Jim Kowalsky is in his 11th year as overall program director for RAHI.
He also had taught high school and college for sixteen years, played trumpet professionally, worked as an environmentalist and was director of the subsistence program for the Tanana Chiefs Conference six years before coming to RAHI. He earned both his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Music from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He came to Alaska twenty-five years ago, and lives with Suzanne his wife and three children outside of Fairbanks. He also had operated a wilderness backpacking trip guiding service from a headquarters site on the upper Ambler River within the Brooks Range just outside the western edge of what is now Gates of the Arctic National Park. Jim still performs music locally and has toured much of the state in the past 25 years to over 120 Alaska communities with the Arctic Chamber Orchestra, and also as part of his past and present work. He calls himself a "bicycle junkie," commuting 30 miles round trip to work most days. He especially enjoys getting to know the RAHI students. "I love to see the positive changes in them."
Jeffrey C. Swenson teaches swimming for RAHI. Jeff started his illustrious swim instructing career in Minnesota years ago, and it helped pay for his years at Saint John's University in Collegeville, and his B.A. in English and Communication. After graduation, he traveled across Japan, Hong Kong, and parts of Europe, and finally found himself drawn to Fairbanks to earn his masters in English Literature. He plans to complete his degree work in the spring of '97, and after enjoying another. Alaskan summer, head somewhere in the lower 48 to commence Ph.D. studies‹ in American Literature, not swimming. Our kudos go to this personable young man and skilled teacher for helping to keep RAHI (students) afloat!
George Guthridge, RAHI's writing and study skills instructor is an Associate Professor of English and teaches at UAF's Bristol Bay Campus, in Dillingham. He has been teaching writing for 26 years. Although he is a grandfather twice over, it is untrue that Mosses broke the Ten Commandment tablets because George insisted on another rewrite. He likes helping young people get ready for college. When not teaching he enjoys writing short stories and novels, watching movies, exploring caves, and traveling in Asia with his wife, Noi. Some who were here last summer recall George and Noi were married on the lawn in front of the Copper Lane House on the UAF campus during RAHI with all students present. This is George's sixth summer teaching writing for RAHI. He is a demanding and precise teacher, helping to keep firm the RAHI reputation as rigorous and inspired.
RAHI petroleum engineering elective instructor Godwin A. Chukwu was born into a Christian family in Imo state of Nigeria. He moved to Fairbanks in September 1990 after completing his Ph. D degree in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, Norman in 1989. Currently, Godwin is an Associate Professor and Head of Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is also a registered professional petroleum engineer in the State of Alaska. His wife, also a petroleum engineer, works for the USGS (United States Geologic Survey), Fairbanks. They have four children; Tobby, Obi, Jide, and Nonye. When rarely he has time outside his professional duties and responsibilities, he plays tennis. He cannot swim, and has never eaten fresh fish before, for no known cause.Godwin is happy to be associated with RAHI in teaching the first Petroleum course ever to be offered by the RAHI program.
Howard C. Sparks ( instructor of the RAHI business management elective.) Hi, I'm Charlie Sparks! I am one of the few faculty here at UAF that was born and raised in Fairbanks, let alone from Alaska. My grandmother came to Alaska to teach in the mining town of Livengood. My dad loved the country and it infected me and my two younger brothers. I studied business at UAF and received an accounting degree in 1984. I moved to Anchorage in August to start work for the "Big 8" CPA firm at Ernst and Whinney. Working as a junior auditor required travel to just about every corner of the State. In the fall of 1986 I accepted the position of senior accountant with the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation. Watching the Fund manage billions of dollars on a daily basis was quite an experience and provided valuable insights on the investment management. In the Spring of 19488 I decided to become a college professor and moved to Iowa City, Iowa to begin graduate studies at the University of Iowa. As fortune would have it, in January 193 I accepted an offer to teach at UAF and moved home the following Christmas holiday. I currently teach Introduction to Business Computing, Accounting Information Systems and Advanced Auditing. I enjoy summers camping along interior rivers, floating rivers in Western Alaskan in pursuit of big rainbow trout, and hiking the hills around the upper Chena river. During winter months I seek refuge in the area hot springs.
Greg Owens, our RAHI math instructor and also academic coordinator was raised in Nebraska, has lived in Alaska.
Greg has taught math and English, and coached for the past 16 years. Married with four little urchins. Have taught in St. Mary's AK, Missoula MT, American Samoa, and UAF. Nickname while living in Montana and teaching RAHI in the summers: "The Alaskan Assassin." (It is not in reference to a "deadly" outside shot, but rather a few unintentionally hard fouls that put that woman in the hospital overnight for observation.)
