Katie Hurley

Hurley was born in Juneau, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants, her father a fisherman and a carpenter. She attended Juneau High School where she was class salutatorian. She went on to attend Behnke-Walker Business College in Portland, Oregon.[1] She joined the staff of Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening as a stenographer/clerk in 1940, when she was 19. She became a governor's assistant in 1941. She was married in 1944 and then became the Executive Secretary to the governor that year, serving even while she was pregnant, until Gruening's departure from his post in 1953.[2]

Hurley became the Secretary of the Territorial Senate, then the Chief Clerk to Alaska's Constitutional Convention in 1955-1956. Following statehood, she became the Secretary of the State Senate for five sessions. Hurley served as the president of the State Board of Education for seven years and was the Executive Director of the Alaska Women's Commission for three years. She was the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. She was on the Statehood Transitional Staff of Governor William A. Egan in 1959–1960. Hurley won the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor nomination in 1978, the first woman ever to win a statewide election in Alaska, joining the ticket of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Anchorage attorney Chancy Croft. In 1984, she won a Mat-Su valley House seat 16-A, chaired the State Affairs Committee and, was a member of the House Education Committee. She served on the Alaska Judicial Council. She was also elected to the Matanuska Electric Association board. She was the Chair of the Alaska Commission for Human Rights, the state Personnel Board and, for nine years, the Matanuska Telephone Association's Board of Directors. She lost her state house seat to Republican Curt Menard in 1986.[3] In 2006, at 85 years old, rather than allow Republican felony suspect Vic Kohring to run unopposed, she ran again for the Alaska house but lost, despite Kohring's burgeoning legal problems.[4] She also served as the Executive Director of the Alaska Commission on the Status of Women and was the President of the State Board of Education for seven years. She was elected to the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame in 2009.[5]

Hurley was married to Joe Alexander in 1944 and their son David was born in 1946. She remarried in 1960 to Jim Hurley,[6] a delegate to the Alaska Constitutional Convention and a member of the first state legislature. They moved to Palmer in 1960, purchased the office of the Alaska Title Guaranty company, and moved to the shore of Wasilla Lake in 1963. Later they divorced.[7] She had two more children, Susan Alexander and Mary Hurley. She was the organist for St. David's Episcopal Church in Wasilla for decades. In 2001, she received the Dot Jones award, named for the first woman mayor of the Mat-Su Borough.[8] In 2009, she was inducted into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame.[9]

• Katie Hurley at 100 Years of Alaska's Legislature
• Katie Hurley interview 360 North - Alaska Pioneers - Katie Video