Nikiski, Alaska has a population of under 5,000.  Things to do are camping, fishing, and bear-watching, and it is the soon-to-be-home of English teacher, Ally Brankel, known amongst her students as simply Miss Ally. Not a stranger to moving around, Ms. Ally has been in the education field for twenty-two years now, having taught from kindergarten to college-level students and has been at Sahauro for the past two years. Ms. Ally and her husband have to move a lot because of her husband’s work, so she’s taught at different schools and colleges in other states like Phoenix, New Mexico, Colorado, and Indiana.

Ms. Ally and her husband are going to move to Alaska in three weeks because her husband was offered a job out in the cold state, where the summers are cool and mostly cloudy and the winters are long, freezing, snowy, and windy, and can get to -12*.  This does not scare Ms. Ally!  She feels like, “its an opportunity of a life time. He likes the beach and I like the mountains, so we get the best of both worlds and we’re up for another adventure.”

Ms. Ally and her husband plan to stay in Alaska for at least ten years. Her job as a teacher will still continue on as teaching college students in English. She hopes that she get to retire as a teacher up there because the teacher salary is higher there than here in Tucson.

One of the things that she will miss about Tucson is her family and the vibe here, “especially in the east side it’s just really nice. I grew up here so my family is here, so that’ll take a big chunk out of my heart but you know, we’ll be back to visit.” Something that she won’t miss so much is the heat. Ms. Ally used to live up in Phoenix so she has experienced hotter weather than Tucson, but she will miss the wild life and walking her dogs in the desert.

The people, co-workers and the upper 100 hallway is what Ms. Ally will miss most about Sahauro, “It’s just a nice school…I look forward to coming to work every day and saying good morning to everyone.”