L. Jane Sutherland Niebergall was an enthusiastic Alaskan whose many passions centered on Alaska’s native people and life in the bush. She spent her life loving outdoor adventures, teaching and other people. Born in Hollywood, Calif., on April 19, 1931, she passed away peacefully at home in Anchorage, from cancer on June 10, 2024.
Jane came to Alaska in 1965, where she helped design and start the state’s Head Start program from Juneau. This marked the beginning of her lifelong love of Alaska, Alaskans and the untamed beauty of the bush. In July 1967, accepting a job with the University of Alaska, she moved to Fairbanks just weeks before the Chena River flood destroyed her new home and much of the city. She also helped create a future master plan for the City of St. Mary’s.
In 1969, Jane was accepted at the University of Oregon to pursue a doctoral degree in education. After completing her studies, she returned to Alaska in 1972, and worked for Alaska Methodist University as an administrator and professor in their Department of Education.
Wanting native Alaskans to have an opportunity to receive higher education degrees in a bush setting, Jane taught at Kuskokwim Community College in Bethel. She traveled among several native communities in the Y-K Delta teaching psychology and training teacher aides.
She met and married Hal Niebergall. They fell in love with Aniak and built an island home at the confluence of the Aniak and Kuskokwim rivers.
Jane started a small publishing company, Circumpolar Press, which specialized in producing curriculum materials used by bush teachers to educate rural children using cultural references and lifestyles they recognized. She also opened an educational materials business in Anchorage, the Teacher Store.
During her final years, Jane lived at Chester Park Cooperative in Anchorage. She loved to promote socialization by organizing parties and made many friends there. She also initiated a project to create a Christmas memory tree so that residents could honor loved ones they had lost.
Jane was inducted into the fifth class of the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. There, she was recognized for her outstanding contributions to education in Alaska at the pre-school, primary, secondary and university levels. During her life she lived in Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Bethel, Aniak, Shageluk, Nome and Kotzebue.
She was predeceased by her mother, Virginia Blanchard; father, Robert Aurand; and her two husbands, Leonard Sutherland and Hal Niebergall.
She is survived by her son, Scott Sutherland (Lisa); daughter, Lisa Bach; grandchildren, Lael Bach, Lauren McCoy (Ed) and Robert Sutherland; great-grandsons, Neko Uriarte and Laine Tucker; and a host of friends and loved ones around the state and nation.
A memorial service will be held at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Anchorage at noon on Aug. 16, 2024. She insisted that any memorial event be followed by a party. Jane always loved parties.

After earning her master’s, Niebergall accepted a summer job in Alaska and came north to lead one of two teams of Head Start educators. Her team traveled across the state, from Ketchikan and Yakutat in Southeast to the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta region. She also traveled as far north as Nome and Shishmaref, interviewing parents of children in the first introductory summer of the Head Start program. Her team consisted of five: Niebergall, two young women college students, a doctor and a dentist. The doctor and dentist were under contract, and joined the group for parts of the trip. Nurses employed by the State of Alaska joined the group as they went into from one nurse’s area to another.

The summer Bureau of Indian Affairs contract to teach Head Start, in the beginning, was to prepare for hiring trained early childhood teachers to carry on the program for young children during the winter. The national Office of Economic Opportunity sponsored and paid for the program, and contracted with the State for its operation. While in Alaska that summer, Niebergall was interviewed for a position with the State.

Niebergall and her children returned to their home in California and resumed their life there. While the children were in school, Lisa in the 6th grade, and Scott in the 3rd, Niebergall received notification that she had been hired. She invited her mother south from Juneau to help pack. The family was on the new Alaska ferry on Dec. 23 from Canada to Alaska. Arrival date was Dec. 26, 1965.

Niebergall went to work the first week of January 1966. The OEO office was still part of the Governor’s office and her supervisor was the first RuralCap director, Al Fothergill. Later the OEO required that a new corporation be established and the office moved out of the Governor’s office into their own headquarters. Niebergall’s task was to negotiate with the Department of Education to place these new para-professional Native people, the early childhood teachers-to-be, into the Department of Education and to internalize the program. After a number of meetings, it became evident that the Department did not want that responsibility and they told Jane not to come back for any more meetings.

Because there were no other programs for early childhood education, Niebergall started the training of the Alaska Native women who would teach children herself despite naysayers. Her boss at RuralCap said “do it,” and she did.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks, the major campus at the time, had no early childhood education classes and did not plan to begin any. At that time there was no national certification for early childhood educators. There was no early childhood public education sponsored by the State of Alaska or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In Alaska there were very few services for children in the Bush before they went to school. There were no health exams for well children before they went to the first grade. Most schools in the Bush were Bureau of Indian Affairs schools which began in the first grade. Children had to learn to speak and read English before they were passed out of the first grade. For some villages where the Native language, Yupik, was spoken and very little English, this was a challenge for most of the children. Most of those schools had a primary group, ungraded, until the student learned spoken and reading English. They were then passed into a regular cycle – at about the third grade, depending upon the school. This was the standard curriculum in most rural schools.

Much Bush education was prejudicial. When Head Start began the average educational level of achievement in the Yukon-Kuskokwim area, according to the census, was 2.5 years. The level was brought down because not all villages had schools and there was no education for those children who stayed in the village. This all changed when the election took place and Walter Hickel became governor. Hickel took office in December 1966.

After Governor Hickel was elected, the OEO office was moved out of the Governor’s office and became its own independent company. As a state worker, Niebergall was transferred to the Department of Education and then to the Department of Labor where she wrote grants and attended meetings. Then Niebergall was transferred to Fairbanks. “I was placed in the school district, and then went to work at the University — the Institute of Social and Economic Research,” Niebergall said. She moved her family to Fairbanks in 1967 just before the flood in which their newly purchased house was damaged.

After two years with the reorganization of ISER the family talked, took a vote and decided it might be an adventure to move to Oregon. Niebergall returned to Oregon to complete her Doctorate of Education Degree. The family moved, the children went to school, and were there for two years. When she was ready to write her dissertation, she decided it was time to return to Alaska. Lisa was just completing high school and did not want to leave. It was arranged for her to stay in an apartment with an Alaskan University of Oregon student. Scott was just completing Junior High and stayed with a family that had become friends.

Niebergall spent time working at Alaska Methodist University as the head of the Education Department and teacher then moved to Anchorage Community College as a grant writer. By this time, Niebergall and her mother had bought a home In Anchorage then built another on the hill with a separate apartment for mother. Niebergall was gathering material for her dissertation, and went to Oregon now and then to check in.

A position opened up as head of the Education Department at Kuskokwim Community College and Niebergall accepted the position. She was also continuing with her doctoral dissertation. When it was done and ready for editing, Niebergall brought it home to Bethel from one of her rural trips and the package was picked up off the baggage carousel by someone who mistook it for their own box. Shortly afterward, the box with the dissertation in it was dropped into the Kuskokwim River and irretrievably lost. That ended Niebergall’s plan to obtain her doctorate’s degree. She did, however, lend her prodigious talents to assisting the Jesuit high school in St. Mary’s with their educational program.

During one stay at the mission school, Niebergall met Hal Niebergall and was married to him a year later. Several years later, Niebergall accepted a job in Kotzebue to complete her requirements for retirement and her husband built their home in Aniak.

After retirement, Niebergall worked with Alaska Native artists to help sell their works and started her own publishing company Circumpolar Press.