James Devens: director of KCHU public radio & Valdez city council member

James Devens is the director of KCHU public radio which serves the communities around Prince William Sound and Wrangell-St Elias National Park.  At the time he became director five years ago, he was the youngest director of a public radio station in America. Jimmy was elected to Valdez city council in 2020 and re-elected in 2023. He unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2024, but he remains an active member on the council and is a founding member of their housing committee. Although Jimmy and I discuss the absolute destruction that cuts in federal funding will have on KCHU, much of the first part of today’s episode will be about Jimmy’s late grandfathers: John Devens Sr. who gained national fame in 1989 as mayor of Valdez during the Exxon Valdez oil spill and Jim Robison who was the president of the Alaska AFL/CIO and served as the Alaska Labor Commissioner from 1982 to 1987. We conclude our conversation with a discussion of housing policy.

This interview was recorded while I was in Valdez on a walk with Jimmy, so you will hear occasional background noise including a very angry raven.