SOURDOUGH JACK:

“My thoughts are with the victims in Florida.”

The weather.

Today: Partly cloudy

in the morning then

clearing. Highs

around 16 below.

Light winds. Tonight:

Mostly clear. Lows

around 27 below.

Light winds.High

today ....................... -17

Low tonight .......... -24

WEATHER » A7

GOODMORNING

Classified » B7-8 | Comics » B6 | Dear Abby » B5 | Markets » B4 | Obituaries » A3, A5 | Opinion » A6 INSIDE

• • •

• • •

MEXICO ‘WALL’ LIKELY WILL BE A FENCE — AND TAXPAYERS WILL PAY FOR IT. » A7Inside Today

WOMEN’S HOOPSNanooks fall to

Western Oregon.

SPORTS

Page B1

Aurora forecast.

Auroral activity will be

active. Weather per-

mitting, active auroral

displays will be visible

overhead from Utqiag-

vik to Anchorage and

Juneau, and visible low

on the horizon from

King Salmon and Prince

Rupert.

This information is provided

by aurora forecasters at

the Geophysical Institute

at the University of Alaska

Fairbanks. For more infor-

mation about the aurora,

visit http://www.gi.alaska.

edu/AuroraForecast

One dollar newsminer.comSATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2017

T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A

Airport gunman served in Alaska Guard

Staff and wire reports

A gunman who killed at least five people after open-ing fire at the Fort Lau-derdale-Hollywood Inter-national Airport on Fri-day was a former member of the Alaska Army National Guard, according to a mili-tary spokeswoman.

Relatives of Esteban Santiago, 26, said Friday he had a history of mental health problems.

“Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq, he wasn’t feel-

ing too good,” his uncle, Hernan Rivera, told The Record newspaper.

In recent years, Santiago had been living in Anchor-age, his brother, Bryan

Santiago, told The Asso-ciated Press from Puerto Rico. Bryan Santiago said his brother’s girlfriend had recently called the family to alert them to his treat-ment.

“We have not talked for the past three weeks,” Bry-an Santiago said.

‘When he came out of Iraq, he wasn’t feeling too good’

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — An Army veteran drew a gun from his checked luggage on arrival at the Fort Lauderdale airport and opened fire in the baggage claim area Friday, killing at least five people and wounding eight, authorities said.

Law enforcement personnel shield civilians outside a garage area Friday at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A gunman opened fire in the baggage claim area at the airport, killing at least five people. AP PHOTO/WILFREDO LEE

QUEST » A5

GUNMAN » A8 SHOOTING » A8

At least 5 dead, 8 woundedBy David FischerASSOCIATED PRESS

FLY ME TO THE MOON 2 drop out of Yukon Quest

By Sam FriedmanSFRIEDMAN

@NEWSMINER.COM

Two-time Yukon Quest

Champion John Schan-delmeier has withdrawn from the race in advance of the Fri-day sign-up deadline.

T h e f i e l d is now set at 23 mushers for the 1,000-mile sled dog race. The race starts Feb. 4 in Whitehorse, Yukon, and finishes in Fairbanks. The number of teams hasn’t changed from a month ago, with four mushers signing up for the race and four withdrawing.

Schandelmeier with-drew last week because he has horses and reindeer he has to care for at a farm he owns in Delta Junction, said Quest Executive Director Marti Steu-ry. Schandelmeier, married to Iditarod veteran Zoya DeNure, has raced in 17 Quests and won in 1992 and 1996.

R e g i s t e r e d m u s h e r s Mike Ellis, Noah Pereira and Tamra Reynolds also dropped from the race prior to Friday’s deadline. Ellis is a race veteran who runs Sibe-rian huskies and whose photograph appears on the 2017 Yukon Quest poster. Reynolds and Pereira were both newcomers to the race. Reynolds needed additional qualifiers before she could run the 1,000-mile race and has added her name to the waiting list for the shorter Yukon Quest 300, Steury said.

The latest entrants to the Quest are veteran Jason Campeau and rookies Sever-in Cathry, Jessie Royer and Katherine Keith.

