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Go West(and North), Alums!
 utside
the lower 48 and far from the Boro, two alums hail from Alaska.
Four days after completing Rowan’s Master of Science in Teaching
program last August, Loren Chassels ’95 began teaching
math and science at Barrow High School. Once a resident of Cherry
Hill, his new neighbors include Innupiat Eskimos, caribou and polar
bears.
For Chassels, the road north to the wilderness started with his
interest in teaching his love of the outdoors. Settling on a biology
major in college, he indeed to become a forest ranger, so he bolstered
his credentials b working as EMT. But the teaching profession still
beckoned, so Chassels enrolled at Rowan for graduate study that
would lead to the classroom in Alaska.
He says life is “tough up here, but there are some tremendous
rewards. The environment is magnificent. I truly believe I am working
with some of the best educators in the country and I will never
view the sun the same way again.”
Chassels can be
reached by e-mail at lchassels@arctic.nsbsd.k12.ak.us or at P.O.
Box 960, Barrow, AK 99723-0960.
Susan Littley-Friedman Wiren ’83 lives in Chicken,
a gold mining town about 200 miles from the Fairbanks with her husband
Greg, and sons. The mail is her only link to life outside town because
there is no phone service.
Winter in Chicken means the population drops to 14, down from 27
in the warmer months. In a town so small, the couple has multiple
job titles. They are owners and operators of Downtown Chicken, a
saloon, café, and souvenir shop—and the only commercial
activity in Chicken. Greg is a bush pilot as well and is often called
the town’s taxidriver because there are so few roads. Susan
home-school their two children, 7-year-old Wolfgang and 4-year-old
Maximilian, and Greg also serves as the town’s gold cashier.
In 1995, the Pitman native and her husband received some media
attention. They were featured on the Travel Channel’s “Lonely
Planets Travel Guide” and were mentioned in a Philadelphia
Inquirer article about Alaska.
Letters to Wiren should
be sent to Box 48, Airport Rd., Chicken, AK 99732. 
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