Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Forum Podcasts

Send us Fan Mail Peg Tileston has been active in Alaska public policy and conservation issues since arriving in the state 51 years ago. She is on the board of Alaska Common Ground, a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to build coalitions and consensus on matters of importance to Alaskans. She is also on the board of Trustees for Alaska, a non-profit legal organization. Peg spen...

Send us Fan Mail Rev. Lise Adams Sherry  is the settled minister for the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.  She grew up in Oregon as part of a blended family.  Her main interests growing up were dancing and theatre--she performed a lot!  Another highlight was learning French and spending her junior year in France. Lise is married to Nelson, and together, they have two boys (Kennen and D...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Stephen Haycox is a distinguished professor of history emeritus, a respected author of numerous books and essays, and a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News. In 2003, he was named the Alaska Historical Society's Historian of the Year and received the Alaska Governor's Humanities Award.  Before his retirement, Prof. Haycox taught history for over 40 years at the Uni...

Send us Fan Mail Jory Knott is the Executive Director of the Alaska Innocence Project. A lifelong Alaskan, he earned an interdisciplinary degree in art and music at UAA, then moved to Oregon, where he composed music, wrote grants for creative projects, and apprenticed in stone masonry. He became the operations manager for a masonry company with stone-cutting operations and rock quarries across the...

Send us Fan Mail Forrest Dunbar -  -  was elected to the Alaska State Senate in 2022 as a Democrat representing District J, the East Anchorage, Campbell Park, UMED, College Gate, Airport Heights, Mountainview, and Russian Jack neighborhoods. After challenging Don Young for Alaska’s Congressional seat in 2014, Forrest served on the Anchorage Assembly from 2016 to 2023, including two stints as Assem...

Send us Fan Mail Aaron Legget was born in Anchorage and is Dena’ina Athabascan. He currently serves as the President/Chief of the Native village of Eklutna. Aaron is the Senior Curator of Alaska History and Culture at the Anchorage Museum and serves as an advisor to the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Center. He is a member of the Alaska State Museum Collections Committee and the Alaska Native Herita...

Send us Fan Mail Daniel Bentle serves the Food Bank of Alaska as its Chief Philanthropy Officer, leading fundraising, donor relations, marketing and communications, and volunteer efforts to support the organization’s mission to eliminate hunger in our state. Daniel came to the Food Bank from the private sector in 2024, having worked in early and growth-stage ventures in agriculture, community and...

Send us Fan Mail John-Henry Henkendorn is is the managing partner of the Anchorage-based political consulting firm Ship Creek Group.  He has worked on over 100 Alaska political campaigns and initiatives in the last 12 years, helping launch Ship Creek Group in 2015 and working as Policy Director to Governor Bill Walker (I-AK) and Aide to Airbnb founder and CEO Brian Chesky. John-Henry graduated fro...

Send us Fan Mail Bridget Jochum is the Development and Operations Support Coordinator at the Alaska Literacy Program. She supports the fundraising and communications arm of ALP’s programming. Bridget previously worked in refugee resettlement services for the State of Alaska, with many of those same resettled refugees now attending classes at ALP.  She was a Jesuit Volunteer AmeriCorps with Catholi...

Send us Fan Mail Bretwood "Hig" Higman is a geologist who lives in Seldovia. After graduating from high school there, he spent 13 years in college and grad school, studying glass art and walking from Seattle to the Aleutians before moving back to Seldovia. He earned his bachelor’s degree in geology at Carleton College in Minnesota. Then, in 2007, he earned his PhD in geology at the Unive...

Send us Fan Mail Bob Loeffler is a Research Professor of Public Policy at the UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research, where he teaches and completes research on Alaska's economy, fiscal issues, and natural resources.  Along with Dr. Matt Berman, he teaches Econ 300, The Economy of Alaska, at UAA.  It is an excerpt from this course that he is presenting at AUUF.  He is also a partner in...

Send us Fan Mail This morning's scheduled speaker was unable to make it to the Forum and is looking forward to being rescheduled. John McKay (our regular host) miraculously rescued the Forum and turned it into an "open forum," allowing folks to participate physically or virtually (via the marvels of modern science—Zoom). We took the opportunity to discuss what was on people's m...

