About The Authors

All three co-editors spent their formative years in Unga.

Thor Lauritzen, who shepherded this project, lived in Unga from 1932 to 1949.  He served on the staff of both Pen Whispers and The Alaska Pen, assuming the role of editor-in-chief of The Pen for the 1948-49 school year.  He left home to attend his senior year of High School in Seward.  He then went on to the University of Alaska and Stanford University.  He has never returned to Unga.  Thor lives in retirement in Westport, Washington.

Peggy Arness

Peggy Arness lived in Unga from 1934 to 1944, served on the staff of The Alaska Pen during the 1941-42 school year and graduated from Unga High School in May 1942. That fall, she enrolled in Pacific Lutheran College in Tacoma, Washington.  The next year she accepted a teaching position in Unga along with her mother, Mrs. Allan (Jettie) Petersen. In addition to her teaching duties, Peggy was instrumental in the publishing of Pen Whispers, The Alaska Pen's war-years surrogate. She left Unga in 1944 to attend the University of Washington.  As a life-long Alaskan, Peggy has visited Unga several times since her 1944 departure, her last visit in 2004 along with her husband Jim prior to his death in February 2006. She continues to live on their homestead in North Kenai.

Edward Melseth was born in Unga in 1943 and attended Unga Territorial School. He attended high school in Tacoma, Washington.  Edward has lived in and around Unga for most of his life.  After Unga's demise, he and his family moved to Squaw Harbor and eventually to Sand Point, where his mother and several of his siblings live today.  Edward is a member of The Aleut Corporation, The Unga Corporation and The Unga Tribe.  He currently lives in Anchorage.