Campeau is from Alberta and finished seventh in the 2015 Quest.

Cathry is Swiss and lives in Fairbanks. He’s been mushing dogs for five years, according to his official biog-raphy.

A raven soars in front of the rising moon along Farmers Loop on Friday afternoon.ERIC ENGMAN/NEWS-MINER

Schandelmeier

State ‘zeroing in’ on natural gas contractBy Matt BuxtonMBUXTON

@NEWSMINER.COM

The plan to unify and expand the Interior’s natural gas distribu-tion network is com-ing together, but a con-tract to put gas in the expanded system has yet to be signed.

The state is “zero-ing in” on a source of additional natural gas for the Interior Energy Project, project team leader Gene Therriault said at an Interior Gas Utility board meeting last week.

The gas contract is an important part of the way forward for the Interior Energy Project,

not only as a source of gas but also because it is one of the three things needed to unlock state financing for the proj-ect.

After an attempt to build a North Slope project fell apart and the state announced it would be buying Fair-banks Natural Gas, the Legislature in 2015 approved additional legislation for greater oversight of the project. In addition to requir-ing quarterly reports, House Bill 105 required the state identify a source of gas as well as project buildout plan and a utility rate before the additional project funds approved in 2013

could be spent.The pending agree-

ment contains both a proposed buildout plan and estimated rate cus-tomers will pay, about $15.50 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas.

“The third major component is the price of gas itself, and we continue to work on that gas supply con-tract,” Therriault said at the Interior Gas Utili-ty meeting. “Of course we need specific things from our Cook Inlet producer, we need flexi-bility on our take-or-pay obligations and we need a very competitive price, and we think we’re zero-ing in on that.”

Therriault said he

couldn’t talk specifics of the negotiations in an email exchange Thurs-day.

In an interview late last year, Therriault said negotiating a gas con-tract out of Cook Inlet has been challenging because the needs of the Interior Energy Project are different than the typical Cook Inlet gas contract. He explained that the Interior Energy Project needs to be for longer than the usual couple-years contract and some flexibility in the early years when the project is growing demand as people con-vert to natural gas.

INTERIOR ENERGY PROJECT

US: Putin ordered effort to help Trump, hurt Clinton

WASHINGTON — Rus-sian President Vlad-imir Putin ordered a hidden campaign to influence America’s presidential election in favor of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agen-cies declared Friday in the government’s first

formal allegation sup-porting sensational claims that Trump and his supporters have staunchly resisted.

T h e i n t e l l i g e n c e report, an unclassified version of a more-de-t a i l e d c l a s s i f i e d account given earlier to Trump, the White House and congressio-nal leaders, withheld the government’s evi-dence to back up its

assertions.Trump, in a brief

interview with The Associated Press, said he “learned a lot” from his discussions with intelligence officials, but declined to say whether he accepted their assertion that Russia had meddled in the election on his behalf.

“It was a really great meeting, I really like

those people a lot,” said Trump, who has chal-lenged the intelligence community since win-ning the election. “I learned a lot and I think they did also.”

Trump would not detail what evidence he was presented with, say-ing only that he learned “a lot of confidential things.” Because Trump

By Eileen Sullivan, Deb and Julie Pace ASSOCIATED PRESS

HACKING » A8

PROJECT » A5

Saturday, January 7, 2017 Fairbanks Daily News-MinerA8

F17513512

G O

IB

N

CHECK YOUR

CHECK YOUR

NUMBERS!

NUMBERS!

The weather.

Mostly clear with

light winds and highs

around 15 below zero.

High today .............

. -6

Low tonight ........... -

13

WEATHER » A5

• • •

Aurora forecast.

Auroral activity will be

active. Weather per-

mitting, active auroral

displays will be visible

overhead from Utqiag-

vik to Fairbanks.

This information is provided

by aurora forecasters at

the Geophysical Institute

at the University of Alaska

Fairbanks.

WINTERTIME

PHOTOS

OUR TOWN » B1

CREATIVE COVE

FURNITURE

BUSINESS » D1

HOCKEY

MAKES A HOME

SUNDAYS » E1

One dollar and ifty cents

SOURDOUGH JACK:

“Don’t have to

win a wrestlin’

match to get me

smilin’ like that.

