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Join UAF Summer Sessions in honoring members of our community. The Tall Timbers lecture series takes place on Mondays at 7 p.m. in the BP Design Theater, located in JUB 401 in the JUB building on UAF Campus, 1764 Tanana Loop. The Fairbanks Tall Timber Lecture Series is made possible by a generous contribution from Explore Fairbanks.

All presentations are in-person, webcast, and recorded to be posted to the Summer Sessions website within two weeks of the live event.

The Fairbanks Tall Timber Series was created to honor those who have served the Fairbanks community well.  Join veteran newsman Robert Hannon in person or via Zoom as he interviews these stalwart community members.  

Visit https://www.uaf.edu/summer/events/upcoming.php for more information and to join via Zoom.

6/9, Anne Hanley: Anne Hanley began writing and producing plays in her parents’ basement at the age of seven. In third grade, she won a plastic Madonna for a poem she wrote and has been writing ever since. Anne’s first job in Fairbanks was as an anchorwoman for Scope Nightly News on KTVF-TV. When the station sent her to cover stories in Shishmaref and McGrath, she got to experience Alaska Native culture firsthand, a life-changing experience. Even before moving to Alaska, she was intrigued by the story of Louis Shotridge, a Tlingit caught between his traditional upbringing and the science of anthropology. In 1994, the University of Alaska Anchorage produced her play, Shotridge. Her fictional but true-to-life drama, The Winter Bear, about Athabascan leader Sidney Huntington, toured over 50 Alaskan communities. She just finished Coming Home, a Readers Theatre piece about the life and poetry of Mary TallMountain, a Koyukon writer adopted out of her village as a child in 1924. Anne served three terms on the Alaska Humanities Forum Board and was the first playwright to be named Alaska Writer Laureate.

6/16 Margo Klass: Before moving to Fairbanks on one of the coldest days in January 2005, Margo lived outside of Washington, DC, for 25 years, working as an arts administrator, teacher, and artist. Maker of sculptural box constructions and artist books, she quickly joined the Fairbanks creative community, first as an artist and teacher and, in 2011, as a founder of the Northwoods Book Arts Guild. Her special interest in collaboration found a home in the Guild, where she is a catalyst in organizing projects that foster communal learning and creative collaboration. Other projects, notably UAF’s In A Time Of Change (ITOC), also fed her belief in the value of creative collaboration. Her most personal collaborations, however, were with her late husband, writer Frank Soos, whose texts often accompanied her work in exhibitions. Together, they published Double Moon: Constructions and Conversations. Margo has received awards from the Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska State Council on the Arts. She was an Artist in Residence in Denali National Park and on Beaver Creek as part of the Bureau of Land Management’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Program. In 2014, she received an Interior Alaska Mayors' Award; in 2015, she received the Governor’s Individual Artist Award.

6/23 Mary Ann Borchert: Mary Ann Borchert graduated from high school in the suburbs of Chicago.  She earned her B.S. in biology from Denison University, Granvill, Ohio, and an M.S. in biology from The Ohio State University.  Seeking a change from the Midwest, she moved to Eugene, Oregon, where she worked on a Ph.D. in marine biology at the University of Oregon.  After four wonderful years in Oregon, she was hired to run the Electron Microscope Lab at UAF in 1971.  She moved from teaching and research to administration and worked in the Graduate School until retiring from UAF in 1994.  Along the way, she earned an M.S. in Engineering and Science Management from UAF.  Since retirement, she has been privileged to work with others to start Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Raven Landing Senior Community, and Aging at Home Fairbanks.  Over the years, she has served on the boards of many other organizations. Mary Ann is grateful for the many ways to remain active and be of service to the Fairbanks community.

7/7 Mike Thomas: Mike Thomas feels like he is from Fairbanks, but in reality, he was born in Long Beach, California, as Louis Michael Thomas. He moved to Oregon with his parents and became a business owner at the age of 20. At the time, he was the youngest Chevron dealer in the nation. He heard Alaska’s streets were paved with gold, so he joined the black gold rush in 1976. He made it to Fairbanks by way of Anchorage in 1977 with his wife Francie and, one month later, baby boy Troy. He purchased Mike’s Chevron on College Road that same year. Sadly, it was on the wrong side of the street. So, in 1984, the building was lifted off the foundation and marched down College Road to its present location. In the meantime, Mike made friends and built his business, family, and chosen community. He became active in Fairbanks Curling Lions, where the New Year’s Eve tradition, “Sparktacular,” was started in 1989. Francie and Mike enjoy traveling, but Fairbanks is their home.

7/14 Brian O'Donoghue: Brian Patrick O’Donoghue is a well-traveled scribe. After earning undergraduate (UC Santa Cruz) and graduate degrees (NYU), he chased breaking news for east-coast weeklies in Baltimore, DC, and Manhattan before a want ad in the early 1980s lured him North to a career as a reporter for the Frontiersman in Wasilla. O’Donoghue embraced Alaska through numerous field assignments and career moves, notably covering 10 sessions of the Alaska State Legislature in Juneau for outlets ranging from the Fairbanks Daily-News-Miner and Anchorage Daily News to Alaska’s top TV stations. His books My Lead Dog was a Lesbian (Random House), and Honest Dogs (Epicenter Press) recount O’Donoghue’s struggles competing in the stormy 1991 Iditarod and 1998 Yukon Quest. In retrospect, those marathon adventures were straightforward compared to his second career, teaching journalism at UA. For nearly two decades, O’Donoghue taught students the finer arts of investigative reporting through a project examining the innocence claims of Marvin Roberts, Eugene Vent, George Frese, and Kevin Pease, four young men serving long prison sentences for the 1997 murder of a young teenager, John Hartman. O’Donoghue’s latest book, The Fairbanks Four: Murder, Injustice and the Birth of a Movement (Sourcebooks, April 2025), tells the story behind the Alaska Law Department’s shameless bid to conceal past errors. O’Donoghue and his wife of 30 years, Kate Ripley, have three adult children.

7/21 John Manthei: John Manthei’s preferred habitat is in the woods or on the water, while his preferred activity is making things, and he has been doing just that for over 70 years. There was a brief interlude during his college days and a couple of years after when he dabbled in botany, and even that couldn’t keep John out of the woods. His need to make things led him to a career in cabinet and furniture making and construction. He also became a dog musher, lived in the bush, and built dog sleds. Along the way, John enjoyed helping others make things, so teaching became another passion. John was one of the founding members of The Folk School of Fairbanks, which offers a variety of programs and classes. He loves to share his knowledge of making things from materials he has harvested from the woods and show others how to enjoy the fun.

7/28 Stan Justice: Stan Justice is a Colorado native and former mountaineer whose adventurous spirit has led him through some of the most breathtaking landscapes in Alaska. With a background in competitive running and a passion for exploration, Stan has always sought out challenges in the wilderness and on trails. Currently, he dedicates his time to enhancing recreational trails in Fairbanks, AK, by doing maintenance and trail construction and advocating for trails. His commitment to preserving the natural beauty of his home state is evident in his active involvement with local organizations that promote trail maintenance, environmental conservation, and community engagement. In 2024, he helped found Fairbanks Trails Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit. When he is not working on trails, Stan enjoys sharing dancing with the love of his life Barb Lorz.