Original CIRI shareholder Ronald Drake and his wife, Sandra, are pleased to recognize the accomplishments of their son Willie “Urpac” Francis Drake. Willie graduated in 2015 from Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska, where he was a member of the National Honor Society and served that same year as a CIRI Shareholder Participation Committee youth representative. He enrolled in classes at the University of Alaska Anchorage and interned with Bering Straits Native Corp., where he was nominated to present as part of Alaska Geographic’s Arctic Youth Ambassador Program. Willie continues to work a seasonal a job at the Alaska Native Heritage Center and has served as a Yup’ik and Inupiaq language assistant teacher as part of the center’s Urban Eskimo Language Revitalization Project. He expects to receive his medical assistant training certificate from Anchorage-based Charter College in July.
