There was just something about Mary

WASILLA — After decades of service to the Valley and the state of Alaska, local leader Mary Kvalheim, 68, was found dead at her E. Pullman Drive home of natural causes the morning of Jan. 31.

Friends describe her as a woman of strong conviction who never stopped working to build up her community.

Kvalheim’s long arms reached far into the community — from her 23 years of service at the Mat-Su Legislative Information Office, work on the Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission, two terms on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly, active with MEA elections, a run for Wasilla City Council and her years-long efforts to see the Valley Community for Recycling Solutions facility built. She also was a member of Toastmasters and an advocate for children, the homeless and the Mat-Su Borough Animal Care and Regulation Shelter.

Born in Marshall, Minn., Jan. 4, 1945, Kvalheim’s most recent career was as an aide to U.S. Sen. Mark Begich.

“I am deeply saddened at the passing of my staffer Mary Kvalheim, whose enthusiasm, sense of humor and love for life could light up a whole room,” Sen. Begich wrote in a statement Friday. “She had a deep love for Alaska and her community in the Mat-Su, where nearly everyone in Palmer and Wasilla knew her. I was so grateful every day to have her on my staff and she will be deeply missed. My thoughts are with her family.

“We miss our Mary. Thanks again.”

Kvalheim moved to Kodiak as a child with her parents around the time of statehood.

Erik Kvalheim said he and his sister, Ingrid Kvalheim Johnson, were born on Kodiak before parents Ray and Mary Kvalheim moved the family to the Meadow Lakes area around February 1969.

“I do remember her being involved in politics at some level almost my entire life,” Erik said Saturday. “She kind of hit politics full tilt around when she started working at LIO.”

He said information about funeral services for his mother is pending, but is expected to be available in time for publication in the Tuesday edition of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.

Colleen Cottle, 75, has lived in Wasilla since 1948. The daughter of Walter and Vivian Teeland, Cottle grew up on the corner of Boundary and Parks where Great Bear Brewing is today.

Cottle served on the Wasilla City Council for nine years and said she and Kvalheim often were part of the same community events.

“Mary did a lot of work behind the scenes,” Cottle said. “It’s just too bad. Mary had a lot of good years left.”

Longtime friend Gini King-Taylor first met Kvalheim when she was an assemblywoman. After trying on her own to deal with a noisy commercial neighbor, King-Taylor said she called Kvalheim for help.

She told Kvalheim the borough code compliance person she spoke with was not helpful and had told her since there was no noise ordinance in the borough, she’d just have to live with it.

“I said that to Mary, ‘You’ll just have to live with it,’ and she said, ‘The hell you will,’” King-Taylor recalled by phone from Hawaii Saturday.

Three months later, Kvalheim had drafted a noise ordinance that passed the assembly unanimously.

“That’s how I got to know Mary,” King-Taylor said. “She became a good friend after that.”

Valley Community for Recycling Solutions Executive Director Mollie Boyer said Kvalheim was instrumental in getting funding for the new recycling center and also served on the center’s board during its early days.

“Her knowledge and just her kind self made a huge difference getting through that period of awkward growth,” Boyer said. “She was just always so pleasant.”

She shared her love of the recycling center in her new position in Sen. Begich’s office, even bringing the senator to the center for a tour last fall.

“It was Mary who just told him he had to see us,” Boyer said of Sen. Begich. “And now he loves it.”

Palmer resident and former assemblywoman Michelle Church served one term on the assembly with Kvalheim and said she considers her a political mentor and a personal role model.

“Man, if I could be like Mary and have the kind of class she has,” Church said Friday in a phone interview. “I loved Mary and she really was just the most stalwart community person I ever met.”

Church said Kvalheim never wavered from what she believed.

“From the day I met her until the day she died she believed in the same things and fought for the same things,” she said.

Church said she was one of the people in the community who encouraged Kvalheim to throw her hat in the ring for a seat on the planning commission. Later she recalled sitting in the audience while Kvalheim was on the planning commission.

“She’d catch my eye and mouth, ‘You owe me,’” Church said.

Contact managing editor Heather A. Resz at news@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.