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| Mary Blakeman, Maintenance Assistant |
| Last summer while working as a gardener for the coordinator of Eastern Wyoming College, Mary Blakeman read the CIRI newsletter and noted the spotlight article on CIRI groundskeeper Saundra Volkheimer. Blakeman, who is an avid gardener, was impressed with the lovely background of colorful flowers Volkheimer posed with. Inspired, Blakeman, who had been considering a move to Anchorage for quite some time, decided it was just the kind of positive sign she¹d been waiting for.
Blakeman, a CIRI shareholder of Athabascan heritage born in Fairbanks, left Alaska with her family as an infant and was reared in both Maine and Wyoming. She attended high school in Sundance, Wyo., which is where she met her husband Rodney. Though she hadn¹t been back to Alaska, her brother, sister and mother had all moved back to Anchorage. |
| When she and her husband made the decision to move to Anchorage, Blakeman packed the CIRI article with her and decided to drive the Alaska Highway. Once Blakeman settled her family in Anchorage, and with the hopes of finding a job, she went to Alaska¹s People and was referred to an opening at CIRI. Much to her surprise, the person in the photo with the colorful flowers, Saundra Volkheimer, interviewed her for a position in maintenance and groundskeeping. Blakeman couldn¹t believe the coincidence especially after she was hired.
While living in Wyoming, Blakeman worked on a business degree, which she hopes to complete at the University of Alaska Anchorage. In her spare time, she crochets and has recently learned to quilt. With her quilting, she¹s found that she enjoys the creative process of making new patterns. |
Mary Blakeman |
| Sometimes she misses horseback riding across the vast, rural prairies of Wyoming where she says summer temperatures can get as high as 101 degrees, but the winter season there is often colder than Anchorage. Still, with her twin son and daughter enrolled in kindergarten, she feels positive about her move back to Alaska and feels blessed with her new job.
She says, ³When I read that article and saw the picture, I thought those were the most beautiful flowers I¹d ever seen; something about them inspired me
to take a chance.² |
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