Pie will do.”

GOOD

MORNING

Business » D1 | Classified » G1 |

Dear Abby » E3 | Obituaries » B2 |

Opinion » F1 | Our Town » B1 |

Sports » C1 | Sundays » E1

INSIDE

Trump expected to nominate Exxon executive as secretary of State. » NATION, A5

Inside Today

newsminer.com

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2016

T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A

Interior reps hopeful about House setup

By Matt Buxton

MBUXTON@NEWSMINER.COM

A month after this year’s gen-

eral election allowed Democrats

and moderate Republicans to

claim control of the House, Inte-

rior representatives are mostly

optimistic about what it means

for the upcoming session.

Democrats haven’t held a

majority in the House since

the early 1990s, and thanks to

a handful of flipped seats, they

now find themselves at the helm

as the state works to navigate its

financial troubles.

“Every change opens an oppor-

tunity, and it’s up to us to take

advantage of it and to do what’s

best for the state of Alaska and

Fairbanks,” Democratic Rep.

David Guttenberg said. “Not

only do we have budget chal-

lenges, but we have the respon-

sibility to consider the things

we can do to grow us out of this

economy in the future and build

the next generation.”

Guttenberg and Democratic

Rep. Scott Kawasaki will be the

Interior’s two majority members

on the House Finance Commit-

tee in the next legislative session.

They see the new organization

as an opportunity to give ideas

a chance that were sidelined

under Republican control.

That includes investments in

early education, K-12 and the

university system, which they

said have been targeted for cuts

to maintain spending on Repub-

lican priorities like oil and gas

tax credits.

“I think we’ll get fairer hear-

ings on that,” Kawasaki said. “As

well as the value of pre-K and

early education. One of the oth-

er issues I’ve been championing

is gas price gouging, we may be

able to hold hearings on that

when in the past the Republican

majority has ignored that.”

HOUSE » A3

Every change opens an opportunity, and it’s up to us to take

advantage of it and to do what’s best for the state of Alaska and

Fairbanks.”

Rep. David Guttenberg, D-Fairbanks“

School

board

to discuss

threatened

lawsuit

Amanda Bohman

ABOHMAN

@NEWSMINER.COM

The school district faces a

new lawsuit in connection

with the sexual misconduct

of a tutor.

A former s tudent o f

Tanana Middle School who

is now 21 and attending col-

lege Outside is asking for

damages after former tutor

Claude Fowlkes was found

guilty of forcing him into

sex.

T h e f o r m e r s t u d e n t

requested in a Nov. 30 letter

to enter into pre-litigation

discussions with the Fair-

banks North Star Borough

School District.

The Board of Education

is meeting at 11:45 a.m.

Monday to discuss how to

respond to the letter by Mike

Stepovich, the former stu-

dent’s attorney.

The letter gave the district

15 days to respond before a

civil lawsuit is

filed in state

court.

“We take the position that

Mr. Fowlkes’ inappropriate

conduct with students and

former students was foresee-

able, the district was negli-

gent and the district demon-

strated reckless indiffer-

ence to the safety of minor,”

according to the letter.

WIN

ON

THE

MATTop: West

Valley’s Allen

Hansen was

all smiles after

winning a

hard-fought

145-pound

match against

Lathrop’s Sage

Martin during

the third-

place matches

round of the

Mid Alaska

Conference

High School

Wrestling

Championships

on Saturday

afternoon at

Lathrop High

School.

Bottom:

Wrestlers

compete during

the round. The

winners of the

third-place

matches earn a

spot in the state

championships.

For more

coverage of the

event, see the

Sports section,

Page C1.

ERIC ENGMAN/

NEWS-MINER

LAWSUIT » A3

ALL

ACCESSanywhere,any time,

any device

ALL ACCESSYou GOTTA get it!

Call (907) 456-6661 or sign up

online at newsminer.com

NATION/WORLD

GUNMANContinued from A1

“That’s a bit unusual ... I’m in shock. He was a serious person ... He was a normal person.”

