Amy Armstrong is the managing editor of the ECHO News (the Eagle River Chugiak Herald Observer) in Eagle River, Alaska. She worked from 1999 to 2016 in a freelance capacity for the Alaska Star, covering education and government, writing features, and becoming highly acquainted with what makes Chugiak-Eagle River so incredibly special. During that period, she was honored with more than 40 awards for excellence in journalism on a state and national level.

When Armstrong left the Alaska Star in summer 2016, she was the last remaining piece of the Lee Jordan era. She was tickled when he agreed to write the ECHO’s historical column. As ME of the ECHO, she has spearheaded an informal internship program, allowing local high school students to write for the newspaper and is active in creating community-oriented events, including a political candidate forum and an upcoming business-speed-dating event. Her focus is on bringing high-quality community journalism to ECHO readers, as well as working together with the local business sector to build partnerships and not just sell advertising. Her goal for the ECHO News is to continue delivering the information and news that matter to locals in Chugiak-Eagle River.

She is a board member of the Chugiak-Eagle River Women in Business. Armstrong is a graduate of the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University. She grew up on a dairy farm in western Washington near the Canadian border, where she learned the value of diligent work. While in college, Armstrong wrote for several agricultural publications, including The Capital City Press, The Dairyman, Farm Journal magazines and Hoard’s Dairyman. She left the agricultural world after marrying Bob, a Coast Guardsman in 1995.

Amy Armstrong

Lee Jordan: writing on and in Alaska from a historical standpoint as well as The ECHO News column. He has been an Alaskan since 1949 when he was assigned to the Army’s historic Alaska Communication System. As a printer for the Anchorage Daily Times, he set the iconic “WE’RE IN” headline on June 30, 1958. He founded the Chugiak-Eagle River Star in 1971 and served as its editor and publisher until retiring in 2000. He has written four non-fiction books on Alaska and now writes a column on local history in The ECHO News.

Lee Jordan

Kim Heacox is the award-winning author of several books including the acclaimed John Muir and the Ice That Started a Fire (which received starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, and Publisher’s Weekly) and Rhythm of the Wild (just released.)

His feature articles have appeared in Audubon, Travel & Leisure, Wilderness, Islands, Orion, and National Geographic Traveler. His editorials, written for the Los Angeles Times, have appeared in many major newspapers across the United States.

Kim was also commentator along with Gretel Ehrlich and other environmental VIPs on Ken Burns’s twelve-hour PBS film The National Parks documenting the history of the national parks and the US conservation movement, currently airing on Netflix.

A contract writer with the National Geographic Society since 1985, Kim has twice won the Lowell Thomas Award for excellence in travel writing and was a finalist for the Pen Center USA Western award for his memoir, The Only Kayak.

The cover of the National Outdoor Book Award winning Jimmy Bluefeather also features an image by Heacox whose photographs are sold around the world by Getty Images.

When not playing the guitar, doing simple carpentry, or writing, he’s sea kayaking in Gustavus, Alaska, gateway to Glacier Bay National Park with his wife, Melanie.

Kim Heacox