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Robert J. Peratrovich
Tlingit Chief, civic leader, historian and educator Robert J. Peratrovich Jr., 88, died June 23 (1996) in Ketchikan.
Peratrovich was born and raised
in Klawock, but going away to college was always his dream. There were no grants or
scholarships for Natives in those early days, so Peratrovich saved enough money to
attend the University of Washington, the University of Alaska and Alaska Methodist
University. He earned two degrees: a Bachelor of Arts in education and a
Master of
Education.
After college, Peratrovich took teaching jobs in Klawock and Anchorage and
served as school superintendent in Kake in the 1960s. Peratrovich was certified to teach
all grades, designing an Alaska history curriculum for middle-school grades in the 1970s.
He also taught several courses at the university level.
Peratrovich served two terms as
mayor of Lkawock, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and was serving when Klawock Totem
Park was built.
Peratrovich also met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington
D.C., when Peratrovich was chairman of the March of Dimes for the Territory of Alaska.
Peratrovich was a Tlingit chief of the Chum Salmon Clan, Raven Division. He also was a
member of the Alaska Native Brotherhood of Camp No. 9 in Klawock, the Retired Teachers
Association and the alumni associations of the University of Washington and the University
of Alaska.
Source: Ketchikan Daily News
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