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Teacher, culture bearer and Indigenous language advocate

Hʉkk’aaghneestaatlno Lorraine David

Hukk’aaghneestaatlno Lorraine David is a teacher, an administrator, an expert in the Denaakk’e language and a dedicated proponent of Athabascan culture and traditions.

Ms. David was raised in the village of Hughes on the Koyukuk River, where she lived a traditional lifestyle and became fluent in Denaakk’e, the central Koyukon Athabascan language. At age 14, she moved to Fairbanks to attend high school. She worked for several nonprofit, commercial and government entities during the 1970s, then joined the ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ in 1980.

For more than three decades, Ms. David worked at various UAF programs and departments. She served as a Denaakk’e instructor at the Alaska Native Language Center and was a program assistant for Upward Bound and the Rural Alaska Honors Institute. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from UAF in 1999.

In 2011, Ms. David joined the Effie Kokrine Charter School staff for two years to teach Denaakk’e. She then went to work at the Fairbanks Native Association, where she served as the Head Start language director from 2017 to 2024. During that period, she created a dual language classroom program that teaches Denaakk’e to 2- to 5-year-old children. She personally instructed in the classroom and taught the other program staff to speak and teach the language.

Ms. David teaches Denaakk’e on her own time through a language immersion group available not only to people in the Fairbanks area but also those online anywhere. She volunteers her time and expertise to help other such language groups throughout the state of Alaska.

Teacher, culture bearer and Indigenous language advocate

Pauline Hobson

Pauline Hobson is an educator, an expert Dena’ina language speaker and a culture bearer who has dedicated decades of personal and professional effort to cultural preservation and youth empowerment.

Ms. Hobson was born in the village of Nuvendaltun (Nondalton) in southwestern Alaska.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ in 1974 and a master’s degree in education from Southern Oregon State ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ in 1983. She taught at schools in Chignik Lake and Nondalton, in the Lake and Peninsula School District, from 1974 to 1994.

Ms. Hobson is revered for her efforts to foster conversations across generations and community collaborations that show people of all ages the importance of language as a way to understand their history and cultivate a positive identity.

For more than two decades, Ms. Hobson has shared her expertise as a Dena’ina speaker and language instructor. She taught conversational and intermediate Dena’ina language courses at UAF and Kenai Peninsula ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈÊÓƵ. She also helped establish the Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s Dena’ina Language Institute in Kenai.

Ms. Hobson has participated in the Bristol Bay Native Corporation’s regional culture camps, the Bristol Bay Regional Career Technical Education program’s Alaska Native arts courses and the nonprofit Quk’ Taz’un Dena’ina Culture Camp.

More recently, she has served as the Dena’ina language expert for the Iguigig Village Council, part of a broad effort to create sustainable opportunities for students to learn the Indigenous languages of the Lake Iliamna region.

Teacher, culture bearer and Indigenous language advocate

Cautekaq Eva Evelyn Yanez

Cautekaq Eva Evelyn Yanez is a teacher, trainer and expert culture and language bearer who has dedicated her time across more than four decades to advancing the Yup’ik language in southwestern Alaska.

Ms. Yanez was born and raised in Tuyuryaq (Togiak). As a young woman in the mid-1970s, she studied at the Yup’ik Language Center in Bethel. She also worked during that time as a state-recognized expert bilingual teacher in Togiak for the Southwest Region School District, which serves communities on the northern side of Bristol Bay. In 1984, she earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She taught elementary school for a decade in Togiak, then became the school’s bilingual educator through 1999.

Ms. Yanez has translated many traditional Yup’ik stories, including two by the renowned Annie Cungauyar Blue of Togiak. She also collaborated on studies of successful culturally based curriculums to improve the mathematics performance of Alaska Native and other students.

More recently, Ms. Yanez has spent almost a decade working with programs to revitalize the unique Lake Iliamna Yup’ik dialect. She helped develop and implement an early childhood language immersion program in the village of Iguigig, where she currently serves as a language consultant for the tribal council.

Ms. Yanez received the 2015 Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley Award from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network for her contributions to Indigenous knowledge systems and Native ways of knowing in Alaska. She also received the 1987 Outstanding Bilingual Educator award from the Alaska Association for Bilingual Education.