The University of Alaska Southeast has received a $50,000 memorial gift from the estate of Emma G. Widmark, given in the name of her father Dr. Alfred E. Widmark.
UAS Director of Development and Alumni Relations Lynne Johnson says the gift will be used to permanently endow the university’s Alaska Native and Rural Student Center.
“The center provides help registering for classes, they give them career counseling, they make sure academically that they’re taking the right classes. I think it’s one of our strengths here,” Johnson says.
The donation is believed to be just the second memorial gift given to UAS since the school was established.
Alfred Widmark was a Tlingit, born in Haines in 1904. He served in the Alaska State Legislature from 1961 to 1962. He also served as Mayor of Klawock, President of the Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand Camp, and as an executive committee member of both the Grand Camp and the Tlingit & Haida Central Council. He was an ANB representative to and vice president of the National Congress of American Indians and a member of the Sealaska Corporation board of directors.
Widmark received an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from the University of Alaska Southeast in 1979.
Emma Widmark passed away in 2008.
Casey Kelly is a reporter at KTOO in Juneau.