Santiago arrived in Fort Lauderdale after taking off from Anchorage aboard a Delta flight Thursday night, checking only one piece of luggage — his gun, said Jesse Davis, police chief at the Anchorage air-port.

At Fort Lauderdale, “after he claimed his bag, he went into the bath-room and loaded the gun and started shooting. We don’t know why,” said Chip LaMarca, a Broward County commissioner who was briefed by investiga-tors.

“People started kind of

screaming and trying to get out of any door they could or hide under the chairs,” the witness, Mark Lea, told MSNBC. “He just kind of continued coming in, just randomly shooting at people, no rhyme or rea-son to it.”

Santiago, who is in fed-eral custody, will face fed-eral charges and is expect-ed to appear in court Mon-day, Piro said.

Authorities said the motive for the attack was under investigation. Shortly after the shoot-ing, and before details of Santiago’s mental health became public, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said that it remained to be seen whether it was terrorism or the work of “someone who is mentally deranged.”

In November, Esteban

told FBI agents in Alaska that the government was controlling his mind and was forcing him to watch Islamic State group vid-eos, FBI agent George Piro, who is in charge of the Miami field office, con-firmed.

The FBI agents notified the police after the inter-view with Esteban Santia-go, who took him in for a mental health evaluation.

Santiago was a private first class and combat engineer who joined the Alaska Army National Guard in November 2014 after serving in Iraq with the Puerto Rico National Guard.

Santiago served with the Guard’s 297th Cavalry in Anchorage and was given a general discharge Aug. 16, 2016 for unsatisfactory

performance, according to Lt. Col. Candis Olmstead.

Santiago deployed to Iraq in 2010 with the Puerto Rico Guard and spent a year with an engi-neering battalion, accord-ing to Guard spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen.

The Pentagon said San-tiago had gone AWOL several times and was demoted and discharged, according to an Associated Press report. He did have some successes during his military career, however, being awarded a number of medals and commen-dations including the Iraq Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

Santiago was charged in a domestic violence case in January 2016, damag-ing a door when he forced

his way into a bathroom at his girlfriend’s Anchorage home. The woman told officers he yelled at her to leave, strangled her and smacked her on the side of the head, according to charging documents.

A month later munic-ipal prosecutors said he violated the conditions of his release when officers found him at her home.He told police he had lived there since he was released from custody the previous month. His Anchorage attorney, Max Holmquist, declined an interview.

Law enforcement offi-cers were at the girlfriend’s home Friday afternoon, and officers guarding the property outside told a reporter who approached the home to step away.

Santiago was born in

New Jersey but moved to Puerto Rico when he was 2, his brother said. He grew up in the southern coastal town of Penuelas before joining the Guard in 2007.

His uncle and aunt in New Jersey were trying to make sense of what they were hearing about San-tiago after his arrest at the Fort Lauderdale airport. FBI agents arrived at their house to question them.

Maria Ruiz told The Record that her nephew had recently become a father and was struggling.

“It was like he lost his mind,” she said in Spanish of his return from Iraq. “He said he saw things.”

News-Miner staff writer Dorothy

Chomicz contributed to this

report.

E s t e b a n S a n t i a g o was taken into custody after throwing his emp-ty weapon down and lying spread-eagle on the ground, one witness said.

One witness said the attacker gunned down his victims without a word and kept shooting until he ran out of ammunition for his handgun, sending panicked travelers run-ning out of the terminal and spilling onto the tar-mac, baggage in hand.

Others hid in bathroom stalls or crouched behind cars or anything else they could find as police and paramedics rushed in to help the wounded and establish whether there were any other gunmen.

Bruce Hugon, who had flown in from Indianapolis for a vacation, was at the baggage carousel when he heard four or five pops and saw everyone drop down on the ground. He said a woman next to him tried to get up and was shot in the head.

“The guy must have been standing over me at one point. I could smell the gunpowder,” he said. “I thought I was about to feel a piercing pain or nothing at all because I would have been dead.”

