After nine years, Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, has had enough.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers, staffers and others in the Alaska State Capitol took a brief break Wednesday to offer their farewells to Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, and Sen. Berta Gardner, D-Anchorage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you very much, folks, for sticking with me for these nine years,\u201d Egan said as he held a microphone in front of a room filled by well-wishers.<\/p>\n
Egan and Gardner have each announced their retirement, and while the legislative session isn\u2019t quite over, each session\u2019s last days bring a frenetic pace with little time for celebration and reminices.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, there was ample time for that and thick slabs of cake.<\/p>\n
Even Gov. Bill Walker got into the act, describing the time he first met Egan. It was 1962, and they were in Valdez.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre there any media here? Oh, so I won\u2019t tell that story,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
Egan was a regular vistor to Valdez with his father, then-Gov. Bill Egan. Walker lived in Valdez.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would take him out, and we would show him off to tourists,\u201d Walker said of the younger Egan. \u201cWe would pull up and say, \u2018Hey, you want to see the governor\u2019s son?\u2019 And there was Dennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Egan shared his memory of the day he learned that then-Gov. Sarah Palin had selected him for a vacant Alaska Senate seat in northern Southeast Alaska.<\/p>\n
He had been visiting his mother at the Juneau Pioneer Home and was wearing clothes suitable for cleaning his driveway.<\/p>\n
He got a call from Mike Nizich, Palin\u2019s chief of staff<\/a>, who told him to put on a suit jacket because he was going to be Juneau\u2019s new senator<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, proceeded to playfully tease him about being the \u201cfourth-best\u201d person for the job, an allusion to the extended confirmation struggle that Juneau Democrats had with Palin.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the number to get hold of Problem Corner? We\u2019ve got a number of problems in this building,\u201d cat-called an anonymous legislator sitting in the back of the room.<\/p>\n Egan was the longtime host of that popular KINY-AM radio talk show.<\/p>\n Various legislators offered gifts, but the largest was an enormous map of northern Southeast signed by sitting legislators.<\/p>\n Republicans and Democrats alike offered stories in praise of Egan, most at least partially in jest.<\/p>\n