Meet the 11 freshmen of the Alaska Legislature

JUNEAU — Among the 60 state lawmakers who convened in Juneau this week are 11 who are serving in the Legislature for the first time. Among them are best friends, parents navigating a cross-state move, pet owners who left furry friends in their far-off districts, and professionals navigating transitions from jobs and hobbies to the so-called “Juneau bubble.”

Meet the 11 freshmen:

Robyn “Niayuq” Burke, Utqiagvik Democrat, House District 40

Robyn Burke, 33, said the first few days have felt “a little surreal.”

She traveled to Juneau several times as school board member for the North Slope Borough School District and as a board member of the Association of Alaska School Boards. Now, she’s a decision-maker here rather than an advocate.

“When you campaign, it’s really partisan. And then you come in to actually work with everyone, and it’s very relational,” she said. “So I think it’s really nice.”

Burke has two children, ages 5 and 6. They were top-of-mind for her when she was considering whether to run for office. As a school board member, she had successfully worked to reestablish the Inupiaq immersion program that she had once attended, allowing her children to participate.

“They come home and speak Inupiaq to me, and that was really powerful,” she said.

She wanted to keep her kids in the program, but she was also passionate about working in Juneau to ensure her district had the funding to continue the immersion program in perpetuity.

“Navigating moving down to Juneau with two young children and having to sort out child care and after-hours child care in case House floor sessions go late — it was challenging,” she said, but she says she has found a network of “aunties” to call on when things get hectic.

Jubilee Underwood, Wasilla Republican, House District 27

Jubilee Underwood, 39, grew up in Wasilla and had worked as a real estate agent before her foray into public service. It began when she decided to attend school board meetings during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I just didn’t want my son to have to wear a mask during his basketball games,” she said. “Then I was like, ‘You know what? I want to be part of the solution.’”

For three years, she served on the Mat-Su School Board before deciding to run for the Legislature, where she plans to advocate for school choice.

Underwood moved to Juneau with her daughter and her nephew, who she cares for, ages 9 and 7. She also moved with her mom, who will help care for the kids — who are homeschooling — during long days in the Capitol.

“They’re so flexible. They’re like, ‘We’re on an adventure!’” she said. Underwood’s husband is staying in Wasilla, where he works as a hairdresser.

Underwood brought along one more member of her support network: fellow lawmaker Elexie Moore. The two have known each other since they attended high school together in Palmer. Their lives have been closely intertwined ever since, and Underwood said she helped convince Moore to run for office.

“We’ll see if she thanks me or punches me,” Underwood said with a laugh.

Elexie Moore, Wasilla Republican, House District 28

Elexie Moore, 37, worked for a decade as a real estate agent in the Mat-Su before Underwood helped persuade her to run for the Legislature.

A mother of six, she moved to Juneau with her three youngest children. Moore said having Underwood in the building makes the transition to being a legislator “a thousand times easier.”

“It’s just fun to have somebody in the building with some camaraderie,” said Moore. “She’s always been that for me in my life.”

Like Underwood, Moore said she wants to advance school choice. She also said she wanted to work with the majority to find compromise on education funding.

“I don’t necessarily think that we need more funding thrown that way, but I can see where we need to have support,” said Moore. “Find a middle ground — I definitely want to work with the majority on that.”

Carolyn Hall, Anchorage Democrat, House District 16

Carolyn Hall, 43, is new to her seat in the House, but not to the hallways of the Capitol. As a television journalist, she had covered the Legislature and interviewed some of the lawmakers who are now her colleagues.

“I didn’t really ever expect that I would find myself in this position,” she said.

Hall is one of several lawmakers who, during the session, will live in a building across the street from the Capitol that is used to house lawmakers and staff.

“My cats might be a little pissed at me at the moment, but that’s OK, because they’re staying in Anchorage,” she said.

She said her goal in Juneau is to bring “stability back to our public education system” by increasing education funding and tying it to inflation moving forward.

She is bringing to the task “transferable skills.”

“Public policy is very similar to journalism, when you’re trying to consider all these different stakeholders, talking to people on both sides,” she said. “So it really feels full circle and I keep having to pinch myself. I can’t believe I’m here.”

Rob Yundt, Wasilla Republican, Senate District N

Rob Yundt, 44, grew up in a trailer park in the district he now represents. He has been a home builder, a wrestling coach, president of the Alaska State Home Building Association, and a Mat-Su Borough Assembly member.

“Politics is just like wrestling clubs. You have your own little town that you work with, and when it’s time to go get business done, you travel,” he said. “When you’re out of town, you’re on the same team, and that’s honestly exactly how I treat politics.”

Yundt has six children, including three adults and three in middle school, who are staying in Wasilla.

“I would never disrespect them and their friends and uproot them,” he said.

Yundt said his top legislative priority has to do with game management and hunting regulations.

“At the end of the day, we need to prioritize Alaskan residents over non-residents, and then we also need to protect some of these species,” he said.

“We’re becoming more advanced as humans. We have lighter tents, better rain gear, lighter sleeping bags, better optics, better rifles. Sheep are not becoming more advanced, and that’s why the numbers are down so much,” he added.

Bill Elam, Soldotna Republican, House District 8

Bill Elam, 44, decided to run for the Legislature after spending two terms on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly.

Originally from Florida, Elam has lived in Alaska for a decade and worked in the field of information technology.