His interests are fishing, biking, and singing BeeGees disco hits in the shower. His observations on this year's RAHI students is, calm and classy (and just a bit sassy). Greg's favorite part of RAHI this summer is image processing Charles Peele's face onto Queen Elizabeth. His hopes for the summer are: to have all students graduate with good grades; have all students learn about themselves and college life; and catch a king salmon. Greg generously gives of his time and expertise to RAHI leadership throughout the fall and spring UAF semesters as a leading willing consultant in the planning for the next RAHI year, and serves on the RAHI Admissions Committee. He has had 12 years as an associate with RAHI, the most of all those who work or have worked for the program , having started in 1983 , the year RAHI started, missing only two sessions. RAHI is most fortunate to have such a dedicated guy who both teaches and helps steer the program, who can keep us all laughing in those tense moments plus his positive outlook - friends, these are his trademark.
Carnita Ernest Head Counselor/ College Success Skills I am graduate student in Community Psychology- euphemistically known as an ABT (All-But-Thesis), because that's all that is left for me to do in order to get my M.A. degree. I am happy to say that the RAHI students have given me more motivation to get done with my thesis (thanks to all you hard working students). I am the youngest of three children (and the only daughter). Born in Johannesburg, and raised in Cape Town, South Africa is my home. But Alaska has become a second home to me. I came to Fairbanks in 1993 to do my graduate studies, and because I wanted a different experience. I am enjoying my stay here, getting to know all the wonderful people, and being able to enjoy doing new and different things. I am especially proud of my following accomplishments: trying downhill skiing (although I hope never to do that again!), cross-country skiing, beading, and (of course) surviving the -40 and -50 below temperatures with all my limbs intact! I hope to return to South Africa to work in the social services, particularly AIDS prevention field. But beware, I do intend to return to Fairbanks soon, even if only for a vacation. I also hope to see some of you in South Africa - my door will always be open.
Joanna Lee Wassillie, "Anugaq," is an Inupiaq/Yup'ik Eskimo, born in Nome, and raised in Pilot Station who served as a tutor/counselor this summer. She is a senior at UAF majoring in English. Her RAHI family is the Lil' Rascals. Now, she just loved to watch Josh go into the water at Twin Bears but puts thumbs down on Lower Commons food. Authors Jane Austin, Christina Rossetti and William Shakespeare share a spot on her top shelf with her musical tastes which range from new age contemporary to Native American to classical. Ok‹now for the food‹Thai, Korean and Eskimo. Heroines in her life are grandmother "Miryaqacuav," Mother Mary, daughter Katya, and Shirley Chisolm. Joanna took the most active course role yet in RAHI's history participating in our petroleum engineering elective this summer, by taking the course for credit with the students as well as helping the instructor and the students, AND spearheading a class field trip to the Alyeska Oil Pipeline Terminal in Valdez. Her color? Purple!!
Howard E. Maxwell, who teaches the RAHI computer course, grew up in Minnesota around the Twin Cities. 
He came to love the subarctic environments from all his travels to northern Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota and received his Bachelor's Degree there in the late 1970's and developed an interest in archaeology and anthropology. He moved to Alaska in 1982, and attended graduate school at UAF where he developed a keen interest in computers and their many uses.
While Howard was working on a Masters degree in Anthropology, and excavating several "early man" sites in the Nenana Valley, Howard learned more and more about microcomputers whereupon he began an informal consulting business specializing in Macintosh software and hardware. After he graduated from UAF in 1987, he moved to Barrow to work for Ilisagvik College teaching anthropology. He taught for RAHI in 1988, 1989, and 1990. Returning to Fairbanks in 1990, Howard married Jeri and settled in Goldstream Valley. He has a three year old daughter named Mackenzie and an about-to-be-born son named "the bean." Howard tells us his 1996 computers class has been a great success and that he has really enjoyed the students.
Denise Gobeille-Rogers is completing her Master's Degree in biology at UAF this summer and is working on her thesis which is all that is left to complete. She also has served as a teaching assistant for the UAF Biology Department. Denise enjoys hiking, bicycling, canoeing and fly fishing, mostly with her husband George who is a teaching assistant in English at UAF. Denise has some real interesting tales to tell about how her dog can unlatch, and relatch the door from the inside of the geodesic dome in which they live, thus locking them out and forcing an unorthodox entry through the top of the dome, swinging down on a rope like Tarzan and Jane (well, it is a little spicier than that!).
Mary Stasenko is mostly Inupiaq, raised in Shishmaref. Call her "Kigiktagmiuguzrunga" if you will. She is presently a student at UAF with two years left to go before student teaching, perhaps in one of your communities? Mary taught Alaska Native Dance for RAHI and also served in the dorm as the Recreation Coordinator. She was enrolled in college courses through UAF's Northwest Campus in Nome prior to coming to the Fairbanks Campus, taking those courses at home through teleconference, not through correspondence. She is focussing upon learning more about the Native cultures of Alaska, especially her own. She trys to dance (tugumiaq, even yuraq) as much as she can, and she trys to use the Shishmaref dialect of Inupiaq, gradually gaining more knowledge. Mary and 96 RAHIer Kate are, of course sisters. Mary wondered if her room assignment, made right next door to Kate's room by her colleagues on the RAHI dorm staff, was by accident‹‹right? Yeah right!
