[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 7042]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO JACK H. RHYNER

 Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, last week Jack Rhyner lost his 
courageous battle against cancer, and Alaska lost a pioneer in our 
telecommunications industry and I lost a very good friend.
  As a young man, Jack worked alongside his father, Richard Rhyner, as 
he founded TelAlaska. At 16, Jack salvaged telephone equipment damaged 
in the Fairbanks flood of 1967. Using emery boards to smooth out the 
gold points on the mechanical switches and high-pressure water hoses 
and brushes, he cleaned and repaired each component.
  Jack and his dad used that salvaged equipment to build the first 
telephone system in Fort Yukon. Until then, residents of that village 
shared a single phone line at the airport. Today, more than 300 
residents have private lines in their homes and access to DSL Internet 
service.
  In 1982, Jack took leadership of Interior Telephone. Over the years 
he worked with his wife Donna developing and expanding TelAlaska into a 
statewide, modern company connecting many of our rural villages to 
phone service for the first time. Jack's commitment and hard work 
resulted in dozens of villages--most of them inaccessible by road--
becoming connected to the world by telephone systems. In addition, 
TelAlaska provides DSL service to 12 villages and cable service to 4 
small communities including my own hometown of Girdwood.
  Jack was appointed to the FCC's Rural Task Force where he worked 
tirelessly to ensure affordable rates and reliable service in Alaska. 
As a respected leader in Alaska's telecommunications industry, Jack was 
often called upon to share his insight into our State's unique 
communications challenges with Congress, State, and Federal agencies.
  Jack's contributions to the advancement of telecommunications in 
Alaska earned him the prestigious Kaguyak Award from the Alaska 
Telephone Association. The Western Telecommunications Alliance 
recognized Jack's dedication to rural telecommunications with the 
President's Award.
  A true Alaskan, Jack was an avid outdoorsman. He enjoyed spending 
time with his shooting team which won more than a dozen championships 
at Birchwood Shooting Park. He would smile when he talked about setting 
up visits to the communities served by TelAlaska's companies, checking 
the calendar to ensure that he would arrive in the right season for a 
day or two of fishing or hunting. It is no surprise, then, that he 
wanted his ashes spread in the fall at his favorite duck hunting 
retreat at Cold Bay.
  Catherine and I send our condolences to Donna and their sons, Ryan 
and Richard II, and all who knew and loved Jack. He will be 
missed.

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