Hometown, Alaska Alaska Public Media

HOST: Anne HillmanGUESTS: Carl Jacobs, Anchorage School Board memberAndy Ratliff, Anchorage School District Chief Financial OfficerLINKS:Anchorage School DistrictAnchorage School BoardASD School Bond InformationContact Anchorage School Board]]>

HOST: Anne HillmanGUESTS:Rachel Bernhardt and Julie Raymond-Yakoubian, Alaska End of Life AllianceKris Green, Death CafeLINKS:Death Cafe, AnchorageAlaska End of Life Alliance:Death DoulasFuneral HomesAlaska Laws and RegulationsHospice and Palliative CareAdvanced DirectivesGrief and Bereavement SupportHome FuneralsOther Alaska End of Life Alliance resourcesFive WishesGUEST SUGGESTED READING:"Notes for the Everlost: A field guide to grief" by Kate Inglis"The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion]]>

GUEST HOST: Dave WaldronGUEST: Cody Carver, Program and Events Manager at the Anchorage Museum LINKS:Anchorage MuseumPass the Mic exhibit]]>

HOST: Anne HillmanGUESTS:Barbara and Ethan Jacko Atwater, mother/son writing partners, authors of multiple children’s books and moreSara Juday, co-president of the board, Alaska Center for the BookLINKS:Alaska Center for the BookRead Alaska Native reading challenge resourcesThe American Indian Library Association]]>

HOST: Anne HillmanGuests: Abdelqader "Abdoo" Ezzedine, New Habitat for Humanity homeownerJohn Frommer, Consruction Manager, Habitat for HumanityJasmine Boyle, Chief Operating Officer, Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc. (RurAL Cap)Colleen Dushkin, Association for Alaska Housing AuthoritiesLINKS:Habitat for Humanity, Anchorage RurAL CapAssociation for Alaska Housing Authorities]]>

HOST: Justin Williams GUESTS: Dr. Elizabeth Whitney, executive director, Alaska Museum of Science and NatureDr. Kristine Crossen, president, board of directors, Alaska Museum of Science and NatureLINK:Alaska Museum of Science and Nature ]]>

Host: Anne HillmanGUESTS:Gail Fenumiai, Division of ElectionsJeannette Lee, Sightline InstituteLinks:Division of Elections websiteMake a Plan to VoteLearn about ranked choice votingCandidate Comparison ToolAlaska Public Media elections coveragePARTICIPATE:Call 550-8433 (Anchorage) or 1-888-353-5752 (statewide) during the live broadcast (10-11 a.m.)Send e-mail to hometown@alaskapublic.org before, during or after the live broadcast (E-mails may be read on air).Post your comment or question below (Comments may be read on air).LIVE: Monday, October 31, 2021 at 10 a.m.RE-AIR: Monday, October 31, 2021 at 8 p.m.PODCAST: Available on this page after the program.]]>

HOST: Justin WilliamsGUESTS:Tiffany Hall, executive director of Recover AlaskaDr. Vivian Gonzales, professor of psychology at the University of Alaska AnchorageLINKS:Recover AlaskaRethinking Drinking: Website created by National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Provides information on drinking to help people assess their drinking and tools to change drinking habits.Checkup and Choices: Offers check-ups (assessment with feedback) for alcohol, opioids, cannabis, and stimulant use. You can choose to begin an intervention based on the results to help you reduce use and consequences. Not free, but much lower cost than traditional treatment, self-guided, and has evidence to support it’s effectiveness in helping people reduce their substance use and consequences.Smart Recovery: Free mutual support groups that are an alternative to AA or NA. Provides general mutual support meetings as well as meetings specifically for vets and first responders, LGBTQ+, friends and family, and people under 30.]]>

This week Hometown Alaska hosts three writers telling significant parts of Alaska’s story.The idea for our show began with the hope of bringing Alaska’s current writer laureate, Heather Lende, to the mic, and picking her brain for what we should be reading this winter. We called, she agreed, but we have ended up with so much more.Since Heather took the state writer mantle for 2021-23, she has made her mission to bring forward other voices from Alaska. When I called to invite her to Hometown Alaska, all we talked about were other writers she wanted to share.We have two such voices with us today: journalist and writer Laureli Ivanoff of Unalakleet – whose essays and reflections have appeared in The New York Times, High Country News, Alaska Dispatch and elsewhere; and Leigh Newman of Connecticut, author of a memoir about growing up in Alaska, and her new book, a short story collection called “No One Gets Out Alive,” about women navigating male-dominated Alaska.HOST: Kathleen McCoyGUESTS:Heather Lende, Alaska's W