It is legal for airline passengers to travel with guns and ammunition as

long as the firearms are put in a checked bag — not a carry-on — and are unloaded and locked in a hard-sided container. Guns must be declared to the airline at check-in.

The bloodshed is like-ly to raise questions of whether aviation safety officials need to change the rules.

The attack also exposed another weak point in airport security: While travelers have to take off their shoes, put their car-ry-on luggage through X-ray machines and pass through metal detectors to reach the gates, many other sections of airports, such as ticket counters and baggage claim areas, are more lightly secured and more vulnerable to attack.

In 2013, a gunman with a grudge against the Transportation Security Administration shot and killed one of the agency’s screeners and wound-ed three others during a rampage at Los Angeles International Airport. Last November, an air-line worker was shot and killed near an employee parking lot at Oklahoma City’s airport, and in 2015

a machete-wielding man was shot to death after he attacked federal security officers at the New Orle-ans airport.

“The fact is that wher-ever there are crowds, such as at our airports, we remain vulnerable to these types of attacks,” Nelson said.

The airport was shut down, with incoming flights diverted and out-going flights held on the ground. Airport Director Mark Gale said it will try to reopen at 5 a.m. Satur-day but urged travelers to check with their individ-ual airlines on flight sta-tus. He said 10,000 of the airport’s stranded trav-elers were being bused overnight to the city’s spacious Port Everglades cruise ship terminal.

P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k Obama was briefed by his Homeland Security advis-er, the White House said. President-elect Donald

Trump said that it is a “dis-graceful situation that’s happening in our country and throughout the world” and that it was too soon to say whether it was a ter-rorist attack.

John Schilcher told Fox News he came up to the baggage claim and heard the first gunshot as he picked up his bag.

“The person next to me fell to the ground and then I started hearing other pops. And as this happened, other people started falling and you could hear it and smell it, and people on either side of me were going down and I just dropped to the ground,” said Schilcher, who was there with his wife and mother-in-law. “The firing just went on and on.”

“ W h e n w e f i n a l l y looked up there was a policeman standing over me,” he said. “That’s when I assumed it was safe.”

An injured woman is loaded into an emergency vehicle at the airport. DAVID SANTIAGO/EL NUEVO

HERALD VIA AP

Above: People stand on the tarmac at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a shooter opened fire inside the terminal Friday. AP PHOTO/

LYNNE SLADKY

Right: Law enforcement personnel arrive in an armored car outside the airport. AP PHOTO/WILFREDO LEE

is not yet president, he is legally constrained from revealing classified infor-mation.

In an earlier written statement, Trump said it was clear Russian email hacking did not deliver him the presidency.

The unclassified version of the intelligence report was the most detailed public account to date of Russian efforts to inter-fere with the U.S. politi-

cal process, with actions that included hacking into the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and individu-al Democrats like Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair-man John Podesta. Rus-sia also used state-fund-ed propaganda and paid “trolls” to make nasty comments on social media services, the report said. There was no suggestion that Russia affected actual vote counting or tampered with ballot machines. President Barack Obama requested the report last

month and wanted it com-pleted before inauguration day.

The report, for the first time, explicitly tied Putin to the hackings, called it the “boldest effort yet” to influence a U.S. election, and said the Russian gov-ernment provided emails to WikiLeaks — some-thing the website’s found-er, Julian Assange, has repeatedly denied. The intelligence agencies also said Russia will continue to try to influence future events in the U.S. and worldwide, particularly

among U.S. allies.Since Election Day, the

intelligence agencies said, Russia has launched a “spear-phishing” cam-paign to try to trick people into revealing their email passwords, targeting U.S. government employees and think tanks that spe-cialize in national security, defense and foreign policy.

The report lacked details about how the U.S. learned what it said it knows, such as any intercepted con-versations or electronic messages among Russian leaders, including Putin,

or about specific hacker techniques or digital tools the U.S. may have traced back to Russia in its inves-tigations.

Exactly how the U.S. monitors its adversaries in cyberspace is a close-ly guarded secret, since revealing such details could help foreign gov-ernments further obscure their activities.

The unclassified ver-sion included footnotes acknowledging that it “does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influ-

ence campaign.” It said its conclusions were identical to the classified version, which was more detailed.

