Supporters descend on Valley inaugural ball

WASILLA — While Friday’s high winds kept some (not all) legislators and the lieutenant governor away, they could not dim enthusiasm at Gov. Bill Walker’s inaugural ball Friday.

About 450 supporters and local community figures turned out for the ball, during which they stood on a floor installed by Mat-Su Valley volunteers, ate food (including Valley carrots) served by Valley culinary arts students, and sipped cocktails in a room plastered overnight with the red-and-white colors of Wasilla High School (Mayor Bert Cottle’s alma mater). Singing and Alaska Native dancing — provided by the Alaska Job Corps Native dancers — also featured prominently.

Of the Valley delegation, Valley representatives Lynn Gattis (R-Wasilla), Jim Colver (R-Palmer), and Shelley Hughes (R-Palmer) were apparently the only legislators who managed to arrive ahead of gusty conditions that kept air traffic from making the Juneau flight. Rep. Lora Reinbold (R-Eagle River) also attended.

In all, about 20 guests, including Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott, were unable to attend, Mayor Cottle said.

Gov. Walker took the stage to the strains of a piano version of the gospel standard “O Happy Day,” and delivered an up-tempo address which clashed somewhat with last year’s campaign, which had focused primarily on downbeat, if realistic, assessments for Alaska’s future.

“Yes, we focus a bit on the price of oil, but my goodness what opportunities we have here in this area of the state,” he said. “I am just so full of excitement and energy about the people of this state.”

In a tip of his hat to both a looming $3.5 billion state budget deficit, as well as a recent Obama administration decision to seek wilderness designation for a large portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — which would prevent drilling for potentially significant oil reserves, and drew united condemnation from legislators — Walker pledged to try to maximize oil production.

“In the state of Wyoming, about the same size as the North Slope, they do oil well production as well,” he said. “We have built 600 wells, they have built 19,000 wells, so I would like a goal. My goal is we’re going to have 19,001 wells, and that’s the best we’ll do with Alaska labor, trained here in the Valley.”

While times will be tough, Alaska will thrive, Walker said.

“The price of oil does not define who we are,” he said. “We’re Alaskans and we’re going to come stronger out of this than we are now.”

Until about midnight, a scheduled soccer game kept two crews of volunteers — one from the Alaska Job Corps and the other from a local contractor — from preparing the soccer field at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Complex until 8 a.m. the day of the ball, according to ball hostess Cathy Cottle, wife of Bert Cottle, who coordinated volunteers and donors for the group.

The red-and-white was not meant to disrespect the other local high schools, Cathy Cottle said.

“You know, if I’d-a had my way, we’d have Green Bay colors in here,” she said. “I bleed green. My whole family does.”

The ball also gave Cathy Cottle a chance to get to know an area where she’s still, relatively, a new face.

“I’ve had people come up to me and say ‘I didn’t really think Bert was married,’” she said. “So, to see people so receptive of this event and the different groups that had come together, that’s been really nice for me to learn that about how the Valley is.”

Mayors from the borough as well as the cities congratulated Walker on his victory, even if political rivalries stemming from the November election sometimes emerged inadvertently, as when Delena Johnson mistakenly referred to “Governor Parnell,” an apparent reference to the incumbent Gov. Sean Parnell Walker defeated to assume the governor’s mansion. Houston mayor Virgie Thompson shared a poem drafted by students at Houston Middle School where she works.

The ceremony was intended to incorporate the entire borough, and not just individual cities, Cottle said.

“For the Valley, this is a cooperation between all four mayors,” he said. “This is not the Wasilla inaugural ball. This is the Mat-Su Inaugural Ball."

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed the names of Valley-based legislators who attended the inaugural ball.