Frank Mielke:
CLASS OF 1968
Chugiak High School Class of 1968
Chugiak, AK
Sunflower Elementary SchoolClass of 1968
Elmendorf afb, AK
Orion Junior High SchoolClass of 1964
Elmendorf afb, AK
Wilson Village Elementary SchoolClass of 1964
Elmendorf afb, AK
Aurora Elementary SchoolClass of 1962
Elmendorf afb, AK
Frank's Story
Life
Attended U Minnesota 68-69; transferred to U AF, graduated '72; went to U Puget Sound Law School, grad '75; jobs: City Administrator, Anderson AK, 75-76; Soldotna 76-77; committee counsel, AK legislature '78; Division of Land 78-91 (State Land Disposal Officer 78-80; Chief of Lands 81-84; Nat Res Mgr 85-86; Deputy Pipeline Coordinator, 86-88, Director Of Agriculture, 88-91; self employed Natural Resources consultant and builder, 92-95; Special Assistant Mental Health Trust, 95-97; Chief ROW Agent, Ak DOT 98-2003; ROW agent 03-04. Retired in August 2004, and moved back to Chugiak. Built and sold one log home in 2006, another in 2008. building another. In 2007 ran amateur class in the Irondog snowmobile race and my team "Mellow Yellow" placed second, after being first into 5 of 13 checkpoints, and first into halfway checkpoint in. We've already ordered new sleds for the 2010 Irondog. I bought a skiff last summer and land up the Yentna River. Son Barret and I finished all the log work on a small cabin. With the help of brother son and nephew, got foundation posts, floor and steps in for a cabin 10 miles from Eureka (MP 133) on the Glenn HIghway. Lots to do.
In 1981-82 I built a log house on family land in Chugiak and have lived there except for the 6 years when I lived in Juneau.
My wife (Shelley Higgins, Stanford '71, UC Berkeley Law School '75, recently retired as Chief Admin Law Judge, AK Tax Appeals. We were married in '83, and have 3 children- Margaret b. '92, Will, who is autisitc, '88 and Barrett '85, who is an engineering student at UAA.
I like almost anything to do with the outdoors, and have built cabins in various locations in the State-Kenai, Prince of Wales Island, Mat-Su Valleys, and look forward to more snowmachining, skiing, log cabin building, fishing, in years to come. Would like to travel more, but having yound kids, that won't be out of school until we're 60, extensive travelling will have to wait.
My son and I finished a log cabin off the Yentna River ('09) and another cabin in the Nelchina area ('10). We ran the Irondog snowmachine race, a team of 6, including brother Bill, his son Otis,a couple other Alaska friends and a 71 year old rookie from Florida. We ran 2010 Ski Doo Summits with 600cc e-tech engines. They are fast and get phenomenal gas mileage. They are long tracks, so we can go in the deep snow. The two times we ran, we ended up breaking trail for 20-50 miles, and we had the only machines that could go inthe real deep snow. Again we had to not only break trail, but find it. Official trailbrea...Expand for more
kers lead us and we were all stuck in 40 F rainy weather, so our team ( named Black & Blue) turned around, found another trail and broke trail. Everyone, including the so-called trailbreakers followed us.
We have been Irondog trailbreakers/trailmarkers/checkpoint checkers for the last four years at the Rainy Pass checkpoint. It's almost as much fun as running the race. On the way to Rainy Pass in 2014 I suffered a severe shoulder injury getting off the Swentna River. I managed to make the 20 mile ride to the Rainy Pass Lodge, man the checkpoint for four days, and ride 120 miles back with a separated shoulder, torn tendons, etc. I shouldn't have done that, and hope I am not so foolish again. In January 2015 I suffered a most painful attack due to undiagnosed bladder cancer while moose hunting with brother Bill. Warren Hutchison, a Chugiak HS grad flew back and got me to Wasilla, where old friend Vince Coan picked me up and got to the ER before I bled out. Its so good to have old friends around to help when you really need it. I had surgery shortly after, and follow up surgery a week before trailbreaking for the Irondog. I made it OK, but in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done that either. I've had four checkups, all showing no signs of cancer, so the surgery and chemo seems to have worked.
I had to batch it for a month plus in 2013, as my daughter Meg, then a junior at Vassar was doing her semester abroad at Oxford and Shelley went over for Meg's (month long) spring break and travelled around Europe. They met in Seattle where Meg had to be for an interview for a Truman Foundation Fellowship. Shelley and Will and I went back for her graduation in May 2014, and I got to visit a law school classmate in New Hampshire, an old family cemetery in Comstock NY, and a distant cousin in Connecticut. We though she would go on the law school, but she chose a Masters program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and graduated in May 2015. She works for a training and voc ed nonprofit in Anchorage.
Before my cancer diagnosis I started building a small house in the Big Lake area. I hired a couple of nephews to help with the interior work last winter, so work progressed through the winter. Barret and I had the house framed and roofed, while he had three weeks off between jobs. I'm doing the trim, kitchen and interior doors now, but taking my time. It is located close to good snowmachining so I will keep it through the winter and sell it in early summer. We are trailbreaking and manning the Rainy Pass checkpoint again in 2016.
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