The report said the Rus-sian effort was both politi-cal and personal.

“Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic pro-cess, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency,” it said. “We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear prefer-ence for President-elect Trump.”

HACKINGContinued from A1

SHOOTINGContinued from A1

A3Saturday, January 7, 2017 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

ArcticCamLive view from downtown Fairbanks

atop the Daily News-Miner building!

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Veterans Listening Sessionwith

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January 12, 2017from 5 - 6:30 p.m.

at theArmy National Guard202 Wien StreetFairbanks, Alaska 99701

The Alaska VA Healthcare System has obtained conference lines forVeterans of Community personnel who cannot physically attend theVeterans Listening Session. Please dial 1-800-767-1750 and enter 79132when prompted.

For more information contact:Samuel G. Hudson 907-257-5490 or Samuel.hudson@va.gov

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0

INTERIOR

Wilberta M. Kammer

Wilberta, or “Bert,” as most everyone knew her, went to be with the Lord at 7:30 a.m. Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, at age 71, where she is now in heaven with her daughter, Wendy, and extended family. She was born May 4, 1945, in Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania, and attended school there until she moved to the Villas, New Jersey.

While attending Low-er Cape May Regional School, she met her best friend, George K. Kam-

mer, and married him May 8, 1965. They had three children: Robyn, Wendy and George Kammer. In 1976, while her hus-band was serving in the U.S. Air Force, they moved to Alaska, where Bert worked in the per-sonnel office at Eielson Air Force Base.

After 21 years of service, her husband, George, retired from the Air Force, and the family remained in the North Pole area. Tragi-

cally, on Dec. 14, 1985, their daughter, Wendy, passed in a home fire at age 14.

Bert later transferred to the personnel office at BLM, but soon after accepted a position with the Army Corps of Engineers at Fort Wain-wright. She worked for the Corps for 23 years as an administrative officer/budget analyst until she retired Dec. 31, 2012. Bert was known far and wide as a loving and generous person. Many of the people who had known her and worked with her during her years at the Corps and other

offices remember her as a hard worker and as one who “got things done.”

The surviving mem-bers of her family are: her husband, George K. Kammer; daugh-ter, Robyn Zook; son, George Kammer Sr.; son-in-law, John Zook; and daughter-in-law, Bertha Kammer; grand-children, Whitney Hayes and her hus-band, Kyle Hayes; Kale O’Rourke, Dane O’Ro-urke, Dakota (Cody) Zook, George Kammer Jr., Wendy Kammer and Wyatt Kammer; great-grandchildren, Dylon Hayes, Alysson

Hayes, Madelynn Hayes and Audrey Burtchard; father-in-law ,Theodore Kammer Sr.; brothers-in-law, Jack Kammer, Theodore Kammer Jr. and Michael Kammer; and sisters-in-law, Claudia Kammer, Mau-reen Kammer, Nichole Kammer, Lynda Kam-mer and Patty Smith.

An informal celebra-tion of life reception begins at 7 p.m. Thurs-day, Jan. 19, at the Che-na Lakes Project Office in North Pole. We, her family, would love for you to join us to share memories or stories of Bert, as you remember her. Refreshments will

be served. If you would like to bring a snack to share with others, that would be greatly appre-ciated.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that monetary donations be made to offset some of the costs associated with her passing. If you are not able to attend her celebration of life reception, but still would like to donate, please call Elizabeth McLean-Pharr at 907-687-6137, and she can coordinate it with Bert’s family.Please visit www.legacy.com/

obituaries/newsminer to sign

an online guest book.

Kenneth R. FryeKenneth R. Frye, 73, passed

away Dec. 23, 2016, at Swed-ish Cherry Hill Hospital in Seattle. He was born Nov. 21, 1943, in Maryville, Missou-ri. The Frye family moved to Anchorage in June 1958, because of Ken’s father’s employment with the FAA. In February 1959, the family transferred to Nenana, where Ken attended school and grad-uated in 1962.