My name is Deborah Deaton. I'm an Koyukon Athabaskan Indian from Beaver. I just graduated with a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This summer has been so much fun. My favorite memory from RAHI is the 40 mile bike ride to Twin Bears. Cruising down those big hills with the wind rushing by was an exhilarating experience. We survived the heavy rain, hail, road construction, and the thunder and lighting. I had the greatest feeling of accomplishment afterwards. I was not certain that I could do it, but I discovered that I could. I pushed myself beyond my personal limitations. Other highlights of the program were water fights and meeting new people. My least favorite memory at RAHI was being so cold at Twin Bears that I woke up shivering. The greatest lesson I learned this summer was from my three-year- old niece. She has a positive attitude towards living that I would like to emulate. She looks at the world with such wonder, excitement and hope. She has inspired me to go back to school so I can work with elementary students. My favorite saying is, "Anticipate the good and it will happen." (Editor's note. This is Debbie's second summer as RAHI tutor/counselor, the first being RAHI 94. She was also chosen for several journalism/broadcast internships, one with CNN in Atlanta, and another with the Anchorage Daily News, where she will again work after RAHI this summer. Debbie is a real inspiration and role model!).
Bill Abbott, whose Tlingit name is "Hin de du Geich" ("throw him into the water") hails from Hoonah and Juneau. As a tutor his family group, the Fish Camp Friends, helped provide him with too many good memories to be able to single one out. He will miss the group activities much more than he will miss trying to use the LPOs (limited purchase orders). His worst memory is being "dragged" into Chena Lakes by 12 students. Bill - they must have translated your Tlingit name! He also will recall RAHI students as interacting really well with each other. "Comfortable" is his descriptive word for this aspect of RAHI. Bill's favorite statement exists as a single word - "participate."
He is "still a junior" come this '96 fall semester at UAF where he is majoring in business. And, surprise (NOT!) he is a movie buff! So much so his UAF friends refer to him as one of the Cisco and Ebert pair of movie reviewers who are featured on television and seek his advice on which are the good movies. Bill also tutors for the UAF Student Support Services Project during the regular academic year.
Jason Alger says that he was born somewhere around July 27 in the Twentieth Century, and his favorite sayings that he enjoys hearing are: "I Jokes, Eh uh! and Dude... ." His best memory will always be helping Sam translate his introductory sign language speech. He will most miss lecturing people on how good it is to hug trees and also the staff and students. Jason found that the hardest part involved in RAHI was trying to stay bruise-less. The only thing he can be sure about doing five years from now is breathing, eating, drinking water, basking in the rays of eternity, and writing a book on how to Play Around the World.
Jason's family were the Smurfs. A RAHI tutor/counselor, and graduate student in Marine Science at UAF, he was raised in Fort Worth, Texas (you know, that's somewhere north of Mexico and if you cut Alaska almost into halves, that would then make Texas the third largest state in the US next to the two Alaskas). Jason has been a star tutor for the UAF Student Support Services Project. Star? Yes, to wit: highest number of hours tutored last year; second highest number of different courses tutored; highest number of individual hours tutored; highest number of group hours tutored; second highest number of different tutees tutored‹well, you get the idea.
Kyan Olanna, or "Atqausraq," from Shishmaref, born June 29, 1977, now living in Nome, completed her first year at UAF this past spring, but not until she first participated in two RAHIs, 1993 and 1994 . This RAHI alumna was RAHI Valedictorian in 1994. Her strong interest in RAHI prompted her interest in moving to the "other side" as a tutor/counselor this summer. Kyan was heavy on the math tutoring this summer and her efforts there were greatly appreciated by students she helped and instructor Greg Owens.
Atqausraq says "let's make a list" has got to be the single phrase she most favors (it probably was heard many times this summer). She was family parent for the V-8s, and will miss playing around the world the most. Memories to be cherished? - participating; moving furniture, and all those signs. Not to be cherished - "lights out!" In three plus two years, look for this alumna and tutor/counselor "to be employed." Sam "The Camera" Chanar, or "Angal'gaq," is one of those who has a hidden power plant, for his energy seems to pick up when most of ours fades.
The television battery advertisement "Energizer Bunny" could take lessons from Sam who hails from the Yup'ik village of Toksook Bay, he attended RAHI in 1985, started, stopped, and then restarted at UAF after high school, getting stronger and more focused (so-to-speak) as he got more and more into his interests as they developed (so-to-speak again‹sorry), namely, the camera and photography of different elements of Native culture. Cultural Documentation , his main interest has meshed into his UAF major, Rural Development. He hopes to graduate with a Bachelor's Degree sometime this next academic year.
