Sen. Ted Stevens a Champion to Alaska Natives

Former Sen. Ted Stevens, who died in a plane crash in Alaska this week at age 86, will be remembered by many as the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate's history, a man who helped modernize Alaska and, yes, the guy behind that infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” but he will also be remembered as a big supporter of Alaska Native people.

Stevens helped write and push through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. The legislation provided nearly $1 billion and 44 million of acres of land to Alaska Natives, which would be managed by 13 regional corporations and more than 200 village corporations. ANCSA ultimately paved the way for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

In a statement sent to AIR yesterday, Don Kashevaroff, CEO of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, said Stevens’ contributions to the Alaska Native community are significant.

"He worked with Alaska tribal leadership to pass legislation that created the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium [ANTHC], to take over health care ownership and management back to the tribes,” he said.

ANTHC, a non-profit health organization owned and managed by Alaska Native tribal governments and their regional health organizations, was created in 1997 to provide statewide Native health services. It jointly owns and manages the Alaska Native Medical Center, a 150-bed facility in Anchorage that provides specialty, tertiary and primary care to Alaska Natives and American Indians in Alaska..

Kashevaroff said the former senator brought telemedicine to the state’s rural communities and championed other initiatives that modernized the Alaska Native health system.

“We will dearly miss our friend, our champion and our partner in tribal health," he said.

Andy Teuber, chairman and president of the ANTHC Board of Directors, said in a statement that Stevens was instrumental in creating “world-class health care delivery in a frontier environment.”

"One of his favorite programs was the Community Health Aide program, which he showcased in other countries, like China and Vietnam, as a model of the great things that can happen when local people take over their own health care,” Teuber said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and with his staff, whom he treated as extended family."

Stevens became a U.S. senator for Alaska in 1968, though his political career started before that. In 2008, he lost his bid for reelection to Democrat Mark Begich. Stevens' was convicted in a corruption trial during the Senate race, but the charges were dropped in April 2009 due to “prosecutorial misconduct.”