It was at Nenana High School where Ken met the love of his life, Nancy Jauhola. After graduation, Ken spent the summer working on the river for Yutana Barge Lines. On Oct. 15, 1962, he was hired on at Clear AFS as a Teamster contractor. Ken joined the

Army Reserves in 1964 and married Nancy on July 2, 1966, after her grad-uation from Nenana High School. Ken’s Reserve unit was activat-ed in January 1969, and he was deployed to Vietnam in September of that year. He returned home to Nenana in July 1970, and n August returned to work at Clear, where he remained employed until his retirement in December 2000, proud to have been a United States veteran and a 38-year active Teamster member.

Ken enjoyed raising his family in the Alaskan lifestyle he so loved, being an avid hunter and fisherman. He loved being a member of the Clearsky Sportsman’s Club, participating in trapshoot-ing and many other events throughout the years. Ken was an Endowment member of the NRA and a Life Mem-ber of VFW Post No. 10029. He was also very active in his community, serving on the Nenana Library Board and being the “official” caller at Bingo for Books at the school, where he was fondly known as “Papa” by all of the kids.

He and Nancy also donated much time and effort to the Marge Anderson Senior Cen-ter, in addition to supporting any and all of the school’s

fundraising efforts and pro-grams for kids. Ken also liked bowling, shooting hoops and shooting targets, playing cribbage and poker with this buddies, and teaching his grandsons how to play poker and run a chain saw, amongst many other things. Taking his beautiful wife, Nancy, to din-ner at the Mondo on Thursday nights was always the high-light of his week.

He was happiest when sur-rounded by his family and friends, regardless of the occasion. Ken was preceded in death by his parents, Archie and Deloris Frye; and his brother, James Frye. He is sur-vived by his wife of 50 years, Nancy; and his daughters, Kristine (Roger) Knutsen and Suzanne (Mike) Hill; as well

as his grandsons, Jacob, Jor-dan and James Knutsen, all of Nenana.

His brother-in-law and part-ner in crime, Mike (Twyla) Jauhola, lives in Oregon. His surviving siblings are William (Carrie) Frye, of Florida; Joyce Frye (late brother Jim’s wife), of Arizona; Lawrence (Debbie) Frye, of California; and Sheryl Boren, of Arizona.

Ken loved all of his nieces, nephews, cousins and “’nother girls” dearly. At this time, a memorial service has not been scheduled, but Ken’s family would appreciate, in lieu of flowers or other mementos, donations to any Alaska VFW Post or to the USO.Please visit www.legacy.com/

obituaries/newsminer to sign an

online guest book.

Thomas Neil Davis

Thomas Neil Davis passed away Dec. 10, 2016, at his home near Fairbanks. Neil was born Feb. 1, 1932, in Greeley, Colorado, to Bon and Bernice Davis. The fam-ily lived in many places before their arrival in Alaska; Neil and young-er brother Lewis stayed in an orphans’ home in Chicago before living in Iowa with their aunt and uncle Louphena and Irwin Hensal.

In 1944, the boys joined their parents in Fairbanks. Neil’s folks were among the original homesteaders of what is now North Pole (Santa Claus Lane was original-ly named for Neil, the street named for Lewis is still so named). Neil worked at the homestead and his father’s sawmills, attending high school in Fairbanks when possible. He was an apprentice mechanic at Wien Air-lines, rebuilding aircraft engines before entering the University of Alaska as a science student in fall 1950. His auspicious start at the Geophysical Institute was a job paint-ing a loading dock.

Neil returned to Ames, Iowa, to study and visit high school sweetheart

Rosema-rie. They were mar-ried there in June 1951 and drove to Fairbanks in 1952, the first of many adventures togeth-er. They began building a cabin at what was then called Totem Park at the base of College Hill. Daughter Pat was born in February 1953.

Neil received a Bach-elor of Science in geo-physics from UAF in 1955. An opportunity arose to attend the Cali-fornia Institute of Tech-nology, so the family sold the cabin and moved to Pasadena, California, where son Doug was born in 1956.

