Martha Roderick, longtime Anchorage educator, dies

If she could choose how she would be remembered, Roderick would likely say as an educator. A lifelong advocate for literacy, she worked as a reading tutor at Fairview Elementary School and around the city for 50 years and served on numerous education-related boards and commissions.

A 1952 graduate of Radcliffe College, Roderick, who was born in Tennessee, came to Alaska in 1955 "on a lark," her family said, and took a job as a stewardess on Cordova Airlines. That was shortly after she met Alaskan Jack Roderick at a party in Seattle. They were married that same year.

"She wasn't going to get out of my sight," Jack recalled in an interview on Thursday. The couple was married for 53 years.

The Rodericks lived in the South Addition neighborhood and had two daughters, Selah and Libby. In the early 1960s, Martha Roderick began as a tutor, helping children and adults learn to read. In the 1970s, she started a relationship with Fairview Elementary that would last for decades.

"She just had great success working with kids, particularly boys," said Carol Comeau, Anchorage School District superintendent and a long-time friend. "She is just someone who left a legacy, and I'm sure she impacted hundreds of kids."

One year Martha Roderick used her Permanent Fund dividend to buy a book for every student at the school, her daughter Libby said.

Jack was elected mayor of the borough in 1972.

"She was creative and brilliant and very supportive of her husband," said Caroline Wohlforth, a longtime friend who also served on the School Board.

In the early 1980s, Martha developed and launched a community-access television channel on cable. She taught video production and broadcasting to volunteers, and helped get everything from performance art to political debates on air.

Roderick was appointed to the School Board in 1984 and was elected in 1985. She eventually became president. She enjoyed politics and described herself as "unobtrusively aggressive."

"Martha didn't say a lot at meetings, but boy, when she did, everybody listened to her," Comeau said.

She played tennis regularly until just a few years ago, even when she was slowed by illness, Wohlforth said.

"I really admired her fortitude," she said.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made, but the family expects to have a service in mid-January.

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.