Sheldon Jackson History
Dear Editor: Voices of Sheldon Jackson School and College is a project for a digital, online archive of Sheldon Jackson School and College history, to include yearbooks, oral history, photographs and documents, at sjvoices.org.
The project also includes eight interpretive signs to be installed this fall that will introduce the school’s history to the public.
Last Wednesday night we launched the website and shared drafts of the signs. Visiting and local Sheldon Jackson alumni shared their experiences at “SJ” and reflected on its place in their lives and in history.
I would like to thank local alumni (who spanned the classes of SJS 1958 to SJC 2002) who came out, and Cornelia Devlin and the crew of out-of-town Sheldon Jackson High School alumni, who generously shared their recollections, insights and nicknames. This was a meaningful and fascinating glimpse into a little-known era, the 1960s, an era of profound transition.
Alumni spoke of the sense of family they felt at SJ and the values they learned, such as perseverance. Students learned discipline from work-study and from earning their own tuition, and in Bill Austin’s (’64) case from planting the row of trees below the administration building (now YAS) while watching the other kids go to town. Laurie Cropley told how she learned to be a “proud Alaska Native child” when she transferred to SJ from public high school. The last graduating class of the high school was 1967. This event was recorded and will also go up on the sjvoices site.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the project so far. It would not have been possible without the steering committee - Robert Davis Hoffman, Abel Ryan, Marie Laws, Dave Turcott, Kathy Newman and Mary Goddard - who figured out how to meaningfully condense 150 years of history for presentation on a handful of interpretive signs.
Thank you to all the reviewers, with a special thanks to the Sitka Tribe of Alaska Cultural Resources Committee for their thoughtful improvements. Thanks to everyone who has shared their stories over the past five years in oral history interviews. We hope soon to have all the oral history fully accessible through the sjvoices site.
A special thanks to Alice Smith, who filmed the event, and is the instigator (back in 2012) of the effort to gather oral history and to share it before it’s too late.
The project would not be possible without funding by the Rasmuson Foundation and by the Alaska Humanities Forum.
And finally, thank you to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp for sponsoring the project, for their steady historic preservation of the physical campus, and for their willingness to acknowledge the stories of alumni and staff and the full, difficult, complicated history of the school.
The public is encouraged to comment on the signs drafts and to leave any other comments on the school and the project at voicesofsheldonjackson.wordpress.com.
Rebecca Poulson, Project Manager, Voices of Sheldon Jackson
School and College
Congress Contacts
Dear Editor: Here are three toll-free phone numbers to call Alaska federal Congress people to voice your opinions.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, 1-844-271-7736. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, 1-877-829-6030. Rep. Don Young, 1-866-990-5979.
Jessica Roth, Sitka
