Young above the eyebrows

Nov. 3, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

PALMER - Although she is rather a new kid on the Palmer block, June Allen's Alaska roots go back decades, and only a part of her is 77 years old.

&#8220I'm really very young above the eyebrows,” Allen said.

Allen moved from Oregon to Fairbanks in 1957, and found a job that paid well working as a dispatcher for Yellow Cab.

&#8220Not a lot of people can do it on the radio,” she said. &#8220But with my big mouth, I had no problem telling those cab drivers where to go.”

Allen got involved with theater in Fairbanks, too, working with Lee Salisbury when he was a fledgling. She still has Fairbanks friends from those days, but the place that pulls Allen's head and heart is Ketchikan, where she moved in 1964.

&#8220Ketchikan became a security blanket,” she said. &#8220When life went to hell, I always went back. I knew I could work and live there.”

Shortly after she landed in Ketchikan, Allen landed a job as a reporter, something she credits to Portland's good school

system.

&#8220I went in and the publisher asked for my qualifications,” she said. &#8220I said I can spell and I can punctuate.”

Hearing that, the publisher said she was hired, but the Ketchikan Daily News could only pay Allen $100 a week. Allen thought she'd found a glamour job.

&#8220I would have gone for $50,” she said. &#8220I loved it. Alaska is that way, if you want to do something, you get to do it. All you have to do is stand up and say, ‘I can to do it.'”

Allen mostly wrote news stories, but she turned out feature articles, also.

&#8220Not many want to write hard news, but I wrote it,” she said. &#8220But feature writing is my strength. You have to become almost two or three people. After all these years, that's a skill I have and I'm grateful for it. I can write one hell of a

letter.”

Allen said before working as a reporter, she was a &#8220crisis chicken,” and every little earthquake would send her running. After working as a reporter, Allen has no fear of anyone.

&#8220I could interview the president without a qualm,” she said. &#8220I don't care what anybody says to me because I know what I am and what I can do. Newspapers gave me that.”

It was actually her love of theater that got Allen started in her writing career. While living in Fairbanks, she wrote a play and entered it in a contest sponsored by the League of Alaska Writers. She'd only been in Alaska a couple of years when she submitted her play.

&#8220I thought Alaskan and felt Alaskan,” she said. &#8220I won and it amazed me. I thought, ‘You're a writer, babe.'”

Theater remained a passion, and Allen was one of the founding members of the First City Players in Ketchikan. She played Eliza in &#8220Look Homeward Angel.”

Allen still writes today, freelancing a column on Ketchikan history on the Web. A list of her columns is available at www.sitnews.org/JuneAllen

/list.html.

Writing eases her worry about keeping her mind occupied, she said.

Allen's Valley-based children wanted her to move closer to them after she had a bout of pneumonia, but she misses the places in Alaska where she felt most at home.

&#8220I miss Ketchikan,” she said. &#8220I know that sounds silly. It's different than any place I lived in my life. It has that hometown feel. I love Fairbanks, but it's not Ketchikan. It's one of those places where everybody knows your name, especially when you work for a newspaper.”

One thing Palmer has that Ketchikan doesn't is fresh vegetables in summer, a part of the Friday Flings Allen enjoys.

&#8220It's impossible to grow a garden in Ketchikan,” she said.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.