Alaska Ties For Third For Most Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Per Capita

I got this list in an email today:

2015 Top States – Per Capita  (# of volunteers per 100,000 residents)
#1	Vermont	8.3 vols per 100,000 residents
#2	District of Columbia	6.5
#3	Washington Montana Alaska	4.5 4.5 4.5
#6	Minnesota Maine	4.1 4.1
#8	New Hampshire Oregon	4.0 4.0
#10	Colorado	3.8

This doesn't really come as a surprise to me.  Alaska is the state that is the most like a Peace Corps assignment and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) are working throughout the state in all sort of roles.  Former Borough Mayor Jack Roderick is an RPCV, though his Peace Corps service in India happened after he was mayor.  Another RPCV from India is retired Native Law attorney David Case.  Scott Goldsmith, Professor Emeritus in Economics at ISER served in Malaysia, as did, if I recollect correctly, UAA Chemistry professor John Kennish.  Former UAA Chancellor Lee Gorsuch and his wife Ann served in Paraguay.  Retired doctor Jeffrey Lawrence and his wife Sharon served in Brazil.   Anchorage assembly member and former state legislator, Pete Petersen, served in the the Dominican Republic.  And there's a guy connected to this blog who served in Thailand.

2014 US House candidate and JAG attorney Forrest Dunbar served in Kazakhstan.  2014 Lt. Gov. candidate, petroleum engineering grad, and an Alaska teacher of the year, Bob Williams, served in Gambia.  

You can see some more Anchorage and Fairbanks RPCV's here   and Juneau RPCVs in this post.

UAA's Alumni Magazine for Septembr 2015 highlights six alumni who served in the Peace Corps:

In total, there have only been about 220,000 Peace Corps volunteers since President Kennedy started  the program in 1961.  And 4.5 residents per 100,000 in Alaska comes out to something over 300. [UPDATE:  A sharp eyed reader noticed that I added an extra zero to the number here.  I suspect I messed this up because I know there are way over 30 RPCV's living in Alaska and I think the number  may be closer to 300 than to 30.  Perhaps they are only counting the people who have joined the national RPCV group.]

In contrast, there are about 71,000 veterans in Alaska, about one out of ten, or 10,000 residents per 100,000 residents.

The US sends a lot more people out to wage war than it sends to wage peace.

But the Peace Corps got more applications in 2015 than it's gotten since 1975.

Sorry for the reposting - more Feedburner problems.