Beverly Chmielarczyk, our RAHI Residence Hall Director this summer, has been in charge of all aspects of RAHI student life, supervising the students and the dorm staff. Her tasks easily make hers the toughest, most demanding staff position of the entire program, carrying with it responsibility for the encouragement, comfort, safety, good mental and physical health, and successful academic productivity of all RAHI students, plus keeping the tutor/counselor staff (who also performs similar tasks with similar intensity) moving along on task on the one hand while also keeping them from states of total exhaustion and frustration on the other. Then there's navigating the unpredictable waters of the UAF Housing office to fix some of the major problems with McIntosh Hall. Beverly not only performed in these areas with distinction as a focused and very caring person, but she gave many long hours of direct tutoring time to students throughout the program, and dedicated many separate long periods many hours each to the design, and then later, the redesign, of the RAHI 96 T-shirt and yearbook cover ; a perfectionist, she fussed and fussed over it - definitely a candidate for the Energizer Bunny Hall of Fame, don't you think?
She hails from the Detroit area ("from a good Polish-Catholic family;" she dreams of taking her parents to Poland), and has spent the past eight years in Anchorage, both working at Providence Hospital and going to UAA at the same time, where she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education, and did her student teaching at Dot Lake spring semester. She says of her commitment as an educator: "...for young rural Alaskans it is an especially crucial time. A choice to go to college is often a decision to leave a community which is a big part of who they are." Beverly is hoping to find a rural teaching position next fall and tells that associating with RAHI only amplifies her desire to do so. A deserving school would be so lucky as to find and hire this true star among the RAHI stars. She enjoys backpacking, beading, biking, and her dog Nichitsal ( Athabascan for "Little Girl"). The future: a Master's in Special Education , and, "One day I will see giraffes in Africa and ride the trains of India."
Phyllis A. Fast taught the Alaska Native Studies elective this summer, her first summer with RAHI. Phyllis was born in Anchorage, Alaska in 1946 to Elsie Harper Fast of Rampart, Alaska. She lived in Anchorage most of her life except during the years she lived in Fairbanks to attend UAF for a BA in English (1968), and then the two years following when she lived in France for a year, and then in San Francisco. Phyllis has a Master's degree from UAA (1990) entitled Alaska Native Literary Forms, and will soon have a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard whenever she succeeds in passing a defense of her dissertation. She lived in Boston for two years while attending classes at Harvard, and then in Fort Yukon for three years while conducting field research for the degree. Phyllis is now an Assistant Professor at UAF and Chair of the Alaska Native Studies Department in Fairbanks. Note that the RAHI program is housed within and is a part of the UAF Alaska Native Studies Department, which means that she is the overall supervisor of the program. She also has an interest in watercolor painting. Phyllis has taught several courses in, and also edited an Alaska newsletter on, watercolor painting. She expresses enthusiasm for her RAHI class this summer and enjoys teaching to younger students than those with whom she works during the normal academic year.
Denise Wartes, the "RAHI Mom," is just that. She does everything for RAHI and its people that a fussy mother would do for her family, including all of the secretarial and bookkeeping, purchasing, hiring paperwork, payroll timesheets, travel, stipend paperwork, and equally importantly, she runs shotgun for the program in terms of all of the red tape it takes to cut through the complex bureaucracy of the university system to fix something that's gone wrong. She also fixes people, in a way. Everyone unloads their problems, personal or otherwise, and she is always a good listener. Denise even cooks and brings food to RAHI and other student events on fifth floor Gruening, and even to McIntosh. She's also generous with her help and time to other UAF Native student programs. She completed her Associates Degree recently and plans to continue taking credits, even while doing all of the above. Denise also travels occasionally to rural sites for RAHI to recruit students, and this year served on the RAHI admissions committee. She was born and raised in Northern Michigan, and, for a period of years lived with her family - her husband and two children - on the Colville River Delta near the Arctic Coast of the North Slope. Denise is indeed a dear Friend of RAHI, and much of its success is due to her caring, loyalty, hard work and expertise.
Margaret Cary came into the RAHI teaching staff part-way through the program to provide some assistance in developing reading skills for students. Currently, she's a student in the MFA program in poetry at UAF. Last semester, she had a teaching assistantship in English as a second language, which allowed her the pleasure of working with students from Japan, China, Russia, and France. For next year, she received a Graduate Resource Fellowship and l will look forward to spending the winter studying Spanish and Japanese and writing poetry. Prior to moving to Alaska, she taught freshman composition and English as a second language at a community college in Illinois. In her spare time, this cheerful instructor likes to garden, bike, play piano and camp. Thanks to Margaret for being willing to help out midway through RAHI 96.