Send us Fan Mail Corey Aist is president of the Anchorage Education Association. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Bachelor of Science in Child Development in 1992. In 1993, Corey and his then-girlfriend, now wife, drove up the AlCan with their two young puppies, and ever since, have called Alaska home, along with their four children, all...

Send us Fan Mail Joe Josephson has a long political and public service history in Alaska, beginning in 1957 when he served as legislative assistant to Alaska Delegate in Congress, E. L. (Bob) Bartlett. In 1959, When Bartlett became Alaska's first United States Senator in 1959, Josephson continued as his legislative assistant until 1960. Josephson earned a bachelor's degree in political s...

Send us Fan Mail Rev. Matt Schultz graduated from Westminster College with a BA in Art in 1995. He is married to Rev. Elizabeth Schultz. Together, they attended Princeton Theological Seminary and are ordained as pastors in the Presbyterian Church (USA). They live in Anchorage, Alaska, where they go on wild adventures with their three beautiful children, two awesome dogs, and one average cat. Since...

Send us Fan Mail Tom Choate is a mountain climbing legend, former college biology professor with a Ph. D. from the University of Montana, who was a ski infantryman and served in a US Army intelligence and reconnaissance unit at Fort Richardson during the Korean War, and was the first ranger naturalist in Mt McKinley National Park (now Denali National Park). Before coming back to Alaska in the late...

Send us Fan Mail James Morrison is a playwright, TV, film, stage actor, filmmaker, poet, singer-songwriter, and yoga teacher. He was raised in Anchorage, served his theatrical apprenticeship with the Alaska Repertory Theatre, and since has appeared at the La Jolla Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, Princeton's McCarter Theatre, the Pasadena Playhouse, the Salt Lake Acting Company, The Old Globe...

Send us Fan Mail   Joelle Hall is the President of the Alaska AFL-CIO, elected in 2020. She is the first woman to hold the role. Before her election, she served as the Alaska AFL-CIO Political Director for 11 years. Joelle has worked in Alaska politics for over 30 years, with an emphasis on electoral campaigns and advocacy work. She has built and managed large campaigns and community coalitions. B...

Send us Fan Mail Marilyn Romano is the Alaska regional vice president for Alaska Airlines. She spent nearly two decades with the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the second largest paper in Alaska, and 11 years as publisher. She was the newspaper’s first woman top executive. Marilyn serves on the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation and Rasmuson Foundation boards. She also serves on the Governor’...

Send us Fan Mail John Hagen is the Curator of Indigenous Art and Initiatives at the Anchorage Museum. Hagen works to further the Museum's work with Alaska living cultures, with an emphasis on Indigenous art, artists, climate change, national and international connections, and other initiatives. He is the curator of the exhibit currently on display at the Museum, Alaska from Above: The Art of...

Send us Fan Mail Suzanne Little has worked extensively in partnership with Alaska Native Tribes who live in intrinsic connection with remote lands across the state. She is currently staff to the 38-Tribe Bering Sea Interior Tribal Commission. Her work aims to ensure that local voices are represented and heard in land use decisions, including policy considerations relating to the conservation or de...

Send us Fan Mail Scott Langley is a New York-based photographer specializing in documentary work on human rights in the United States and elsewhere. His work has been widely exhibited worldwide, and he often travels with his exhibits to give presentations about the intersection of photography and human rights. His photos have appeared in dozens of media outlets, including CNN, the AP, the BBC, HBO...

Send us Fan Mail Betsy Baker is a board member of In Our Backyard, a new Anchorage nonprofit whose mission is to provide safe interim housing and connections to support services for unhoused senior neighbors. Dr. Baker is an international lawyer whose consulting work on ocean law and Arctic policy builds on 25+ years of experience as an author, consultant, law professor, and most recently as direc...

Send us Fan Mail Kate McClellan was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and spent her youth in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1977, just before she turned 17, she left a traumatic home life and headed for Alaska in a VW bus, moving here permanently in 1986. Kate received a bachelor's degree in Sociology with a minor in History in 2002. During her last year at UAA, in the build-up to the war in Iraq,...

Send us Fan Mail Cindy Chaput is the College, Career, and Life Ready Director for the Anchorage School District. An Alaskan resident for 28 years, Cindy has spent three decades in the education sector, gaining valuable experience in administration and counseling across various schools in the Anchorage School District. In her current role, she supports the expanding technical and real-world opportu...