{"id":65251,"date":"2020-11-16T23:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/longtime-former-alaska-lawmaker-dies\/"},"modified":"2020-11-16T23:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T08:30:00","slug":"longtime-former-alaska-lawmaker-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/longtime-former-alaska-lawmaker-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime former Alaska lawmaker dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><ins>Associated Press<\/ins><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jalmar &ldquo;Jay&rdquo; Kerttula, who was Alaska House speaker and Senate president during his long legislative career, has died. He was 92.<\/p>\n<p>Kerttula died Friday in Juneau, according to a statement released Tuesday by his daughter, Beth Kerttula. Beth Kerttula, herself a former state legislator, told The Associated Press she was influenced &ldquo;all the time, every day&rdquo; by the examples set by her father and mother, Joyce, who died in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Joyce Kerttula became an &ldquo;unpaid volunteer&rdquo; in her husband&rsquo;s office after finding unanswered letters in a drawer, according to the statement.<\/p>\n<p>Jay Kerttula, a Palmer Democrat, served more than 30 years between the state House and Senate, beginning in 1961. With the exception of the third Legislature, which ran from 1963-1964, he served continuously until losing his reelection bid in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;He began his political career when Alaska had little funding, but a lot of hope,&rdquo; the statement reads, adding he and other leaders were able to put aside partisan politics and &ldquo;focus on issues.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, an Anchorage Republican, in a social media post said Jay Kerttula &ldquo;dedicated his life to public service and played a pivotal role in creating the state we live in today. Jay will be sorely missed by many, and his name will never be forgotten in Alaska history.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Survivors include his daughters Beth Kerttula and Anna Kerttula de Echave. No immediate plans for a memorial were announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He was 92. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":65252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[448],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-65251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-state-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65251"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=65251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}