Jessica Kalarchik was an Army First Sergeant who deployed with me and the Alaska Army National Guard’s 1-297th infantry battalion to Kosovo 2019-2020. 1st Sergeant Kalarchik presented as a very masculine man, and I never suspected that she was a trans woman. She was medically retired after 31 years in the military during her next deployment to Pola…

The Banning family consists of: Lindsey, clinical psychologist, mom Charlie, age 15, non-binary trans masculine Ezzy, age 12, sister Earl, neuropsychologist in the Air Force at Elmendorf, dad This episode is part of a series on trans rights. The inspiration for these interviews is three bills currently moving through the Alaska State House: HB 183 …

Aaron Poe has been a wildlife biologist in Alaska since 1998. He is the father of a trans daughter in the Anchorage School District, and today we discuss that experience. This episode is the first in a series on trans rights. The inspiration for these interviews is three bills currently moving through the Alaska State House: HB 183 which bans trans…

Alaska State Senator James Kaufman represents the Abbott Loop and Hillside areas of Anchorage. Although in his teens and 20s he was a guitar player & song writer for several successful rock bands, James began earning real money as an aircraft mechanic in Houston, Texas. He quickly found himself taking on bigger and bigger management positions which…

Reggie Joule of Kotzebue is a former Alaska State House Representative and the former Northwest Arctic Borough Mayor. He is listed in the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame as: “the greatest practitioner of the blanket toss in the long history of the World Eskimo Indian Olympics.” His skill in that Alaska Native sport led to his appearance on the Tonight S…

Judge Sharon Gleason is the Chief Judge of the United State District Court for the District of Alaska. She was appointed by Barack Obama in 2012 after serving 11 years as a judge on the Alaska Superior Court. She is the first woman to serve as a federal judge for Alaska. On March 29, 2024, she released a 29-page decision against the fishing of the …

With over 20 years of experience in Alaska's guardianship system Lisa Warzonek has been our statewide guardianship compliance officer since the position was created four years ago. A guardian is a person that the court appoints to manage the affairs of another person. In spite of the sensationalized negative headlines we see, most guardians do a di…

The Mobile Home Owner Town Hall Episode Today our show is about mobile home parks. As the state representative for house district 20, I have several mobile home parks in my district. Mobile home owners face unique challenges: they own their home but must rent the land on which their home sits. Every year that rent goes up – yet the value of their h…

Charisse Millett is a born and raised Alaskan who represented the Abbott Loop area of Anchorage in the Alaska State House from 2009 to 2019. During her legislative career she served as both the House Republican majority and minority leaders. In this episode we discuss: growing up Alaska Native in Anchorage serving as chief of staff to Rep. Vic Kohr…

Chelsea Foster of Anchorage is a director on the board of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association and a long-time cannabis advocate. She is COO for Birch Alaskan Naturals CBD, and a consultant for the Alaskan cannabis industry. She has successfully pursued regulatory and statuary changes for the Alaska cannabis industry with a focus on social equ…

Facing Foster Care in Alaska (FFCA) is a non-profit group made up of folks with lived experience in the foster care system. As former foster youth themselves, these individuals can offer expertise to make Alaska's system better from the inside out. Today on the show we hear from the most recent FFCA board president, Angel Gonzalez, Mateo Jaime, Kxl…

Keri Ladner is the author of the 2024 book End Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon. She earned her doctorate in Divinity from the University of Edinburgh and much of her doctoral research focused on researching the theological roots of Jerry Falwell, the co-founder of the Moral Majority. She exposes the racism, contempt for the poor, an…

Jena Crafton is the chair of the Governors Council on Disabilities and Special Education. She has been a vocal advocate for people with disabilities since she was young as Crafton has developmental disabilities herself. We discuss her childhood including how she learned about her own disabilities and what she most wants the community at large to un…

Ed Wesley was born in Bolivar County, Mississippi, on January 9, 1951. He moved to Fort Greeley, Alaska, in 1973 after being drafted into the Army. His wife joined him shortly thereafter and the two raised all five of their children here and the two have never lived outside Alaska since. He was elected president of the Anchorage NAACP in 1981 and l…

Today's episode is about Alaska's Charter Schools which were recently ranked #1 in the country. The lead author of the study is Dr. Paul Peterson of Harvard University. Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and Director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoove…

AK State Senator Shelley Hughes of Palmer moved to Hoonah, Alaska, in the late 70s as a young adult to help establish a religious community with her parents. We talk about that experience, as well as her travels around Alaska with her husband and young family, and ultimately how she ended up involved in Alaska politics. We also discuss some of her …

This is an episode of East Anchorage Matters. Representative C. J. McCormick of Bethel is 26 years old and the youngest member of the Alaska State House. Prior to serving in the legislature, he served on city council and as vice mayor of Bethel. Bethel is the 8th largest city in Alaska with just over 6,200 residents. Today, we discuss why his paren…

