Susan Cloe
Feb 19, 1937 -
Dec 15, 2021
Pioneer Alaska journalist and media executive Susan Cloe, 84, died peacefully in her sleep from Parkinson disease complications on Dec. 15, 2021, at Aspen Creek Senior Living in Anchorage, Alaska.
Born in Seattle, Wash., on Feb. 19, 1937, she grew up in Pullman, Wash., where her parents, Edna and Paul Stoffel Jr., published the Pullman Herald newspaper.
Always a brave adventurer, she moved to Anchorage in 1958 to take the job of women's editor at the Anchorage Daily News directly after graduating with a degree in journalism from what was then Washington State College. Being part of the festivities surrounding impending statehood that year gave her a lifelong enthusiasm for Alaska.
She met her first husband, Clinton "Clint" Toms Andrews Jr., at the News and married him in 1960. They went on to have four children and worked in tandem as journalists in such far-flung places as Washington state, where they helped to manage her dad's paper; Nottinghamshire, England, at the Mansfield Chronicle Advertiser; and at the Burlington Free Press in Vermont before moving back to Anchorage in 1973, when construction on the trans-Alaska pipeline began.
They did not want to miss covering what they considered to be the Alaska news story of the century and, this time around, Susan went to work for the Anchorage Times on the natural resources beat. Clint became managing editor there and, as a team, they covered the North Slope oil boom for nearly a decade while at the same time enjoying raising their young family.
Susan's byline was on the story in 1977 announcing that the first two million barrels of oil had started flowing down the pipeline from Prudhoe Bay. During the 1970s, she was also an oil reporter for the Associated Press, which circulated her articles in newspapers around the country.
In 1980, ARCO Alaska, at the time one of the world's largest companies, asked her to take on the role of spokeswoman in charge of the company's media communications. In this high-visibility capacity, she was the point person for inquiries from worldwide media outlets writing articles on North America's most important oil field.
After becoming involved in public broadcasting as vice-chairman on the board of KAKM public television in 1991, Susan left ARCO and took the helm as president and general manager there in 1993. Among her accomplishments were successfully merging public radio and television in Alaska to form Alaska Public Telecommunications in 1994, and raising millions of dollars to convert Alaska public television and radio from analog to digital. She retired in 2001.
A founding member of Anchorage's Christ Church, Episcopal, where she was also choir director, and member of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Anchorage Rotary Club, Public Relations Society of America and the professional women's organizations PEO and Athena, she also served on the board of the Miss Alaska Scholarship Pageant.
Her success as a professional woman during the span of the late 1950s to the early 2000s, when a majority of men held the high positions that she flourished in, is noteworthy.
Widowed at age 50 by Clint's untimely death in 1987, Susan remarried three more times, traveling extensively in Alaska and all over the globe with her subsequent husbands, geophysicist and pilot, Bruce "Biff" Reed; former World Bank economist, Peace Corps director and Seward mayor, Bob Satin; and preeminent Alaska military historian, Col. John Cloe. Sadly, she was widowed by each.
A grandmother seven times over, Susan was lovingly regarded as a generous, encouraging and involved "Nana," attributes that she also brought to her roles as mother and mother-in-law. Her family would clamor for batches of her secret recipe chocolate chip-oatmeal-walnut "Nana cookies" that she would send in the mail to out-of-town family members on their birthdays.
Her game spirit was on full display during a family trip to Maui in 2017, celebrating her 80th birthday, when she helped paddle an outrigger canoe on the ocean with some of her children and grandchildren.
Throughout her active, trailblazing life, people who knew her recognized her intelligence, grace, tolerance, optimistic demeanor, conversation peppered with snappy repartees and a perpetual wide, warm smile. One friend recently remarked that Susan had a "pixie" sense of humor and many others referred to her as simply an angel.
Susan is survived, and will be terribly missed, by her children and their spouses: daughter, Christina Jennings and husband Rob Jennings; son, Toms Andrews and wife Kelly Hart Andrews; son, Paul Christian Andrews and wife Leslie Evans Andrews; and son, Christopher Andrews and wife Kelly White Andrews; granddaughters, Claire Andrews, Susannah Jennings, Isabel Jennings, Polly-Faye Andrews, Lily Andrews and Sophia Andrews; and grandson, Gage Andrews; as well as numerous beloved stepchildren, nephews, friends and caretakers.
She is predeceased by her parents; brother, Paul Stoffel III; and her four husbands.
Donations in her honor may be made to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, www.michaeljfox.org.
