literally don't know what to do about it. They just draw a blank. And if you are from the West, you really don't have a clue what this whole thing about the South is because you've never been a part of it. It was a whole area of the country that was desperately trying to hold on to the 1920s and not be dragged on into the 20th century. And they were fiercely proud of it."

North Carolina, the heart and soul of Southern manners and deeply rooted tradition. Whitekeys found the place unbearable. He bought a truck and drove as far away as he could get. He came to Alaska, a place where anything goes and anybody can fit in. A place where he does things his own way; where he has created his own traditions.

BP EXPLORATION (ALASKA) INC.

Congratulates the accomplishments of UAA's Journalism and Public Communications Department as they

begin their third successful year of publishing

rue Nort BP Exploration wishes you continued success and

reward in your educational and professional pursuits in 1997 and beyond.

• '4 BP EXPLORATION

~~~~~~~~~~~~===UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

Whitekeys not only fit in here, he thrived here, He thrived in the wildness of Alaska, a perfect place to rebel against expectations and pressure, In the pioneering spirit, he built a life and a successful business from scratch, He eventually married, had a daughter and settled into a nice neighborhood in Turnagain,

The Whitekeys tradition continues to grow, On almost every night of the year people line up outside the door to his bar, a place where they can laugh, eat Spam and celebrate his vision of Alaska, the wildest and craziest place in the world,

For the last number in Friday night's show Mr, Whitekeys rises

from his seat behind the keyboards and raises a harmonica to his mouth,

He begins to crank out a tune evoking the whistle and the

clacking wheels of the Alaska Railroad, Members of the

cast and staff fall in line behind him, and he leads

the human train off the stage and

through the bar, weaving

between tables full of clapping,

toe-tapping Alaskans, Pictures of breathtaking

scenery light up the screen, It is a rare moment of serious

music and thoughtful creativity, a piece with all the right elements, This is the man behind the Spam and the jokes, The man who wants to be known only as Mr, Whitekeys,

BY WILLIAM K. WOLF~UM

Fall-.. TIl-..UE NOIl-..TH

I've had it up to here, Yes, we in Alaska all live in iglo

They're not always comfortable, b they keep the polar bears out, We know there are millions of the running around here, eating touris and the occasional stray chicken,

How the polar bears find t tourists and the chickens is one the mysteries of our time, You kn it's completely dark in Alaska t 364 days a year, The sun only com out on July 13 or July 14 between 1:1 p,m. to 2:08 p,m" every year,

Unfortunately, few Alaskans g to see the sun even then because all the snow,

As everyone knows, appro mately 72,000 feet of snow falls' Alaska every week. This wrea havoc on everyone up here. So mUG

~========= TRUE NORTH I SPRING 97

I-Iete's: A Touch of Pute Alas:laln Attitude havoc that people try to take to the air and shoot all the wolves they can find. Luckily for the wolves, these people are generally eaten by polar bears who can't find any more tourists or chickens and are ravenous from the annual 53 minutes of sunlight.

Everyone who has ever called Alaska home has heard those questions from some well-meaning, yet moronic and irritating relative, friend or out-of-state liquor store attendant who checks your ID.

Is it really always dark up there? Do you live in an igloo? Do you see many polar bears? Yet, despite the quizzes we

Alaskans must endure every time we encounter someone from out-of-state, there are obviously unusual dilemmas that arise from living up here. These dilemmas are even more imposing when you factor

in trying to receive a college education in the Great White North.

Still, it is vital to note that Alaska is one of the few places where you can be late to class because you got stomped by a moose.

In fact, recently at the University of Alaska Anchorage, a couple of interesting scenarios have occurred.

First, there was a bear sighting on campus. Now, while just reading those words may not strike fear into your hear, you could always try reading them with a bear chewing on your collarbone.

As you can see, we were worried about nothing. In fact, they never even found the bear. Moose, on the other hand, 'are everywhere.

The beautiful, proud, majestic moose has several outstanding qualities - it weighs 2,000 pounds, is as dumb as a box of twigs.

Last summer, I was taking a walk

around campus, taking a break from my studies (read: slacking) when I came across a bull moose. We were in a deserted area, face to face, less than 50 yards from each other. Our eyes spoke our thoughts. My eyes said "Escape, head for the hills. Flee!" The stately beast's eyes said, "Duh." It was an awesome moment.

Yes, I can safely say, the main problem with going to school in Alaska is you can be eaten by a bear or stomped to death by a moose. These are much more serious prob­lems than having a biology professor who is a jerk.

