Jane Arliss Sturgulewski (née Wright; September 27, 1927 – April 7, 2022) was an American businesswoman and

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

from the U.S. state of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. In a political career in which she started appearing in the spotlight in 1975, she represented Anchorage in the Alaska Senate from 1979 to 1993. Twice during off-years in re-election to her four-year Senate term (in

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

and

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

), she won the Republican nomination for governor of Alaska against mostly conservative opposition in blanket primaries. The second time, in 1990, she came out in third place behind

Walter Hickel Walter Joseph Hickel (August 18, 1919 – May 7, 2010) was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician who served as the second governor of Alaska from 1966 to 1969 and 1990 to 1994 and as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1 ...

and runner up Tony Knowles, which was the second of three times in Alaska's history a major-party nominee placed third. She won a 2000 Anchorage Athena award.

Life

Arliss Sturgulewski received a BA in Economics and Business from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from

University of Alaska Anchorage The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is a public university in Anchorage, Alaska. UAA also administers four community campuses spread across Southcentral Alaska: Kenai Peninsula College, Kodiak College, Matanuska–Susitna College, and Prin ...

in 1993. Arliss served on many municipal boards. She was elected to the Anchorage Charter Commission, the Anchorage Assembly, and to the Alaska State Senate from 1979 through 1993. Sturgulewski originally ran for an open Senate seat in 1978 when one-term Republican incumbent Joseph Orsini, an engineering professor at the

, did not seek re-election. Sturgulewski defeated Democratic nominee

Bruce Kendall Anthony Bruce Kendall (born 27 June 1964) is a two-time Olympic medallist in sailing for New Zealand. He has served as an elected member of the Howick Local Board since 2019. Yachting Kendall's family are yachtsmen. He began sailing in the ...

, who had defected to the Democrats since leaving the legislature over a decade prior. Mostly easily re-elected ever since, she chose not to stand for re-election in 1992. In

and

, she won the Republican primary for governor. In 1986, her campaign used the slogan "Let's Just Call Her Governor", owing to her hard-to-read surname. In the election, she lost to Democrat

Steve Cowper Stephen Cambreleng Cowper (born August 21, 1938) is an American Democratic politician who was the sixth governor of Alaska from 1986–90. He was governor during the 1989 ''Exxon Valdez'' oil spill. Cowper is the CEO of Steve Cowper & Associa ...

47.3-42.6. In 1990, her running mate

Jack Coghill John Bruce "Jack" Coghill (September 24, 1925 – February 13, 2019) was an American politician and businessman who was the sixth lieutenant governor of Alaska from 1990 to 1994, serving under Governor Walter Hickel. Both were members of the A ...

defected to the third party candidate Walter J. Hickel. Sturgulewski went on to come in third place behind former governor

Wally Hickel Walter Joseph Hickel (August 18, 1919 – May 7, 2010) was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician who served as the second governor of Alaska from 1966 to 1969 and 1990 to 1994 and as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1 ...

and Democrat Tony Knowles. There was opposition within the Republican party to her abortion rights and development positions. By 2016, she had registered nonpartisan, as the Republican party had moved, "too far to the right." In 2019, Sturgulewski co-chaired a committee that attempted to

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...

Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy. She was a trustee for the University of Alaska Foundation, and served on the Advisory Council for the University of Alaska, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, in addition to numerous other statewide boards and commissions. Her papers are held at University of Alaska Anchorage. Her husband, Bernard Sturgulewski, died in a plane crash in 1968. Their only child, Bernard Jr. (nicknamed "Roe") is married to Carol Murkowski, the oldest of the six children of Nancy and

Frank Murkowski Frank Hughes Murkowski (born March 28, 1933) is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Senator from Alaska from 1981 until 2002 and the eighth governor of Alaska from 2002 until 2006. In his 2006 re ...

(and the older sister of U.S. Senator

Lisa Murkowski Lisa Ann Murkowski ( ; born May 22, 1957) is an American attorney and politician serving as the senior United States senator for Alaska, having held that seat since 2002. Murkowski is the second-most senior Republican woman in the Senate, after S ...

). Sturgulewski died on April 7, 2022.

References

External links

Arliss Sturgulewski
at ''100 Years of Alaska's Legislature'' , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Sturgulewski, Arliss 1927 births 2022 deaths 21st-century American women Republican Party Alaska state senators Anchorage Assembly members Businesspeople from Alaska People from Blaine, Washington University of Washington alumni Women city councillors in Alaska Women state legislators in Alaska