Alaska flags are at half staff today in honor of former Fairbanks Republican state house representative Hugh “Bud” Fate. After retiring from a career as a dentist, Fate, at the age of 70, ran and served two terms representing House District 33 in the early 2000s.
But his endeavors and accomplishments in Alaska were far more diverse. In a tribute to Fate on the US Senate floor in December, 2019, his son-in-law, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, referred to Fate as a legend.
“He’s been a rodeo cowboy, a college football player, a roughneck, a soldier, a gold miner, a Carpenter, a hunter, a commercial and subsistence fisherman, A dog musher a bush pilot a dentist of a businessman, estate representative, and author and artist and all around rabble rouser and Alaskan Renaissance man through and through.“
Sullivan also highlighted the work Fate and his wife, the late Alaska Native leader Mary Jane Fate, did to help Native people: providing free dental care, working on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, helping form that Fairbanks Native Association and fighting to end the boarding school era.
“So many others across the stage, helped lay the groundwork for the seminal lawsuit but brought by a group of Alaskans that resulted in a state signed consent decree to provide high school in communities throughout the state.”
Both bud and Mary Jane Fate also served more than 24 years combined on the University of Alaska Board of Reegents. And the couple regularly opened their Fairbanks home to those in need, including students from villages. Bud Fate was 91 years old.
