The professional and courteous person who meets and greets visitors and answers CIRI's main phone number in the afternoons is CIRI descendant Crystal Rice. Rice provides assistance to all who call or visit CIRI offices. In addition to greeting visitors she processes corporate mail, assists the records management staff with sorting, filing, and auditing records and provides clerical support to all departments.

Rice, who is of Yup'ik descent, is an East High School graduate. She attended East's School-Within-a-School program, a smaller learning community geared toward alternative and independent learning styles. The School-Within-a-School that Rice attended set a benchmark for the rest of East High School, which has since created other smaller learning communities school-wide. Her mother, CIRI shareholder Rose Rice, is originally from Emmonak. Her father, Charlie Rice who moved to Alaska in the 1960s, is originally from Catlettsburg, Ky. Rice is the youngest of three; she has an older brother, Darrell Rice, and sister, Sandra Woodard, both of whom are CIRI shareholders. She also has 17-year-old twin nieces, Tasha and Jessie Rice. All live in Anchorage.

Crystal Rice, Receptionist & Administrative Assistant

Rice will attend her third year of college at the University of Alaska Anchorage in the spring as a junior, studying toward a bachelor's degree with a double major in English and philosophy. She plans to study for a second bachelor's degree in geomatics, which includes land surveying, mapping, geodesy, photogrammetry, and hydrography, remote sensing, digital photogrammetry, and spatial or geographic information systems. Geomatics has always interested her.

Rice has traveled throughout much of the United States and even spent a summer working on the Aleutian Chain on Amchitka for an environmental and engineering firm. She would like to visit more of rural Alaska and see places many don't have an opportunity to see. Rice enjoys reading, music, creative writing, decorating and "the typical Alaska stuff like camping, fishing, and biking."

Previous Article | Top | Next Article | Return to the list of newsletters