Still, come to think of it, maybe having extreme wildlife situations happening around college campuses would help most college students. Universities could toss out a few cheetahs, jaguars, water buffaloes and wild pigs outside their campuses and I'll bet test scores would improve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ UNIVERSiTY OF ALA KA ANCHORAGE

Two hundred and sixteen road-miles northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, lies a vast area of land in Copper Valley. On this land, the Nelchina caribou herd graze, water-fowl and raptors nest, and Alaskans live in a handful of small villages. They are surrounded by open conifer forests, wetlands and a giant web of steel towers which stretch 70 feet into the sky-each one capable of transmitting 20 kilowatts of radiated power into the atmosphere.

On sunny days, the mesh of metal and wire sparkles against the backdrop of the Chugach Mountain Range. Locals, many who have toured the site, know only what they are told by scientists: It is a U.s. government research facility which will greatly improve communications. And it is harmless.

"This is a research instrument," says John Heckscher, the facility's program manager. "We are researching what the potential applications are of ionospheric affects. If people are worried about safety, they don't need to be."

The project, called HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research

some

TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

small town of Gakona to study theproperties of the upper

atmosphere, called the ionosphere. This

layer of airextends

from

Program), is being designed in the

...

strange anomalies which connected to the structure.

"There are people in the neighb hood who say they see strange ligh from time to time, hear stran noises and sounds. They say th animals act strangely. They a strangely," he says.

But LeMaster, who has tour the facility, doesn't believe t stories. "I consider the fact that live in the Copper Valley, whe everybody seems a little wei~

Besides, he says, visitors to HAA can walk around freely, look in cubby-holes and open drawe without resistance. There is nothi secret about it.

"I feel no more of a threat from than Ido from KCAM-the local rad station's tower," he says.

Nick Begich, author of "Ang Don't Play This HAARp," beca interested in the project in the ea 1990s. Begich says a tour of t structure won't turn up any obvio hazards because HAARP's dange are invisible.

"You would be looking at a instrument that has capabiliti that are unique. To see that, y would have to have the knowledge the science to know what you a looking at:' says Begich.

So Begich solicited the help radio engineers, electrical enginee and physicists to interpret th technical data for him. He says wh concerns him the most is HAARF ability for a more narrow beam.

Heckscher says that HAARF ability to use a narrower beam make a smaller hole, which will h faster.

Begich doubts scientists' claim that the hole made by HAARP is sel healing. "They assumed all of that,

about 35 miles above the earth's surface up to about 500 miles.

This "ionospheric heater" has

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~==I

BY KA.THLEEN MUP--.PHY FO~ T~UE NO~TH

more power than others in the world and has the ability to focus a more narrow beam in a more concentrated spot. But, scientists say, it will put less stress on the ionosphere. In the heating process, a hole is made in the ionosphere which eventually will heal itself.

Scientists say the main goal of HAARP is to improve communica­tions by using these beams to carry a signal from the towers into the ionosphere. The signal will then be picked up by receivers on the ground.

HAARP's funding began in the early 1990s when Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens slipped money for the project into a $25 million appropriations bill.

Like many other small, Alaskan communities, Gakona's population grows exponentially in summer months when the Copper River swells with salmon. Only about 50 year-round residents call Gakona home, and, during the past three years, their new neighbor has become controversia I.

Supporters of the project say it is an innocent research program, with the potential to serve both civil and defense systems by enhancing communication abilities and surveil­lance methods. But others, including

scientists, environmentalists and Native groups, are suspicious of the government's objectives and are worried about possible dangers to the environment and all living things.

Allen LeMaster owns Gakona Junction, a hotel and restaurant located about 10 miles from HAARP.

He says that some people in town allege they have seen and felt

too, with the ozone layer. They were It is the all-penetrating signal 1991. blasting rockets and satellites that has scientists excited, but also HAARP is far from complete, through it and burning up chunks of it has many people worried. If the signal however. When finished it will take up and they felt that it was mending can penetrate concrete, critics say, 23 acres of a 33-acre section of itself. They didn't realize there was an surely it can pierce human skin. Department of Defense land and will aggregate, deep depletion in ozone. By Several articles have been cost an estimated $150 million. radiating the ionosphere and creating published locally about the project. Through ajoint effort by research a hole, I don't think they really know... Most read like this one that labs in the Air Force, Navy, National what it will do," says Begich. appeared in the Valley Business News Science Foundation and eight

