Far From Home

Two EOU alumni, each with their own stories, found themselves teaching at the same school system in the remote Alaskan Bush

Conrad Woodhead, a 2002 EOU alum, was looking for a one-of-a-kind experience and found it in remote Alaska.

“I was in this village, a remote whaling community with a totally subsisting lifestyle. You can look over and actually see the Siberian Mountains. We were looking through the International Date Line. And this was on a whale and walrus hunt!” Woodhead recalled of his first few moments in Gambell, Alaska. “Not a lot of people get to experience that and I love it. I have never looked back. I was looking for something completely different and I found it.”

How exactly do you end up going from Canby, Oregon, to an undergraduate student at Eastern Oregon University to a village off the grid, off the North American road network in the Alaskan Bush? While two alumni took very different paths to the Lower Yukon School District, their passion for community resonates in all they do.

Though nearly a decade apart in studies, EOU alumni Woodhead and Samantha “Sammy” Carlon, ’10, have found camaraderie in Alaska as they reminisce over memories of EOU. “I grew up in a town of less than 250, my triplets and I were three of thirteen in our graduating class,” Carlon said. “I got up to this village and life was so similar to eastern Oregon. Everyone is so caring. Even now, I’ll video-conference with current students of the professors I had. I still feel so connected to EOU.” Woodhead reflected on his time at Eastern, “I felt connected and supported all the way. Everyone was rooting for me and supporting me.”

After a number of years teaching in different Alaskan villages, Woodhead and Carlon’s paths crossed at the Lower Yukon School District in an innovative project focused on creative ways to prepare students for all aspects of life.

“Four years ago the Lower Yukon School District invested in a project to help close the gap between what rural and urban students get out of Alaska career and technical education,” Woodhead said. “More than $2 million was invested to convert a hotel into the Kusilvak Career Academy, home of King Tech High Boarding School. We are becoming an example of how school districts are getting creative at providing opportunities for our kids. So far, we’ve secured nearly $10 million in grants since we started.”

At the Kusilvak Career Academy, students learn everything from team building and leadership skills, to acclimating to modern amenities, like ordering from a restaurant menu, navigating traffic and sidewalks, or shopping in a grocery store. Students also gain exposure to skills and careers unknown in their home villages, and vocations they can use to supplement their traditional ways. Things many people take advantage of knowing.  “We are really teaching kids how to survive in any setting they find themselves in,” Woodhead said. People can survive in the bush, but the skills they learn at this school offer them an opportunity to be successful elsewhere.

“In La Grande and at Eastern, every single person – faculty, staff, advisors – had that very close investment in each and every single one of its students. Everyone was so great to work with; someone was always willing to help or point you in the right direction,” Carlon said of her time at EOU. “Now, we have the same opportunity. I have a very unique position where I don’t teach in a traditional classroom setting. I don’t administrate by sitting in an office in the traditional sense. I get to do a little bit of everything for these students. I am an educator in the broadest sense. Working with students is how I want to spend my life, helping them learn and grow into their potential.”

Teaching was in both Woodhead’s and Carlon’s genetics, as was a sense of adventure. “My adoptive grandmother and father became teachers, my sister is a teacher,” said Woodhead. “I remember being five or six and telling my uncle, who was a professor at Southern Oregon, how I wanted to be a teacher. I don’t remember a time in my life when I wanted to do anything else,” recalled Carlon. “It might be ironic that we’re working together, but it’s not uncommon for EOU and Alaska to draw folks who are looking for an adventure,” Woodhead commented as he and Carlon visited.

Woodhead’s father was one of seven children born in Alaska and put up for adoption. “Everything about my dad’s culture, I read in a book. I wanted to come here and experience it firsthand.” While at Eastern, Woodhead was a recipient of the EOU Foundation’s First Citizen Scholarship, and recognized the influence this had on his decision to pave a path from EOU to Alaska. “When Eastern invested in me, it was the push and incentive to finish strong. But, it’s also the thing that said ‘You know what, I’m coming to Alaska because I want to do right by the people who made the investment in me.’ It was really what made me know that going back to my family roots was the right path for me. EOU is so good at showing its students support. And now it’s my turn to pay forward that same support to these students.”