Lesil McGuire is a lifelong Alaskan, former state senator, women’s and rural rights advocate, and mother. This episode is the premier of season 2 of Rep. Gray's legislative podcast: EAST ANCHORAGE MATTERS. Lesil lives in Anchorage and works as a consultant in the aerospace, technological innovation and Arctic policy sectors. We discuss why she beca…

Daughter of Alaska Legend Jalmar "Jay" Kerttula -- the only person to ever serve as both speaker of the house and president of the senate -- Beth Kerttula is the former Director of the National Ocean Council, where she led the implementation of the United States National Ocean Policy, including the creation of the first two U.S. regional marine pla…

Ben Walker is a 7th grade science teacher at Romig Middle School, and he was also Alaska’s teacher of the year in 2018. Ben is on the show today because, after listening to some of East Anchorage Book Club's previous podcast episodes discussing the Alaska education system, he felt an important perspective was missing. He wanted to share what it’s l…

The executive director of Hope Community Resources is Michele Girault. Hope Community Services is a non-profit organization that provides services and supports to people of all ages and abilities who experience intellectual or developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injury, or other mental health challenges. Michele started working there 40 yea…

New general director of Anchorage Opera Ben Robinson directed the recent production of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. We talk about the bold choices he made with that production. We also discuss Anchorage Opera’s upcoming production of Scalia/Ginsburg which explores the friendship between the late US Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and …

Author Tom Kizzia is most well-known for his best-selling 2013 book, Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier, which was chosen by the New York Times as the best true crime book set in Alaska. Kizzia began his life in our state in the late 70s as a Homer-based journalist at the Homer News. In the early 80s he w…

University Area Community Council President Tyler Robinson is a city planner who has been in Anchorage since 2005 and working for Cook Inlet Housing Authority for over a decade. He is CIHA's Vice President of Community Development and Real Estate. Many have noticed the new Cook Inlet Housing Authority buildings in Muldoon, Mountain View, and Spenar…

East Anchorage Assemblywoman Karen Bronga is a lifelong Alaskan and former school teacher who has spent most of her life in East Anchorage. She was elected in a special election to replace Forrest Dunbar when he was elected to the Alaska State Senate. Today, we discuss her background, how she got to the assembly, and what this last year has been li…

Dr. Diane Hirshberg is the Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage. We talk about her backstory and how she made it to Alaska, but also her research into rural education and potential solutions for improving it. This episode marks a milestone because, after including the interviews from…

Alaska State House Representative Louise Stutes of Kodiak is the former Speaker of the House and the current Minority whip. We talk about her family’s long history in Alaska, why she ended up in Kodiak, and how she initially got involved in politics as a member of the Kodiak Borough Assembly. We also discuss her decision as a Republican to become p…

Dr. Jharrett Bryantt is the superintendent of the Anchorage School District (ASD). He grew up in San Antonio and then went to college on the East Coast. He returned to Texas for his first teaching job at a charter school in Houston where he taught math as part of Teach for America which is a national program that supports college graduates to becom…

Former Texas House Representative Glen Maxey was born near a refinery in Baytown, Texas, in 1952. His first job was working in a traveling rodeo and his first serious foray into politics was as a student at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, where he led the charge to allow alcohol to be sold in that formerly dry county. Although he was al…

Amanda Metivier is the director of the Alaska Child Welfare Academy at UAA and is a board member and co-founder of Facing Foster Care in Alaska. She and her husband are foster parents who have provided homes for many youth over the past 15 years – many of them teenagers since both Amanda and her husband were foster youth themselves and know the dif…

Keeley Olson has been the executive director of STAR since 2016. She has spent all of her adult life working with the survivors of sexual assault – from her college days in Montana through her time at STAR which began in Anchorage in 2007. STAR was founded in 1978 to respond to the needs of survivors of sexual assault. It also provides prevention a…

Colleen Mondor is a freelance investigative journalist who lives part-time in Alaska. She is a pilot and primarily writes about aviation safety. After running dispatch operations for four years at a Fairbanks-based commuter and charter airline, she wrote a memoir largely based on that experience, The Map of my Dead Pilots: The dangerous game of fly…

Today’s episode is a little bit different. I held an Alaska house district 20 constituent town hall on Zoom regarding renters' rights. According to Alaska Economic Trends magazine, the average rent in Anchorage went up by 14.2% from 2021 to 2022, and then rose an additional 5% on top of that this year. The median rent in Anchorage is $1,532 a month…

North Anchorage Assembly Member Daniel Volland was born and raised in Washington State, and began coming to Alaska regularly in 2016 to do remote work as an optometrist. After relocating permanently to Anchorage in 2019, he became very active very quickly in local politics and successfully ran for the newly established 12th seat on the Anchorage As…

