<\/a>Ned Rozell sits at the edge of the volcanic crater on Mount Katmai during a trip to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes in 2001. (Photo by John Eichelberger)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
The public relations soft-sell known as the Alaska Science Forum predates my arrival by a long shot. In 1976, Geophysical Institute researcher Neil Davis — who among his many other accomplishments helped Poker Flat Research Range rise from the boreal forest north of Fairbanks — sat down and listened to UAF history professor Claus-M. Naske. Naske spoke of a “growing gap between progress in the sciences and what the public knew about science,” wrote my predecessor Carla Helfferich.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Davis typed out the first Alaska Science Forum story — about the viability of expanding Fairbanks southward across the Tanana River — in February 1976. Editors for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner published it, as they have done each Sunday for the past 49 years.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
When I finished seasonal work as a park ranger in fall 1994, I answered a want ad in that same newspaper for the job I have today.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
I replaced the retiring Helfferich, whose pieces made me feel smarter for having read them. She, who was then starting her own publishing house, had taken over writing the weekly piece from Sue Ann Bowling. Bowling was a meteorologist and one of the first woman scientists at the Geophysical Institute.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
For most of the Alaska Science Forum’s unique existence, the directors of the institute (currently Bob McCoy) have footed the bill for paying the writer. In doing so, they have given news outlets — print and digital — free content that has been vetted by researchers. (Scientists have corrected these stories for years, saving us from a boatload of errors and improving my grammar.)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t