AFN honors a Kiana flying family, a Kotlik Yup'ik teacher and a new trooper

The Alaska Federation of Natives honored 10 people with its President's Awards at its 60th convention in Anchorage last week, among them a Kiana couple who fly freight and keep a village store stocked, a Kotlik educator who spent decades teaching Yup'ik and a new state trooper from the Nome region.

Heanie and Lee Staheli II received the Small Business Award for Lee's Sea Air, their air charter, freight service, convenience store and bed-and-breakfast in Kiana. Every one of their children is a pilot, AFN said, and the store stocks things from fresh milk to generator parts in a place where resupply can be delayed for days.

One of their children told the crowd that their father has asked C-130 pilots to show the cockpit to a kid who wanted to fly someday, and a barge captain to give village kids a tour of the bridge. "I can't think of any couple that has worked together for so long and still haven't strangled each other yet," the child added, the video shows.

Theresa Mae Prince of Kotlik received the Eileen Panigeo MacLean Education Award. Prince told the crowd she started as a Bureau of Indian Affairs teacher aide and went on to become a bilingual, bicultural instructor. A presenter said her career began in the 1970s and that she earned associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees while working full time and raising her family. A former student remembered counting moose in Yup'ik with her from a plane. "There were like 80 or something," the former student said.

Darrin Scott Topkok received the Glenn Godfrey Law Enforcement Award. He started as a village public safety officer at home in 2020, later served communities across the region as a roving officer and finished the Alaska State Trooper Academy in May, according to AFN's announcement.

Hydaburg Mayor Anthony "Tony" Christianson received the Katie John Hunter Fisher Award. AFN said he has served as mayor since 2006 and is natural resource director for the Hydaburg Cooperative Association. He was appointed to the Federal Subsistence Board in 2012 and later became its chair.

The Health Award went to two people. Dr. Elise M. Pletnikoff, who was raised on Kodiak Island, came home in 2013 after her medical training and is chief medical officer of the Kodiak Area Native Association. Colleen Anagick has worked in Alaska Native-designed health programs for nearly 30 years. After a long career in behavioral health, mostly as a crisis clinician, she is now a tribal doctor in traditional healing.

Barbara Franks, originally from Hoonah, received the Hannah Paul Solomon Woman of Courage Award for nearly three decades of suicide-prevention work. It began after her 23-year-old son, Ron, died by suicide in 1997. Her husband of 25 years died of cancer two days later. She went back to school and later chaired Alaska's Statewide Suicide Prevention Council.

Dempsey Woods Jr. received the Gin'tith Richard Frank Military Service Award. He grew up mushing dogs in a military household and enlisted in the Alaska Army National Guard shortly after high school. For many years, his family has provided salmon from its subsistence nets to Kotzebue and nearby villages, AFN said.

Wallace Ungwiluk, raised in Gambell, received the Roger Lang Youth Leadership Award. He played college basketball while earning a master's degree from Multnomah University and now coaches athletics back home in Gambell.