Retired teacher keeps busy by volunteering at museum
Published: August 15, 2005
ane Behlke will turn 80 in November, but the retired grade-school teacher and longtime community volunteer doesn’t have time to contemplate the past–there’s too much to do.
Behlke has spent a lifetime keeping busy. Friends and family describe her as a woman of great wit and intelligence, an avid reader and tireless supporter of others.
She has long devoted herself to promoting the University of Alaska Museum of the North and is much beloved and respected for her efforts on behalf of several nonprofit groups around town.
“She’s a genuine volunteer,” said Aldona Jonaitis, director of the university museum. “She really is a treasure for the community.”
Behlke was born in Seward in 1925 and describes her childhood as “idyllic.” At an early age, she started spending summers in Cooper Landing where she developed a keen interest in science and how automobiles and other machines worked.
“As a child, I was always interested in the wrong things,” she said. “The things boys were supposed to be interested in but girls were not.”
Those interests and an independent streak led Behlke to graduate with a degree in chemistry from Whitman College in Washington in 1947. She started her career as a teacher the following school year back in Seward, where she found being the hometown girl wasn’t always to her advantage.
“I learned to be wary of any story the students told with an unnamed heroine in it because the unnamed heroine always turned out to be me,” she said. “Their parents were all loaded with stories about me growing up.”
After four years of teaching in Seward, Behlke moved north, taking a job at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she met and married Charles Behlke, a teacher of civil engineering.
In 1954, the couple moved to California where Charles completed his doctorate at Stanford, and then to Oregon where he taught at the state university. By the time they went to the Netherlands for a year on a National Science Foundation fellowship, they had three children under the age of six: Susan, Carol and Jim.
When the family returned to Fairbanks in 1965, Jane was content to raise the children and run the household, but the local schools were clamoring for qualified teachers and she soon found herself back in a classroom.
“If you had a warm, breathing body, that was all the requirement there was for being a substitute,” she said.
She filled in at various elementary classrooms for the next two years until someone pointed out that she was actually working full time for half pay and that she might as well accept a permanent position.
Behlke taught fifth grade until 1970, when she became elementary science coordinator for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.
“I thought it was marvelous fun because I got to see so many kids and do so many things with them that were fun,” she said.
Curtis Thomas, spokesman for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, was one of those students who remembers Behlke’s science lessons.
“When I was in third grade, she would come around with her science cart and wow us with science projects,” Thomas said. “She took the mystery out of science and brought it to life. It became hands-on and real.”
Years later, Thomas still considers Behlke one of his all-time favorite people. Whenever he sees her he makes a point of introducing her to his daughter, who’s been hearing tales of her teaching prowess since she was a toddler.
“I get excited and forget that I’ve already told her the stories before,” Thomas said. “It gets a little embarrassing for me.”
Behlke retired from the school district in 1987. That fall she camped out for 58 consecutive nights while constructing a 12-foot-by-13-foot log cabin near Chena Hot Springs with her family. The cabin was built as an art studio for her son, Jim, a painter, and also as a way to ease her transition into retirement.
“I knew when I quit working that it was going to be a jolt,” she said.
Building the cabin kept her busy for three months, but she was soon looking for new challenges.
In 1992, she became involved in the Friends of the UA Museum and the effort to build a larger facility to house the university’s vast collection of natural and cultural artifacts. It’s a cause she has remained dedicated to ever since.
“I just love museums,” Behlke said. “They are a wonderful record of what has happened and a hint of what might happen in the future.”
Don Gray, a member of Friends of the UA Museum who has known Behlke for more than 30 years, said her understanding of the state has made her an effective lobbyist for the museum in Juneau. “She has quite a knowledge of Alaska history,” he said. “And she can be very logical and persuasive in her advocating on behalf of the museum.”
Behlke is also vice chair of the Museum Advisory Council, which meets four times a year to provide community perspective on museum issues.
The council was formed three years ago following the museum’s successful fundraising efforts for the current expansion project and its work has centered on the business side of the museum’s operations.
“She knows the history of the museum and many of the people who brought the early exhibits to the university,” said Mike Cook, chair of the advisory council. “That contributes a lot to her effectiveness on the council.”
“She’s just a wonderful woman,” said the museum’s Kerynn Fisher. “She has that school-teacher personality that allows her to get her way with sugar.”
Behlke’s creative side is also in demand.
When it came to the Sept. 10 official opening of the museum, it was Behlke who suggested creating a ribbon out of 200 pieces of artwork done by local children during the annual Fun Fest in June.
“She’s very creative,” Jonaitis said. “When she sees a problem she comes up with a creative solution.”
Once the artwork was completed, Behlke enlisted the help of other retired school teachers to string the hand-colored pieces together and laminate them into one long ribbon, which will be cut next month during the ceremonial christening of the new building.
“She is a dream supporter for the museum,” Jonaitis. “She has committed so much of her time, energy and soul into this project.”
Behlke also donates time to the Fairbanks Community Food Bank and St. Raphael Catholic Church, but she downplays her volunteer efforts.
“When something needs to be done and I think I can do it, I will give it a try,” she said.
Volunteering for Behlke is just part of leading a full life.
“If you don’t stay active, you kind of dry up, so you don’t have much choice.”
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