The upper atmosphere has in March 1995. "Information provided universities, including the University special properties in the North and to us suggests, that these low of Alaska Fairbanks, HAARP has South polar regions that make frequencies will be felt by many received at least an additional $50 HAARP's research possible. They are people and all living creatures in a million since the initial appropriation the same properties that cause the number of ways.... From a rumbling worked out by Stevens. aurora borealis. sensation and heart irregularities to Heckscher says the facility

"In these (polar) areas," explains brainwave disruptions." currently consists of 48 antennas, Heckscher, "there are electrically There also have been citizen's 18 of which are hooked up. When the charged currents flowing in the meetings about HAARP complete facility is finished, which scientists ionosphere. As these currents move with speculation that the govern- hope will be by the year 2003, it will around they generate electromag- ment is experimenting with a weapon. have 180 antennas, each capable of netic waves. It's just like the current Theories abound that HAARP will sending a 20,000 watt signal, a in a radio antenna. It would be like an wipe out enemies' communications, total of 3.6 megawatts. antenna in the upper atmosphere." control people's minds and detect The average FM radio station,

HAARP will send a radio signal incoming missiles. such as KWHL in Anchorage, sends into that antenna and change the The latter possibly has to do with approximately a 100,000 watt flow of the current. In essence, it will the HAARP site, which was originally signal. When complete, HAARP will be tap into the current and use it as a the location of a military surveillance able to send a signal that is about 30 transmitting signal. project called Alaskan Radar System times stronger than KWHL's.

HAARP sends a message from Over-the-Horizon Backscatter. According to a 418-page the towers in the form of high fre- Backscatter was being designed to environmental impact statement no quency waves. When these waves give the United States warning of a "significant impact" to mammals or reach the current in the ionosphere, Russian attack from the North. vegetation would result from HAARP they become extreme low frequency When the Cold War ended, the and changes to the atmosphere (ELF) waves. project was scrapped and the two would include temporary (a few

ELF waves can travel through warehouse-size buildings on the site seconds to a few hours) changes in anything, which means a submarine were abandoned. HAARP took over in the density, temperature and could receive them without surfacing, structure of the ionosphere. and communication with people in But, Begich says, if he made a underground tunnels would be possi- mistake in his research he wishes ble, HAARP scientists would point it out

ELF waves also can be used to do to him. what's called tomographic imaging- "So far nobody has done that. If using the penetrating signals to cre- there's an error in something we've ate a map of the underground. This presented we certainly would would allow scientists to detect acknowledge it" said Begich

'E==~=~=~e=~=;=r:=i~=:=d=r=e=s=o=ur=c=e=s=s=u=c=h=a=s==o=i1'======= ~UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

, .

BY DAMON MOR..R..IS TRVE NORTH STAFF

As I slowly watch the world disappear, I find myself thinking back over the last few years. The last three years, seven months and twen­ty-three days to be exact. It was something that had always been an impossibility, something that chal­lenged the minds of man as well as destroying all the known laws of nature. Forced to live like shrews, dig­ging tunnels to anyplace we wished to go, it was rare to see more than one or two people in a month. Were they all dead? Did they try to make it to higher ground? As I stare out the window of the one-hundred and twenty-first floor, the top floor of the World Trade Center in New York City, I think I may never know the answers to these questions.

I will always remember last Christmas. That was the last time I have seen another living soul. Her name was Diane, and she was one of the tunnelers. She told me all about them, groups of them tunneling through the snow looking for some­thing. She never told me what it was, but I suspected she did itjust for the pure pleasure of movement.

Movement is something that I used to take for granted. Sometimes I sit here in this bUilding for hours thinking of the good old days when I could go pretty much anywhere that I wanted. All that has changed now with my frozen seclu­sion in this building. Excuse me for changing the subject. Sometimes my mind wanders.

Diane stayed with me for about a week, telling me stories of

the living, and even some of the dead. You see, the tunnelers

52 are today's nomads. They

~

tunnel through the snow, some with mechanical devices like snow blowers from hell, some with custom made shovels, and even some, so she claimed, using their bare hands. It was nice to talk to another person, and she even took me out on a tun­neling expedition.

