Gary Stevens

Alaska is the only state that combines a nonpartisan primary with ranked-choice voting.

"When it comes down to it, parties really don't play an important role," says Gary Stevens, the state senate president who worked alongside Ms. Peltola in the legislature in the early aughts.

Ms. Peltola is a product of this environment.

A native Alaskan who captained her first fishing boat at fourteen, she won statewide office in twenty twenty-two, when she beat Sarah Palin, a former governor, to represent Alaska in Congress.

Kodiak's legislator in the Alaska Senate is wrapping up his 26th year in state politics, which he has said is his last.

Gary Stevens' last day is January 15th.

Stevens, a Republican and the current Senate president, says there isn't much legislative business left for him to take care of.

You know, the governor has called his last special session.

Kodiak's legislator in the Alaska Senate is wrapping up his 26th year in state politics, which he has said is his last.

Gary Stevens' last day is January 15th.

There is not much legislative business for him to take care of at this point.

Here's Stevens, a Republican.

Stevens is 85 years old, according to his previous campaign site.

So what's next for Stevens? He says he'll be serving on a Kodiak College advisory board, which is a University of Alaska Anchorage campus, and he is in the middle of writing a play about events that took place during the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands during World War II.

You can listen to the full interview with retiring state senator Gary Stevens on kmxt.org. And our final story for this week, the Kodiak Island Borough School District Board of Education is considering closing a school to balance its budget.

At a work session on September 8th, Kodiak School District Superintendent Daniel Brigman proposed three potential scenarios for next school year's budget.