His wife and three kids — ages 11, 9 and 6 — will go back and forth from Soldotna to Juneau to see him.

While in Juneau, Elam said his biggest priority is education funding.

“I have plenty of other items that I want to work on, but I do think that as a state for the last several years, it has obstructed the ability to be able to get business done,” said Elam.

His first few days in Juneau were like “a combination of first day on the job and first day at school, because there’s a lot to learn, a lot of faces and names to meet and greet.”

Nellie “Unangik” Jimmie, Toksook Bay Democrat, House District 38

Nellie Jimmie, 45, had worked as the bookkeeper and accountant for nearly two decades for a store owned by her father in Toksook Bay before her first foray into public life — representing Toksook Bay, a village of roughly 600 people, in the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative.

Jimmie is Yup’ik on her father’s side and Ojibwe and Lakota on her mother’s side. Her parents met when her mother was volunteering in a Native hospital in Anchorage.

Jimmie said she has traveled to other villages in her region for yuraq, traditional Yup’ik dancing. When she visited other villages, she saw the need for investments in improved housing and infrastructure, she said. That’s what she’s hoping to focus on in Juneau.

Jimmie’s daughter remained in Toksook Bay to stay involved in traditional dancing, which Jimmie will have to miss.

Getting from Juneau to Toksook Bay requires three separate plane rides, so she said she likely would not be able to travel back to the district regularly during the session for fear of being weathered out.

“Thankfully, there’s Facebook. I can watch Facebook Live and stay connected that way,” she said.

Rebecca Schwanke, Glennallen Republican, House District 36

Rebecca Schwanke, 48, is a wildlife biologist, consultant and business owner who recently served on the Copper River School District Board of Education.

She grew up in Tok and has lived in the Glennallen area for more than two decades. But it’s not her first move to Juneau. When she was 16, her family moved to Juneau after her dad was appointed director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation.

“It was an eye-opening experience for a young teenager that grew up in rural Alaska,” said Schwanke. “I didn’t enjoy it.”

It took her 30 years for her to want to return to Juneau on her own terms. But she’s allowing her son, a sophomore in high school, to stay in their longtime home. She said she didn’t want to “upend anything,” after experiencing that herself.

In Juneau, Schwanke hopes to bring her experience on her local school board to addressing the education funding quagmire.

“It’s very difficult for school districts to operate with inflationary pressures,” said Schwanke.

Jeremy Bynum, Ketchikan Republican, House District 1

Jeremy Bynum, 49, is an engineer who until recently spent his time directing Ketchikan’s electric utility. He’s originally from Oregon and has lived in Alaska for eight years.

Bynum said he wants to work on restoring the Alaska Marine Highway System’s route to Prince Rupert or another community south of Ketchikan. He also wants to work on boosting career technical education.

“As a utility director, I worked with mechanics, electricians, linemen, IT people, a lot of those skilled trades, and there’s a tremendous void in that space right now,” said Bynum.

His wife, an administrator at a medical center, is staying in Ketchikan.

“Luckily for me, Ketchikan is a relatively quick trip from here,” said Bynum.

Bynum said he’s “not particularly concerned about partisan politics” while he’s in the Capitol.

“Trying to find people that are like me is not my goal. I want to find people different than me,” said Bynum.

Ky Holland, Anchorage independent, House District 9

Ky Holland, 62, has spent the last decade working to bolster Alaska startup companies.

He said his top legislative priority is increasing education funding and reinstating pensions for public employees. He is also hoping to work on economic development, including by creating an entrepreneurship office and an innovation council.

“We can’t pay for schools unless we have a good economy,” said Holland. “We’ve got to do the basics, but the basics only matter if there’s some reason.”

Holland will be apart from his wife, a school librarian in Anchorage, for most of the session. He’ll also have to scale back on one of his favorite pastimes.

“One of my passions is being out snowmachining and getting out to my winter cabin,” said Holland. “Well, I didn’t think through the fact that this job might mean that I can’t go to the cabin this winter.”

Ted Eischeid, Anchorage Democrat, House District 22

Ted Eischeid, 64, moved to Alaska eight years ago after a 25-year career as a public school teacher in Wisconsin. He worked as a long-range planner for the Mat-Su Borough until 2023, when he retired to focus on his legislative run.

“Some people say, ‘Why are you doing this? You’re in your 60s. You should be retiring.’ And my attitude is, why wouldn’t I?”

Like other lawmakers, he cited education funding as his top priority.

“What I would be most proud to pass is to increase education funding and to inflation-proof it so we don’t have to go through this death by 1,000 cuts in 10 years again,” he said.

He plans to try to return to Anchorage most weekends to spend time with his constituents — and his three dogs.

“I’m very much a committed dog parent,” he said. The dogs will stay in Anchorage with his wife. “That’s frankly the hardest part of all this.”

Eischeid said his experience in Wisconsin, which in 2011 passed a law putting new limits on public employee unions, motivated his run for office in Alaska.

“After that passed, my wife and I decided, ‘Let’s move someplace that’s more labor friendly,’” he said. “My wife and I both agree that we should have moved here a long time ago.”

Correction: A reference in this story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Ted Eischeid is a Democrat, not an independent. In addition, an earlier version of the article incorrectly reported the Yup’ik term for traditional dance. It’s yuraq not yaruq.