Every year, AFN honors those who have made outstanding contributions to their families and the Native community.
The Citizen of the Year Award recognizes the contributions of a Native person who has demonstrated strong commitment, dedication, and service to the Alaska Native community and to rural Alaska. This year, the Citizen of the Year Award is bestowed upon two individuals selected by the AFN Board of Directors for exemplary work that has improved the lives of Alaska Native people. The 2022 Citizens of the Year are:
John F.C. Johnson, Prince William Sound, Alaska
Dr. Gordon L. Pullar, Sr., Kodiak, Alaska, Posthumously
The Denali Award recognizes the contributions of a non-Native person who has demonstrated strong commitment, dedication, and service to the Alaska Native community and to rural Alaska. This year, the Denali Award is bestowed upon two individuals selected by the AFN Board of Directors for exemplary work that has improved the lives of Alaska Native people. The 2022 Denali Award winners are:
Roberta Townsend-Vennel, Kodiak, Alaska
Congressman Don Young, Posthumously
2022 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR
John F.C. Johnson is a Sugpiag Native and is the Vice President of Cultural Resources for Chugach Alaska Corporation. He can trace his lineage back to the last chief of Nuchek. This village was once the cultural center of Prince William Sound (PWS) and the Chugach people, and thanks to John’s guiding hand, this site has once again risen to its former prominence with the establishment of Nuuciq Spirit Camp (NSC). John works to ensure cultural preservation, documentation, and propagation for the Chugach Region. He has over 40 years of experience helping Chugach reclaim historical sites and artifacts and serves as a global ambassador for the Chugach people. In his spare time, John likes to plan and design improvements for NSC, which he established and developed over the last 25 years. John has previously served on the Board of Directors and is an original founder of the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. He is also a past committee member of Alaska Historical Records Commission; a past member of Smithsonian’s NAGPRA National Review Committee in Washington, D.C.; the past President of Keepers of the Treasure; a past co-chairman of the Vitus Bering 250-year anniversary of the European discovery of Alaska; a past board member of the Prince William Sound Tourism Committee; a past member Prince William Sound Regional Citizen Advisory Committee Past Board Member of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Council; a past board of director of the Chugach Alaska Corporation for six years; and a past Chairman of the Chugach Heritage Foundation. John is the son of the late Fred and Ellenora Johnson (who had five children together) and resides in Anchorage.
Dr. Gordon L. Pullar, Sr. worked as a machine operator at the Georgia-Pacific paper mill before embarking on a life-changing journey to connect with his Sugpiaq Alaska Native identity. He earned a master’s in public administration from the University of Washington in 1983, and moved to Kodiak, Alaska. He served six years as President and CEO of the Kodiak Area Native Association and served on the Tangirnaq Native Village Tribal Council and the Alutiiq Museum board. He is the past chairman of the Koniag Education Foundation. He was the planning director for the regional nonprofit, Chugachmiut, the associate editor of Nations Magazine, and assistant editor of Indian Voice. Dr. Pullar was credited with helping bring home more than 1,000 Alutiiq remains that had been taken from Larsen Bay in the 1930s and were being stored at the Smithsonian Institute, essentially leading to the enactment of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Dr. Pullar was born in 1944 in Bellingham, Washington, to Gordon R. Pullar and Olga Rossing. He graduated from Bellingham High School in 1962, and Western Washington State College, now WWU, earning a bachelor of arts in sociology and anthropology in 1973. He completed a Ph.D. in 1997 in organizational and international studies and worked for the University of Alaska Fairbanks for over 20 years, retiring in 2014 as an Associate Professor Emeritus of Rural Development.
2022 DENALI AWARD WINNERS
Roberta “Robbie” Townsend-Vennel has been supporting successful economic development in rural Alaska for over 30 years. She joined the Afognak Native Corporation (ANC) as its Finance Director in 1989 and was with ANC for 15 years as it grew from a small regional company to a highly successful, nationally recognized Alaska Native Corporation. During her tenure with ANC, she also worked to establish the Native Village of Afognak, a federally recognized tribe. Since leaving ANC in 2004, Robbie has focused on supporting the long-term sustainability of Alaska’s rural communities. She is a founding member of the Kodiak Archipelago Rural Regional Leadership Forum (Forum) and the Kodiak Archipelago Leadership Institute (KALI). As the Forum Facilitator, she works with community leadership to plan forum work sessions, leads Forum-identified planning efforts, and coordinates critical rural community advocacy efforts. As KALI’s Project Director, Robbie leads its efforts to establish a network of community and Alaska Native-owned farms to enhance community sustainability and economic development. Robbie has assisted many community colleges around the country in developing projects and obtaining federal funding in support of first-time college learners and Alaska Native and American Indian students. She has supported language revitalization efforts for the Aleutian Pribilof Islands region including the facilitation and development of the Unangam Tunuu Strategic Plan. The plan was utilized to successfully fund Unangam Tunuu Achigaasalix – Teaching the Aleut Language, a regionally based language certification program. Robbie grew up in Pennsylvania with her five siblings and is the daughter of Ralph and Roberta Townsend. She arrived in Alaska in 1986 and resides in Kodiak.
Congressman Don Young was the longest serving Republican in congressional history, having served as Alaska’s sole representative to the U.S. House of Representatives consecutively for 49 years (1973 – 2022). After serving in the U.S. Army in the 1950s, Young settled in Alaska, where he became a tugboat captain and taught fifth grade. He was elected mayor of Fort Yukon, Alaska in 1964, and rose from that position to the state House of Representatives and then to the state Senate. Congressman Young was re-elected 24 times, setting a record as a Republican in the House and becoming one of the longest serving representatives in U.S. history. He was the only representative still serving who had served during the Nixon administration and the only one who had been elected during the 1970s. He served on the Committee on Natural Resources, which he renamed the Committee of Resources while he chaired it in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was also a longtime member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and he often championed infrastructure projects for Alaska. Congressman Young was born on June 9, 1933, in Meridian, California. He was the middle son of Lawhead “Sy” Young Sr. and Arlene “Nora” M. Young Harris. He held an associate degree from Yuba Community College, and a bachelor’s degree in teaching from Chico State College. Mr. Young served in the U.S. Army in a tank battalion from 1955-1957 prior to moving to Alaska in 1959.
