Alaska Lowers Its Flags for Susan Sullivan

The flags over Alaska will drop to half-staff on June 24 for a woman who walked into the Legislature in her twenties and helped build some of the institutions the state still runs on.

Susan Sullivan was 28 when Alaska voters sent her to the House in 1974 — the youngest woman ever elected to the Legislature. Born on Christmas Eve, 1946, in the Anchorage neighborhood of Mountain View, she had graduated from Anchorage High School, earned a business and economics degree from Alaska Methodist University, and gone on to study early-childhood education at the University of Alaska before public service called. She represented House District 8 from 1975 to 1977 — a short run that left a long mark.

In that brief window she chaired the House Health, Education and Social Services Committee and helped shape two things Alaskans live with today. One was a landmark education reform creating Regional Educational Attendance Areas — the framework that brought locally governed schooling to rural Alaska. The other was even bigger: she co-sponsored House Joint Resolution 39, the measure that laid the groundwork for the Alaska Permanent Fund, the savings account that now sends a dividend to every Alaskan each year.

"Susan Sullivan served Alaska during a formative time in our state's history, contributing to important work that helped shape our institutions for future generations," Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in ordering the flags lowered. "Rose and I extend our condolences to her family and loved ones."

She was, fittingly, later honored among the women the Legislature recognized for serving in its halls before American women had even held the universal right to vote for a full century — part of a line she helped extend by arriving so young, so early.