Alaska has seen its share of pioneering women, but it can now claim one more.
Last month, Kelly Haney, an 18-year-old high school senior, defeated an incumbent three times her age to become the youngest member ever on the Anchorage school board.
She is expected to be sworn in next week, three weeks before she graduates from Dimond High School.
Ms. Haney, who had the backing of the local teachers’ union, beat her opponent by a slim 469 votes, drawing 21,851 votes to Joe Marks’s 21,382. As of last week, nearly 2,500 absentee ballots still needed to be counted before the election is certified this week.
Ms. Haney’s victory apparently makes her the youngest Anchorage resident to be elected to a citywide position and makes the seven-member board entirely female.
Children are dispatching an environmental message from coast to coast in honor of Earth Day’s 25th anniversary.
Last month, the U.S. Postal Service issued 200 million first-class stamps designed with the environment in mind by four young artists.
The colorful 32-cent stamps depict such “green themes” as solar energy, tree planting, beach cleanup, and water conservation.
More than 150,000 children ages 8 to 13 submitted designs illustrating ways to preserve and protect the environment, according to a statement by McDonald’s Corporation, which sponsored the contest with the Postal Service. From those submissions, four designs were chosen to appear as stamps.
For decades, stamps have promoted an environmental awareness of wildlife conservation, energy, soil, and forest preservation, Marvin Runyon, the postmaster general, said.
“We are happy to add to this record four more designs featuring the environmental consciousness of our youth,” he said.
