Sep 30, 2026 · 59 min · 13 segments
The Alaska Historical Society meets in Homer next week, and organizers and presenters join us on the Coffee Table to discuss the conference and share historical information with our…
Tom KizziaGuestDavid RamseurGuestPierce BatemanGuestPausauraq Jana HarcharekGuestAll right, well, let's go ahead and start some discussion here about the conference itself.
And as you mentioned at the get-go here, the conference, One of the focuses is on one of the members of the society that passed away last year, Stephen Haycox.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about who he was and what impact he had on Alaska and the historical society?
I was sort of a journalist writing about history and was sort of drawn across the divide that way by Steve's outreached hand.
So it just made a lot of difference to me in my books and just such a great influence.
He was a longtime UAA history professor, was born in middle America in Indiana at the end of World War II.
And he actually enlisted in the Navy and served in the Pacific for the Navy, mostly playing trumpet in the Navy band.
And then after his military service, he went to the Pacific Northwest and his life was shaped by the Korean and Vietnam Wars, like many people of that era.
And so by the time he got to graduate school at the University of Oregon in the 60s, the civil rights movement was well underway.
After grad school, he was looking for a job and answered an ad for Anchorage Community College.
He moved to Alaska and was very influential in the merger of the community college and UAA back in the 70s.
and really became Alaska's probably preeminent historian, looking at Alaska's history, our influence on the world, and how Alaska was used as a colony over its many years.
All right, well, let's go ahead and start some discussion here about the conference itself.
And as you mentioned at the get-go here, the conference, One of the focuses is on one of the members of the society that passed away last year, Stephen Haycox.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about who he was and what impact he had on Alaska and the historical society?
I was sort of a journalist writing about history and was sort of drawn across the divide that way by Steve's outreached hand.
So it just made a lot of difference to me in my books and just such a great influence.
He was a longtime UAA history professor, was born in middle America in Indiana at the end of World War II.
And he actually enlisted in the Navy and served in the Pacific for the Navy, mostly playing trumpet in the Navy band.
And then after his military service, he went to the Pacific Northwest and his life was shaped by the Korean and Vietnam Wars, like many people of that era.
And so by the time he got to graduate school at the University of Oregon in the 60s, the civil rights movement was well underway.
After grad school, he was looking for a job and answered an ad for Anchorage Community College.
He moved to Alaska and was very influential in the merger of the community college and UAA back in the 70s.
and really became Alaska's probably preeminent historian, looking at Alaska's history, our influence on the world, and how Alaska was used as a colony over its many years.
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