KAREN:  And then an introduction, which is I'm Karen Brewster, and here in Anchorage with Roy Huhndorf.  It's August 23rd, 2005.  And this is for the Community Health Aide Project Jukebox series.

So thank you for being -- willing to participate in this.  I appreciate it. 
Just to get us started, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your involvement with the Community Health Aide Program has been.

ROY:  Fine.  I'm happy to do this.  This is a -- Community Health Aide Program has always been one of my -- the favorite chapters in my life. 
I was born and raised until I was 15 years old at Nulato, Alaska.  Born in 1940.  And then moved to Anchorage in 1955, which has been my home since.  In 1970 -- wait a minute.  Excuse me. 

In 1972, I had the good fortune to become involved with the Community Health Aide Program.  I was hired at the time to replace the administrator who was leaving, and I interviewed for the job and applied for it and -- and was given the appointment. 

The program was under the auspices of the Indian Health Service at the time.  Indian Health Service was divided into -- had an area office and then had -- had service units, which really had hospitals at the center spread out to cover the geographic area of Alaska. 

And the area office administered the general policy for the service in Alaska, and the statewide programs.  The Community Health Aide Program was a statewide program.  It was funded and operated by Indian Health at that time. 

It was an innovation of Indian Health Service, going back to the mid late '60s.  And interestingly, Federal agencies are not known for their innovations.  This was one of their innovations. 

The health providers for Alaska decided that it was important to involve the recipients of the service in the delivery of the service.  And that was the central idea in starting the Community Health Aide Program.

And it had long been known that there were natural providers of health services in rural Alaska that predated the Indian Health Service, Native people for many centuries, actually, probably thousands of years, had some sort of health provider in each village. 

And as modern medicine progressed in the 1900s and people began to become familiar with the -- with the -- with the things that were available in modern medicine.  These health workers began to take on, on their own, a more sophisticated administrations of medicine. 

KAREN:  Did the --

ROY:  And so it was a natural for the service, they saw these providers working, and decided that they might benefit greatly from additional training and some organized supervision, some high level supervision, medical supervision.