They spent summers in Fairbanks building a log home west of the university. On comple-tion of his Master of Science degree in 1957 at Caltech, the family returned to continue building their home and Neil’s career. These pur-suits took Neil all over the world. He studied rockets and launching facilities, and enticed other young adventurers to come to Alaska. He earned his doctorate in 1961 from UAF, and daughter Debbie was

born in 1962 in Fair-banks. The family moved to Maryland while Neil worked for NASA at Goddard Space Flight Center.

In 1965, they came home to Fairbanks, and Neil returned to the Geophysical Institute as assistant director. His work on Poker Flat rock-et range began in ear-nest. Ground was broken in 1968, the first rocket lifted off in 1969, and more than 300 major launches followed.

Neil, not just brain but also brawn, engaged in many mountaineering adventures with friends; Rosemarie accompanied him on some hefty field trips, including one to do research after a major earthquake in Huslia.

A leg-puller and prankster, Neil delight-ed in stepping into diverse roles, playing the crusty old miner or absent-minded scientist when it suited him. He and colleagues had great fun producing skits and parodies for Geophysi-cal Institute Christmas parties.

A slayer of trees and power lines, Neil was also a builder extraor-dinaire, using whatever might be at hand or found in a dumpster. He built sheds, cabins, boats, a steam engine

and a rocket range. Although not a natural mariner, Neil partici-pated in the infamous Nenana Raft Classics, and family vacations often included boating, inevitably resulting in one or all parties drenched and freezing.

Neil published dozens of scientific papers, and in 1976 started Alaska Science Nuggets, a week-ly newspaper column where he honed his craft and talent for writing. He wrote 12 books on an array of topics, includ-ing the aurora, energy, permafrost, health care and history, and chroni-cled his life in a series of books, “Battling Against Success” (an account of Neil’s younger days in the Interior), “Rockets Over Alaska: The Gen-esis of Poker Flat” and most recently “Head, Tail, & Guts Included: The Story of a 1950s Col-lege Education in Alaska & Warmer Climes.”

Neil retired in 1981 from the university and was appointed professor emeritus of geophysics in 1982. He served as chair of Alaska Power Authori-ty in the late 1980s.

Early retirement allowed Neil and Rose-marie to travel extensive-ly with friends, as well as with grandchildren and dogs, on cross-country

treks in the “Bitchin Cruisin Van.” These trips enabled Neil to do firsthand research for his books and provided fodder for some of his most-loved writing, the annual “he said, she said” Christmas letter that he and Rosemarie would craft relating the misad-ventures of the year.

Snowbirds for several decades, Neil and Rose-marie flitted between Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washing-ton, and Fairbanks. They cruised Europe, boated the Amazon and trav-eled to Australia. When great-granddaughter Marina was born, they moved back to Alaska permanently.

Neil’s life was a fas-cinating mixture of pioneering spirit, cut-ting-edge technology and science. He was a supportive, loving hus-band and father, always encouraging his family in their own pursuits. He was a mentor, a leader, a builder; he was kind, funny and generous, and he was humble. He “had a joy and exuberance for life that was infectious,” “was a dynamic individ-ual with an incredible sense of humor,” and “was a wise soul.”

Neil is survived by his wife of 65 years, Rose-marie; son, Douglas

Davis, and daughter-in-law, Sonja Benson; granddaughters, Dawn and Star; daughter and son-in-law, Deborah and Ulises Gonzalez; grand-daughters, Allanah and Kristen; and Patricia’s son, Thomas Pollard, and his mate, Varpu Lot-vonen; and great-grand-children, Marina and Jasper.

Neil was preceded in death by parents, Ber-nice and Bon; brother, Lewis; daughter, Patri-cia; and favorite meter-scale dog, Foxy.

A celebration of Neil’s Life will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, at the University Community Presbyterian Church, 3510 College Road. For information call 378-2988.

In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Patricia A. Davis Memorial Scholarship or the Bon V. and Bernice Davis Scholarship fund via the University of Alaska Foundation.

The family thanks Fairbanks Funeral Home and the University Com-munity Presbyterian Church for their services, as well as our Fairbanks, UAF and other far-flung family, friends and col-leagues for their support. Please visit www.legacy.com/

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