We started out one morning, although as Diane always used to say iWhat is time to a tunneler?! Her shovel was a marvelous instrument. It was something she said she made when she encountered an old shop­ping mall. Back in those days she was using an old military shovel to move around. This way seemed much more efficient.

It looked kind of like a mix between a child's bicycle and a threshing machine. The frame of the contraption was an old Huffy moun­tain bike, complete with 10 gears. On the front was a blade from a garden mulcher which raised and lowered above her head on a track she rigged up in a hardware store. The snow-bike (as she called it) had two support wheels from a kids BMX bike on the side which looked like big training wheels. The whole thing was powered by the pedals, although how she got it to work 1(11 never know.

As we made our way through the snow her legs literally flew on those pedals. Moving at about 100 feet an hour Diane kept at a pace I could never hope to attain. We tun­neled for about two days when I decided to run back to the Center and get a few things I had left there. At that point I wanted to travel through the snow and never look back. All that changed after I gath­ered all my belongings (that I wanted to bring) and headed out the door. At least I planned on heading out the door. The slamming of the door on the way in must have collapsed the

tunnel because alii could see out window was white. I have never s another of the tunnelers since, bu still think about them all the time. can imagine hundreds of them tu neling through the city, running in each other every now and the Maybe the day will come when I another person, but I am starting doubt it.

It has been a month since top of the last bUilding visible fr my windows disappeared under t vast sheet of white. Will it nev stop? I fear that it will only be ana er few weeks before I will never 5

the sky again. Am Ithe last to look this monstrosity?

I remember well the day it began. Seven months and twent three days ago.

Itls snowingI It seems like' never snows in New York City. A that time I loved the snow, but how would learn to hate it. Like any cit bombarded with those slippery lit white flakes, many of our citie schools and businesses closed do for a snow day. Kids could be fou on any street, bUilding snowme making snow angels or just throwin hardpacked balls of the white stu at each other. I remember going bed happy, and wondering if it woul all be gone by the next day.

When I woke up that nex morning I was surprised to see tha the snow had not all melted, qUi the opposite. The white powder COy

ered the streets, the cars, even pe pie who walked slowly down the roa IHoly shit!i I thought, IThis NEVE happens in New York.i Not excited a all about going out to shovel off porch and walkway, I decided to tur on the news. Every channel was fill with reports of snow. India, Mexic China, even from the Caribbean, it wa unprecedented. Many of these

RUE N RTH / S RING 7 i55!!i!!!!!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i!!!!ii!!!!!!!!i==t

1-- 1­

" "

places had never had snow in the unheard of. The scientific world was world were filled with fuzzy satellite recorded history of mankind. in an uproar. They had no idea what images of unending cloud coverage.

As it turned out, it was snow­ the cause of this was. Over the next There wasn't a single break in the ing everywhere in the world! This was few days newspapers all over the clouds, anywhere in the world.

I/Iustration By Sam Trout for True North

-================================================= UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

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"

.'

As the months traveled on and content to stay inside, the snow continued to fall the people I used to go down to the of the world started to loose twenties floors, You know, 21, 22, 23, contact with each other, First the floors around there, and I would take telephone systems went down, Next a Magic Marker and make a line where it was TV and radio broadcasts that the snow was and then wait two disappeared, Every now and then you hours, After those two hours I would would see a balloon or a helicopter fly make another line and measure the by, but even this was short-lived, new coverage, My findings were

Let me take a minute to tell consistently an inch ever two hours. you of myself My name is Pierre, and A foot a dayl I kept recording the new I am the sole resident of the World snow in hopes that the global storm Trade Center. At one time I was the was receding. A foot a day. As my night janitor, but that was in the findings were consistent over the days of business that used to exist course of three months, I gave up. in the world. You may ask yourself Every now and then I still measure why I chose to stay here in the the level, Of course it is up to the Center instead of going home to my hundredth floor now, instead of the family. Well, I have no family, at least twenties of long ago. none here in the States. Besides, I have yet to tell you of the who would have thought it was going building in which I now reside. One to snow forever? hundred and twenty-one floors.