The Missing, Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit (MMWIG2S) Alaska Working Group was founded by today's guests Kendra Kloster and Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok (who will be referred to by her Inupiaq name Aqpik throughout today’s interview). The MMWIG2S Alaska Working Group is an Indigenous-led consortium that is supported by the partner orga…

Dr. Dayna DeFeo is the director of the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and a research assistant professor at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Dr. DeFeo’s primary research interests include college and postsecondary transitions, particularly in career and technical field…

In honor of Filipino American History Month our guests are two professors from the University of Alaska Anchorage: Drs. EJR David and Gabriel Garcia. This past session House Bill 23 sponsored by Representative Genevieve Mina passed the Alaska legislature unanimously and was signed into law by Governor Dunleavy. This bill makes October officially Fi…

David Ramseur has been a major figure in Alaska politics for over 30 years. He served as press secretary, communications director, chief of staff, and foreign policy advisor to Alaska Governors Steve Cowper and Tony Knowles and to Anchorage Mayor and U.S. Senator Mark Begich. Today we are discussing Ramseur’s 2017 book Melting the Ice Curtain which…

Alaska House Minority Leader Calvin Schrage was born and raised in Anchorage. He chose not to follow his father into firefighting unlike his younger brothers. At 32, he is one of the youngest members in the Alaska legislature, and the youngest by far serving in a leadership position. We discuss why he didn’t become a firefighter, how he ended up re…

Bob Loeffler is a professor at UAA’s Institute of Social And Economic Research (ISER), where he teaches courses on the mining industry as well as natural resource policy and public land management. Before ISER, he worked for Alaska’s department of natural Resources initially in 1996 as coordinator for the permitting of large mines, and for seven ye…

Alaska State Senate President Gary Stevens has been working on a play about US Senator Ted Stevens for almost a decade. That play Uncle Ted premiered at Cyrano’s theater in Anchorage on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023. I was at opening night, and we discuss the play and Gary’s relationship with Senator Ted Stevens as well as Ted’s oldest son Senator Ben Ste…

Dr. Travis Hedwig is the assistant dean of the division of population health sciences at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. He is co-editor of a forthcoming book entitled Housing, Homelessness, and Social Policy in the Urban North. The book brings together leading scholars from Alaska, the Canadian north, and Greenland who examine the factors con…

Dr. Mike Jones, an economist at UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), has focused much of his research on food security and food transportation in Alaska. He is a member of the legislature’s food strategy task force where he has served on the infrastructure and transport subcommittee. Born and raised in northern Florida, he earned…

Homer-based author Tom Kizzia is most well-known for his best-selling 2013 book Pilgrim’s Wilderness, which was chosen by the New York Times as the best true crime book set in Alaska. Kizzia moved to Homer in the mid-70s where he took over the Homer News. In the early 80s, he was hired by the Anchorage Daily News and while working for that paper he…

Ivy Spohnholz is the Alaska State Director of The Nature Conservancy, which is a global environmental organization and the largest non-profit organization by assets in the Americas. Their mission is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Prior to becoming the Alaska director of the Nature Conservancy, Ivy had served three terms…

Representative Alyse Galvin represents Midtown Anchorage in the Alaska State House, but she is most well known for her two runs for the US House in 2018 and 2020 against long-term Congressman Don Young. Earning 46.7% of the vote, she came closer to defeating him than any other challenger in his 49-year tenure. A third generation Alaska, Alyse's chi…

Anchorage Assembly Member George Martinez was raised in Brooklyn, NY, as part of the hip hop community and made a name for himself as a rapper and lyricist at an early age. Growing up in the 80s,he was politicized by the anti-welfare rhetoric of President Reagan’s administration. That experience eventually led him to run for political office, and h…

Tiffany Hall was born and raised in Anchorage, and, since 2016, has served as the executive director of Recover Alaska. That organization works across the state to reduce not only excessive alcohol use but also to reduce the harms that come from that excessive alcohol use. Tiffany is sober herself, and we discuss her story and how she ended up as h…

Fairbanks Senator Scott Kawasaki was born in Japan to a Japanes-American father and a Chinese-American mother. He moved to Fairbanks halfway through kindergarten and has basically been there ever since. He was elected to the Fairbanks City Council when he was just 22 years old making him the youngest person ever elected to that body; and in 2006 he…

Anchorage politico Anna Hutchinson has for the past few years been a major fundraiser for political campaigns in Anchorage and is now managing campaigns herself. In 2021 she came to Anchorage to work for her college friend Forrest Dunbar’s mayoral campaign. The plan was to be here for just a few months, but she has stayed on to work on other politi…