Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Forum Podcasts

Harlow Robinson is Founding Member of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame. He has been involved with Healthy Futures since 2006, initially serving as an advisory board member, and since 2012 serving as its Executive Director. Prior to his current position, Harlow worked with at-risk youth for 15 years as a direct care staff, supervisor and manager. He has served on numerous boards and commissions and is on the Municipality of Anchorage ...

This Sunday the Forum celebrated National Poetry Month by hearing about and listening to poetry of Alaska Poet Laureate Tom Sexton, who died last month. Hear a variety of readers, and maybe a surprise or two.

choral music piece used to set five of Tom’s poems to music - https://libbylarsen.com/works/alaska-spring/

Poems read during choral music - https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/32kfdncynhujnze5kvu2r/Five-Sexton-Poe...

Dr. Royce Fitts is a holistic and clinical psychotherapist, a licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified dream worker, and a liberal theologian with a doctorate in ministry. He is the author of The Geography of the Soul: Dreams, Reality and the Journey of a Lifetime, which blends memoir, political and social consciousness, and spiritual wisdom and explores relationships between physical and spiritual landscapes, personal a...

Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Alaska Public Media. She covers the state's congressional delegation, public lands, and resource development policy from the nation's capital and Anchorage. She has worked at Alaska Public Media since 2013. She previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News and started her career at the Homer News. She graduated from West Anchorage High School and the University of Wash...

Brad Hillwig is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and communications professional driven by the art of innovative storytelling. During a career in Alaska media that spans more than two decades, Brad has developed and produced television shows for U.S. cable networks, created brand-defining commercial campaigns, and directed documentaries in some of Alaska's most remote places. In 2021, Brad launched Greatland Studios, a ...

Meg Parsons was born and raised in Berkeley, California, in the 50s-60s.  She enjoyed what the city and state provided for education and uprearing.   She received a BA from Humboldt State College.  She left the wet weather and logging industry of the Pacific Northwest to come to Alaska for the summer in 1975, ended up in Homer, and is still smitten with the beauty and spirit of Alaska after fifty years. She joined Friends of AK Nat...

Dr. Jack Hickel is the Board President of the Alaska Health Project South Sudan. Jack was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He has an MD degree and is board-certified with the American Board of Family Medicine.  Jack has a Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Diploma from the Republic of South Africa. He worked in Eswatini, Africa, for 16 years, from 1982 to 1997. While there, he was the Chief Medical Officer of a large urban hospital...

Molly Southworth is an endocrinologist, retired from the Alaska Tribal Health System, a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor of Medical Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage / WWAMI. She is also the Past Regent of the American College of Physicians. Molly graduated from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, and as an undergraduate, she studied music an...

Suzanne LaFrance was elected as the mayor of Anchorage in 2024. Before becoming mayor, she represented South Anchorage on the Anchorage Assembly from 2017 to 2023. She served as Assembly Chair from 2021 to 2023, was Chair of the Assembly's Budget and Finance Committee, and Co-Chair of its Health Policy Committee. She also served on the board of the Alaska Municipal League. She is a 25-year Anchorage resident with 25 years of p...

Mike Huelsman is a community activist and advocate. He came to Alaska as a VISTA Volunteer in 1966, served in the combat infantry on the DMZ in Korea, and then worked as a commercial fisherman, carpenter, and laborer in Alaska until he found permanent work. He helped prisoners leaving jail with finding work and housing while working for the Division of Corrections. He was a grants administrator and helped develop and manage alcohol...

Tim Toll has served for the past twenty years as Executive Director of the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, an organization he helped start in Dillingham in 2000.  Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the land trust owns or holds conservation easements on 58,412 acres in Bristol Bay and helped broker protection for 21,320 acres in the Wood Tikchik State Park. Tim came to Alaska in 1978 as a VISTA volunteer lawyer for Alaska ...

Erin Jackson-Hill is Executive Director of Stand Up Alaska, one of the state’s only BIPOC women-led social justice organizations. Her advocacy is mainly focused on issues that disproportionately affect minority communities. She’s a proud alumna of Wonder Park Elementary, Wendler Jr. High School, and Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School. Her rich and diverse experience in nonprofit management and event production began at Anchora...

Ben Robinson is the General Director of Anchorage Opera, the Artistic Director of Raylynmor Opera (New Hampshire), and the Managing Director of Lyric Fest (Philadelphia). He works as a director, librettist, educator, and arts administrator. As a stage director, he is best known for his inspired and engaging storytelling in diverse works ranging from Baroque to modern. He directed the internationally acclaimed film Gianni Schicchi f...

Steve Lindbeck has enjoyed a 45-year career in Alaska journalism, public affairs, and non-profit management. He served as CEO & General Manager for Alaska Public Media, Vice Chancellor for Advancement at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Associate Editor of the Anchorage Daily News, and Executive Director of the Alaska Humanities Forum, among other roles. In 2016, he spent an exciting year running for Congress. He has volunte...

Justin Ruffridgge was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 2022 to serve the Kenai/Soldotna area and was re-elected in November 2024. He expects to serve on the Health and Social Services Committee in the coming session. His parents, both educators, moved their family to Alaska in 1994, where they taught at a small Christian school. Justin graduated from high school in 2001 and Washington State University with a Doctor...

Peg Tileston has been active in Alaska public policy and conservation issues since arriving in the state 51 years ago. She is on the board of Alaska Common Ground, a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose mission is to build coalitions and consensus on matters of importance to Alaskans. She is also on the board of Trustees for Alaska, a non-profit legal organization. Peg spent many years with the Alaska Center for the Environm...

Rev. Lise Adams Sherry is the settled minister for the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.  She grew up in Oregon as part of a blended family.  Her main interests growing up were dancing and theatre--she performed a lot!  Another highlight was learning French and spending her junior year in France. Lise is married to Nelson, and together, they have two boys (Kennen and Derek) and a daughter-in-law, Maria.  They’ve lived in...

Dr. Stephen Haycox is a distinguished professor of history emeritus, a respected author of numerous books and essays, and a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News. In 2003, he was named the Alaska Historical Society's Historian of the Year and received the Alaska Governor's Humanities Award.  Before his retirement, Prof. Haycox taught history for over 40 years at the University of Alaska, where he was named a distinguishe...

Jory Knott is the Executive Director of the Alaska Innocence Project. A lifelong Alaskan, he earned an interdisciplinary degree in art and music at UAA, then moved to Oregon, where he composed music, wrote grants for creative projects, and apprenticed in stone masonry. He became the operations manager for a masonry company with stone-cutting operations and rock quarries across the Pacific Northwest. In 2009, he moved back to Alaska...