People tried to stay ahead of There are 2,459 offices, 126 men's the snow for the first few weeks. restrooms, 130 women's restrooms, Shoveling and ploWing and trying to 121 storage rooms, 2 apartments, a go about their business as if things kitchen, a gift shop, a lobby, and the were the same as always. Most of boiler room. I have counted many them gave up as the top of their little times. For about a year and a half I houses disappeared under the white amused myself by going through the blanket, building room by room and looking

Maybe I should consider through all the different stuff. I have myself lucky. Lucky to have this huge found everything from candles to building to myself Lucky that the cigarettes to some pervert's cafeteria has enough non-perishable obscene magazines. foods to last me 10 years, and most I remember the day I found the of all, lucky to see open air, Without glass eggs. There were hundreds of that open air I think I might have gone the things on shelves allover a room, insane long ago. ranging from cheap looking round

As I sit here I find myself blobs to intricate blown and thinking back to long ago. How silly hand painted masterpieces, There our efforts seem now. I can must have been about 200 hundred remember going up to the top of this of the suckers. It took me three gigantic building to keep ahead of the hours to haul them all up to the top snow. I would shovel four times a day. floor, I then spent the rest of the

This worked fine until my shovel day drinking champagne that I found broke. After that I just and tossing the eggs down the ~ sealed off the roof and am elevator shaft Consistently it took

y~~=TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97

1-­

"

. .'

about 25 seconds until the shattering sound of their arrival at the bottom echoed its way back to the top.

For my personal chamber I chose the apartment on the top floor. It must have belonged to someone very important, as it is a very impressive setup. Leather couches, waterbed, a personal bar, and a fireplace. That fireplace is the reason I have lived so long. I have cleared out the chairs and table from the bottom 25 floors for firewood,

As I glance up from writing in this journal, I notice that it is getting dark out. I think the nights are the worst part. With no electricity, hell, no buildings even sticking out of the snow, the darkness is unbroken. The clouds block all light from the stars and the moon. Sometimes I even get scared of being alone forever in the dark.

The last flashlight I was able to find in this building died a month ago, No matter, tomorrow will be the same as today. Lonely, snowy, and boring as hell. I think maybe when the snow gets up to these top windows, I will be tired of living.

". ,

..

1-­

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- - ------------_.~---~

Ta I afo Ug: A Joutnoy On I co continued from pg. 39

mischievous blue eyes and he makes you feel like you can be or do anything.

However, the honeymoon appears to be over.

Eight players, some on athletic scholarship, were either cut from the team or left for personal reasons. Several fans sent letters to the local paper criticizing Talafous' on- and off-ice decisions.

Talafous isn't bothered by all the hoopla. He knows what it takes to win. The fans will just have to be patient and trust Talafous' coaching abilities.

In his first season at UAA, despite a 9-23-4 record, the Seawolves snapped a 25-game winless streak on the road. The team set a WCHA record for fewest

penalty minutes and was among the nation's leaders in fewest goals allowed per game.

DraWing on his college and professional experience, Talafous is convinced he can win a national title at UAA.

"If I didn't think I could win a national championship in Alaska, I would never have taken this job," Talafous said.

Recently divorced, Talafous has two children, Peter, 16 and Amanda, 17. Leaving them in Wisconsin was difficult.

"It's not ideal, but I'm not so sure ideal is coming home everyday at five," Talafous said. "(Now) when I'm with my kids we really share our lives with each other... lt's quality time so

it's not all that bad." Ironically, he almost didn't take

the job. While flying up to Anchorage for the interview, he looked out the window at the snow-capped, jagged mountain peaks and thought to himself, "There's no way I'd take this job. It's too far. I don't know anything about it. It's not me."

A couple days later, there was no way he wouldn't stay.

"I saw right away, from the community and their interest in hockey and their willingness to get involved ...that this is what I was looking for," he said.

These days, Talafous finds climbing out of bed is much easier.

"""'artners in Alas a1s ....uture

ARea Alaska, Inc.

EDUCATION

. .. :-.-.. ,.,....,fiO a.a ::~ ATU ~l'. "'" OW' •• TELECOMMUNICATIONS

TechnoJogy for Alaska's Future.

T tUG NOtth ~tQff To our readers:

Welcome to the third issue of True North magazine published by students in the Department of Journalism and Public Communications at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Take a look at the faces te the left of this column. There stand the men and women who will be running this state soon. They are Alaska's youth, filled with ideal and promise. They proved their worth in this project.

I used a team concept in building the structure for this class. There is no editer No advertising director. The work happened because teams of students came together te embolden idea. They teok to the streets to sell ads. They studied other

