Judge Cutler to hang up robe

PALMER — After 27 years in Palmer and 32 as a judge, Beverly Cutler is retiring this year from the Superior Court.

“I have been in the job for 32 years, all of which have been wonderful to me,” Cutler said Monday. But, “it’s probably a good thing to let someone else have a chance to do it.”

She said it’s not a matter of having lost her patience for the job or being tired of the work.

“I feel like I could do it for another 30 years and every day would be new and interesting,” Cutler said. But, “we all have families, we all have that book in us that we want to write,” Cutler said.

The Alaska Judicial Council is accepting applications for the seat from qualified lawyers until 3 p.m. March 2. Cutler plans to have her last day as a judge Sept. 15, five days after her 60th birthday.

Cutler was the first Superior Court Judge sent to the Valley when she came here in 1982.

“When I came to Superior Court there wasn’t any District Court judge,” she said. Those duties fell to her.

There also wasn’t a courthouse that in any way resembled the one there is now.

“The first court building was the building that’s right next to the Pioneer Home,” she said.

The ceiling leaked. There was only one courtroom. As operations in the Valley grew, she said, they had to expand into a landlord’s apartment in the back of the building. They put the criminal division there.

“We called it the penthouse apartment and we kept files in the bathtub up there,” she joked.

When she got the job, Cutler said, the presiding judge in Anchorage called to congratulate her and told her not to worry when she saw the court building — that within two years she’d have brand new accommodations.

“Two years later to the day I called him up and said, ‘Hey, about that new courthouse you promised me?’” Cutler said.

Six years after she came to the Valley she was in a new building, which is the current courthouse, expanded last year to include three new courtrooms and moving soon into two wings of the old Valley Hospital building.

Cutler, in addition to her duties on the bench, has the job of administrative judge — basically the court’s supervisor.

She said she’s not sure how the court system will go about replacing her in that position but hopes whoever takes it over will make a point of continuing their traditions of regular judges meetings and other efforts among the building’s seven judges and one magistrate to work as a team.

“It’s been a true pleasure to see all the solidarity of the people out here wanting to be a very functional working unit here,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.