Wrangellite honored by Governor

A former Wrangell resident and Tlingit elder received an award last week from Governor Sean Parnell for her work in advocating for Alaska Native women and children.

Gov. Parnell awarded the 2011 Shirley Demientieff Award to Ethel Lund at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage on Friday, Oct. 21. The governor of Alaska gives the award each year at AFN.

Lund, who grew up in Wrangell, is one of the founders of the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium and has served as its president since 1997.

After its establishment in 1975 as a small organization led by an Alaska Native volunteer board of directors – mostly women from remote villages – SEARHC has grown into one of the largest health care organizations in Alaska.

Gov. Parnell was effusive in his praise of Lund and her decades-long career.

“Ms. Lund charted a course for youth to embrace careers in the health care field,” Gov. Parnell said. “Her work is lasting. This can be seen with one of the nation’s oldest Native-run health care organizations bearing her name: Juneau’s Ethel Lund Medical Center.”

 Lund was chair of the Alaska Native Health Board from 1978 to 1981. Among her many accomplishments was the development of a memorandum of agreement with the Indian Health Service in 1978.

She has also chaired the Alaska Tribal Health Directors and served as vice chair of the National Indian Health Board.