The Last Frontier is known for its appreciative beer subculture. The craft has been honored here and its processes mimicked in garages and storefronts alike. Alaska Beer Broads is an all-female, Alaska-based group consisting of beer enthusiasts from all over the state who connect and meet up at beer events to support local businesses and talk beer. D’Lany Nichols is their creator, and between podcasting, event coordination, taste tasting and leading the group, she always has her toes dipped into the local scene, expanding her expertise and celebrating the established culture.HOST: Justin WilliamsGUEST: D'Lany Nichols, Alaska Beer BroadsLINKS:Alaska Beer Broads:FACEBOOKINSTAGRAMPODCAST]]>

Business and the economy are ever-changing in Alaska. As life becomes more expensive and old models of creating revenue streams are met with apprehensive resolve, two local entrepreneurs set out to change the business landscape of the Last Frontier. Sourdough Dan Morris is the owner of Alaskan Footprints food tours. He offers historical insight, humor and delicious delicacies in his treks, setting a fun pace for both local Alaskans and tourists to experience downtown on foot.Atlas Katari is the founder of Anchorage Independent Worker Alliance. They are dedicated to connecting like-minded entrepreneurs in the city together to change the way we live as individuals, and build as a society. This week on Hometown Alaskan we will explore the purposes of their journeys, and the end result that will hopefully inspire a generation to step out of the shadows and into their dreams.HOST: Justin WilliamsGUESTS:Segment 1:"Sourdough" Dan Morris, Alaskan Footprints food toursSegment 2: Atlas Katari, Anchorage Independent Wor

With winter coming on, maybe you need a cozy, creative activity you can do with friends that adds up to something beautiful?Poster for this year’s Great Alaska Quilt Show, their first after a 2-year absence. Photo courtesy of ALCQ.Today’s Hometown Alaska introduces the Anchorage Log Cabin Quilters Guild. Their unjuried annual Great Alaska Quilt Show is Sept. 17-18. With something like 100 quilts on display, and another 50 small quilts up for auction, you can get a good idea of what this group does. The annual fundraising event is free to attend and has moved from the old Conoco Phillips building to a new location, First United Methodist Church at 725 W 9th Avenue. Parking is also free.Today’s program was prerecorded for scheduling reasons so we won’t be taking your calls. Join us to meet quilters and find out why this craft and art became their passion.GUESTS:Peggy Brewer, current president of the ALCQPat Sims, charter member of the ALCQ, started in 1979Lynne Seitz, Comfort Quilts program coordinator for ALCQ

So, here’s one new thing: This fall, UAA, our hometown university campus, is offering its first marijuana information class, open to students and community members. How and why did the university decide now was the time to bring this topic to campus? We’ll meet the professor who successfully made the case. She’ll curate the course, using local subject experts to do the teaching. We’ll also meet a regulator, the new director for the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office (AMCO). We’ll learn how much money the industry brings into the state, and what some of the regulatory challenges are. One factoid: this office regulates about 2000 alcohol licensees, and between 400-500 marijuana licensees. And we’ll visit a vertically integrated cannabis company, called the Secret Garden. There, a local Anchorage workforce of 40-plus grows and harvests plants, manufactures products like edibles and oil-filled cartridges, and staffs a busy retail store open seven days a week.

The night of Soviet killings of January 13, 1991 in Vilnius, Lithuania. An unarmed Lithuanian citizen stands against a Soviet tank. Wikimedia Commons image by photographer Andrius Petrulevicius, Lithuanian Central State.Svaja Worthington was only five years old in 1944 when her family walked away from their Lithuanian home in the face of Russian brutality. During World War II, Lithuania had been occupied first by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. Towards the end of the war in 1944, as the Germans were retreating, the Soviet Union reoccupied Lithuania. And, as with events in Ukraine today, there was active resistance.Some of Svaya’s relatives were taken to Soviet gulags. Her family left everything, walking behind a cart carrying their belongings, with a cow trailing behind. They spent years as refugees, finally coming to the United States — first New Jersey and then Illinois, where a relative resided. Svaya grew up there, graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and went on to gradua

The Spenard area of Alaska is known for its eclecticism and diversity amongst its people, businesses, and artistic sensibilities. Long has it been the host of Tommy’s Burger Stop, Chilkoot Charlies, Center Bowl, and more currently The Drip, the city’s first black-owned coffee hut. It’s no wonder that this area specifically also openly celebrates American jazz culture, and has instituted an event to partake in its music. Established in 2008, the Spenard Jazz Fest will celebrate its 15th anniversary in Anchorage this year. Alaska-based musician Yngvil Vant Guttu has been pivotal in the scene for years and will be one of many artists gathering in Spenard to perform on the 4th of June. Here, she and fellow artist Corinthia Rabb help facilitate the discussion on the importance of Jazz on a national scale and a local one to support the culture and the Fest in the heart of Spenard.HOST: Justin WilliamsGUESTS: Yngvil Vant Guttu, Corinthia Rabb, and Karl WilhelmiPARTICIPATE:Call 550-8433 (Anchorage) or 1-888-353-5752