,....-----------------------......1 magazinesPATR..lCIA CULLEENY Production,Visuals, Advertising

MELISSA EICHHOLZ Content, Editing, Production

LAUR..IE ER..ICKSON Visuals, Production, Content

LAR..A GISS-STONE Visuals, Production, Advertising

LYR..A J. GOR..DON Visuals, production

JENNIFER.. HAR..R..INGTON Marketing, Advertising, Juried Exhibition

KER..R..E MAR..TINEAU Visuals, Production Administration

Z.ULEIKA MASON Advertising, Marketing Juried Exhibition

JED MILLER.. Content, Editing

DAMON MOR..R..1S Content, Editing

SASHA pR..EWln Administration, Production, Editing

JILL SHAW Content, Editing, Visuals

CAR..OL VYSOKY Advertising, Marketing, Accounting

TER..R..Y WIMMER.. Atwood Professor

Contributors: ANNABELLE ALvIn Chinihuk: Brother of the Moose

EILEEN CAMPBELL Whitekeys: The Man Behind

the Spam

KATHLEEN MUR..PHY HAARP

SAM TR..OUT Snowbound illustration

WILLIAM K. WOLFR..UM

Opinion

Thank you

Nick Ahnen Lee Gorsuch

AI Bramstedt Jr Mel Kalkowski

Larry Campbell Roberta Morgan

April Carter Larry Walker

Fuller Cowell Roberta Weaver

Doug Fesler Anchorage Daily News

for style guides. This was not the oretically work. This was practical, "get in it up to your elbows, we've got a magazine te put out" work.

I drove them hard. I felt they needed the real-life experience of deadlines and editer's expectations. And that they got. Toward the end of this process, with the angst of deadlines high on everyone's list, a note appeared on our message center. It called me ''Terrory.''

I was honored. A little bit of terror about the possibility of failure goes a long way. I never believed they would fail, but quite the opposite. I wanted them te learn how much they could succeed. And what success they have had.

A content theme developed when we decided to focus on what the future holds for UAA students. Chancellor Lee Gorsuch came te our class for an almost two-hour question session about the future of this institution. His sound advice for students and the Anchorage community alike can be found inside these pages.

We started something new this year, too. We ran an aggressive marketing campaign to encourage students from all areas of the campus to submit their works in the arts and letters. The staffers spent long hours arguing the merits of one short stery verses another. They debated art and the influence of art. It was a learning experience for us and we hope for the students who submitted entries. The end result is the True North Juried Exhibition in the center of this issue.

When we began this class, we discussed what our mission should be. The conclusion was that the magazine needed te be about UAA, its students, its staff and its future.

The future is here. It's also in the photo to the left. I can state with a great amount of pride that I believe Alaska's future is in the grandest of hands.

Terry Wimmer Atwood Professor

L.-------------U-N-rV-ER-S-I-T-Y-O-F-A-IIL=A=S=K=A=A=N=C=H =O=R=A=G=E===~

FAREWELL What advice would he give young people today

who are beginning their careers in Alaska? Robert Atwood's answer to the question came with

simple words from a complex man. Do it. Have the courage to persist in what you believe. Overcome the obstacles that rise from those who challenge change.

Before a roomful of young journalists, Robert Atwood spoke the essence of his success. He did it.

His career in Alaska is that of legends. He built the Anchorage Times, making it a voice of Alaska, one unafraid of challenging presi­dents, senators and the common man alike.

He believed Alaskans deserved the benefits of statehood and he let no one, absolutely no one, impede that dream. He believed a strong military presence was good for Anchorage and good for Alaska. He let no one forget.

He saw benefit in the development of Alaska's natural resources and he never let that belief wither from lack of voice. He was a journalist who found it his duty to be that voice.

He believed in keeping that voice alive, and founded the Atwood Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Anchorage so profes­sionals can teach young minds the ways of the field.

Last September, he spoke at a luncheon meeting of the Alaska Press Women. His hands shaking, his gait unsteady, his viewpoint rock solid. The secret to his success, he said, is that he found the courage to do, to follow through on his beliefs of right and wrong.

Robert Atwood's legacy is best measured by not only what he did, but why he dared to try, and how he persevered.

He was born to will and determination. He lived in the hope and promise of this great land. He carved his dreams in bold idea.

Doing, he knew, was the soul of thought.

Robert Atwood March 31, 1907 January 10, 1997

~~~= TRUE NORTH / SPRING 97 =================================tl

Pickup a . schedule· and

look us Up.on the web at .

www.bulletin.alas a.edu ph()ne:786-6721

·lI~~~~A~A~~

Mapping Alaska's Future"l.J·....:~

Most people think Alaska's

future lies solely in our natural

resources. UAA believes the

ideas, goals and achievements of

our students will shape Alaska's

future.

Education is the key to the

next century. At UAA we're

proud to provide educational

opportunities to the people of

Alaska. Life takes you in many

directions, UAA is the compass

that can guide your journey.

lI~~~A~A~ .~FM4t