Area woman teaching in Alaska gets help from hometown students

December 24, 2007 12:03 am

— By Susan Bosch
Phoenix Correspondent

The Christmas wishes of 11 Native Alaskan students were simple: pencils, paper, shoes, sweaters, jeans and simple toys.
Those elementary students will get exactly what they want and more this year, thanks to the senior class at Fort Gibson High School who adopted them earlier this year as their class project.
A 2007 Northeastern State University graduate and Fort Gibson native, Mallory Cooper, contacted the school in August, telling of the students’ needs and prompting the creation of “Change a Child’s Life,”
Project organizer Andrea Barcellos, 17, and a senior, made the students scarves, she said, adding the things they wanted were things children here take for granted.
“They wanted little things,” she said.
Four girls and seven boys — four sets of siblings in all — comprise Cooper’s class, Barcellos and Cooper said.
Besides the basics they requested, the high schoolers also sent a Bratz doll and a truck to the kids, Barcellos said.
These gifts were appreciated, as even getting a new box of crayons is a “big deal” to her students, Cooper said. In the elementary years, children color a lot, so getting fresh crayons is both useful and fun.
Katie Smith, another 17-year-old senior, feels for the children.
“It’s just so far from everything,” she said.
Tok, a town 47 miles from Mentasta Lake, is considered the “big town,” but it is smaller than Fort Gibson, Cooper said.
Students frequently travel to and from school on snowmobiles, with warm, heavy coats protecting them from the often negative-digit temperatures, Cooper said. However, many lack the heavy-duty gloves needed to protect their hands, just one more wish she would like to see granted.
“Everybody lives within the community,” said John Cochran, an Oklahoma native as well as principal and teacher at the school.
Their actual village is small but the area considered to be Mentasta Lake covers about 300 square miles, with 2.1 square miles being water, according to a Web site run by the state of Alaska. Averages snowfall there is 69 inches, the site also reports.
Cochran said snow made its appearance in late September, with an inch coming one recent night.
Though a few students live in subsidized apartments, many live in log cabins, as he does, he said.
With the lack of actual cash in the community, “Just about everything up here has to be subsidized,” Cochran said.
Though their society may be different, the kids are still kids, he said.
Cooper said she sees one big difference, though. Her students appreciate the outdoors, often playing in the snow, riding snowmobiles for fun and making good use of the school’s playground equipment, she said. She compared their view on life to hers when she was a child.
Like her students, Cooper loves the outdoors, saying it was her dream since middle school to venture to Alaska and teach.
“Nobody really believed me,” she said.
Though the young teacher could have worked in or near a large city, such as Fairbanks or Anchorage, she prefers her current station, saying she otherwise would have missed out on the majority of what the state offers.
“This Alaska is completely different,” Cooper said.
Making the move was hard, she said. Her parents made the lengthy drive, her car packed with all her worldly goods, on the one road into Alaska. Still single, Cooper is alone and greatly misses her family.
E-mail seems to be her saving grace, having used it frequently here to keep in touch with Kim Imhoff, a former teacher and senior sponsor for this year’s class and their project. Imhoff was one of few who “believed” she could do it,” Cooper said.
Cooper has great plans for her students’ future. She hopes they will learn to value education and earn a high school diploma, as well as go on to college, an uncommon pursuit by their parents and others before them, she said.
In Alaska, the school dropout rate is high, as students age 16 or older can quit school. Cooper said that idea appeals to kids since that means they can sleep late and do nothing more than their heart desires.

Her concern, she said, is that most 16-year-olds — including those at her school — don’t have any idea what they want to do with their lives.

In the grades Cooper teaches, students still are eager to come to school, another thing for which she is grateful.

About the village
LOCATION: Mentasta Lake, Alaska.
POPULATION: 80, primarily of Ahtna descent, a federally recognized Native Alaskan tribe.
SCHOOL: Mentasta Lake Katie John School.
STUDENTS: 16 children, kindergarten through 11th grade, with most in elementary grades.
NEAREST FAST FOOD: 200 miles.
ACCESS: Road, waterway and air.
ECONOMY: Depressed, with about 10 people working for-pay jobs and the rest subsisting through hunting and fishing.

SOURCES: Mallory Cooper and John Cochran, teachers at the school

The project

Fort Gibson High School’s senior class has adopted the lower elementary students in Mentasta Lake, Alaska. The seniors sent gifts for Christmas, but more would be appreciated, said Mallory Cooper, the young students’ teacher.
Items her students would like include books, high-quality insulated gloves — a recent daytime temperature of 19 below zero was reported — crayons, coloring books, Legos, Hot Wheels cars, games, puzzles and Lincoln Logs.
Send the items to Cooper at P.O. Box 6022, Mentasta Lake, Alaska 99780.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.