Used with permission from Anchor Gardens, a free mentoring service for gardeners aimed at building tighter neighborhoods and folks who know how to grow food.Depending on where you live, the snow is finally mostly gone. The sun is back, the earth is warming, we’ve had a little rain. The seed starts on the dining room table are about to climb out of their tiny four-packs and walk to your back yard or patio. It’s time to garden.Anchorage is abundant with garden resources, from commercial nurseries, Cooperative Extension Service, municipal composting, nonprofits like the Alaska Botanical Garden, Yarducopia (share your yard with a gardener who doesn’t have one), municipal community gardens and more.On today’s Hometown Alaska, we’ll introduce you to a free garden mentoring service with high ambitions. It aims to build community by connecting new gardeners with “old” gardeners, right in the same neighborhood. Their goal is to have a coach or coaches in every community council district in Anchorage. So when you get h

Photo via PexelsThe fight against youth homelessness oftentimes feels like an invisible war. We see adults commonly wandering the streets in makeshift families, on the path to survival and, ideally, long-term aid and access to shelter. Rarely, however, will we see teenagers on those same streets, as a lot of cases of homeless individuals under the age of eighteen go untracked and unreported. In Alaska, we hope that means they’ve found help in the form of Covenant House or other organizations. Oftentimes, however, it may simply mean they’re doing whatever it takes to survive.On this episode of Hometown, Alaska, Zoryna Lealai, a youth advocate for the Anchorage Youth Task Force, and Julia Terry, co-director of the organization Choosing Our Roots, will be joining the discussion on exposing and combating youth homelessness, while providing a very personal perspective on the issue. What organizations are out there shedding light on, and actively engaging in, the fighting against youth homelessness? HOST: Justin Wi

Graphic from World Health Organization in its public campaign against disinformation.Here’s a new word for you: infodemic. The World Health Organization coined the term and centered a recent global conference around coming to terms with a glut of mis- and dis-information that is harming public health.Click here for a full-size version of the poster. From the News Literacy Project.While this is a global issue, and links below will take you to the WHO’s many universal resources, a local group has been fighting inaccurate information on Facebook pages. Called the Alaska Public Health Information Response Team, it enlists UAA strategic communications students to spot the bad information, and local health professionals to intervene with posts on Facebook that introduce accurate information.The effort is more than two years old, and continues. On today’s Hometown Alaska, we’ll meet some of the participants. They’ll offer insight into the fight against mis- and dis-information, how it so easily spreads on social med

Image from FlickrThe month of April is many things to many people: Aries season, Easter eggs, spring cleaning. To a lot of people in Alaska, though, April is also Sobriety Awareness Month. Alaska’s history with alcoholism and recovery runs deep, and three local recovery heroes join host Justin Williams to share their encouraging experiences.HOST: Justin WilliamsGUESTS:Wes BrewingtonBlaze BellRalph SaraPARTICIPATE:Call 550-8433 (Anchorage) or 1-888-353-5752 (statewide) during the live broadcast (10-11 a.m.)Send e-mail to hometown@alaskapublic.org before, during or after the live broadcast (E-mails may be read on air).Post your comment or question below (Comments may be read on air).LIVE: Monday, April 11, 2022 at 10 a.m.RE-AIR: Monday, April 11, 2022 at 8 p.m.PODCAST: Available on this page after the program.]]>

Community Health Workers with the Alaska Primary Care Association are deeply involved in the communities where they work. As such, they can be trusted guides to help under-served communities find better access to healthcare. With each client, CHWs educate and offer information and access to Covid vaccines. (Photo courtesy of Alaska Primary Care Association)Community Health Workers are relatively new to Alaska. They come from the communities they serve. They get specialized training in communication and health systems, and their mission is to help guide people toward the health care they need.Today that includes helping clients overcome COVID vaccine hesitancy. That resistance exists for many reasons: misinformation, mistrust and even indifference. Community Health Workers, or CHWs, talk through those issues.On today’s Hometown Alaska, we meet two local workers in Anchorage. We’ll learn how they use “motivational interviewing” to have those difficult conversations with their clients.This program is a part of A