East Anchorage Book Club with Andrew Gray

Send us Fan Mail 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 ultimately led to him transi...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Show with Johnny Carson twice. He...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Kuskokwim River by urban fisherme...

Send us Fan Mail 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 difficult job for the right re...

Send us Fan Mail 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 home tends to go down. This can cr...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Kohring  just before the FBI probe th...

Send us Fan Mail 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 equity and sustainability. Bailey St...

Send us Fan Mail 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 , Kxlo Stone , and then three...

Send us Fan Mail  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, and false patriotism of Falwell a...

Send us Fan Mail 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 understand about people with disabi...

Send us Fan Mail 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 led the charge to change the way t...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Hoover Institution at Stanfo...

Send us Fan Mail 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 policy interests. This is an epis...

Send us Fan Mail 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 parents settled in the YK Delta, how h...

Send us Fan Mail 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 became a lawyer, why she identi...

Send us Fan Mail 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 plans.  Previous to that,...

Send us Fan Mail 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 like inside the classroom for...

Send us Fan Mail 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 years ago just after she’d moved to...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Antonin Scalia. In addition to se...

Send us Fan Mail 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 was hired by the late Howard Wea...

Send us Fan Mail 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 Spenard. Those buildings often fe...

Send us Fan Mail 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 like. If you would like to find out...

Send us Fan Mail 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 my other podcast East Anchorage...

Send us Fan Mail 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 part of the House coalition almost...

Send us Fan Mail 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 become teachers in our neediest school...