19 Facts About Genie Chance

Genie Chance is most well-known for her coverage of the 1964 Alaska earthquake, which netted her numerous journalism awards, and for her contributions to Alaska legislation.

Genie Chance's parents were former Texas state representative and Sixth District Judge Albert Sidney Broadfoot and Jessie Butler Broadfoot of Bonham, Texas.

In 1946, Chance graduated from North Texas State Teachers College with a degree in Speech, then conducted graduate studies at Baylor University.

Genie Chance became an instructor at North Texas State University where she taught speech, radio, English, and government from 1946 to 1949.

Genie Chance rose to prominence for her calm and measured broadcasting after the 9.2 magnitude 1964 Alaska earthquake.

Immediately after the earthquake, Genie Chance made her way to a temporary post in the Alaska Public Safety Building where she started broadcasting information about the catastrophic damage throughout the Anchorage area and shared messages from family members looking for loved ones.

Genie Chance urged grocers to open their stores, but cautioned community members against hoarding.

Genie Chance would spend the next twenty-four hours almost continuously coordinating response efforts, connecting available resources to needs around the community, disseminating information about shelters and prepared food rations, passing messages of well-being between loved ones, and helping to reunite families.

Genie Chance was a member of the Alaska Press Women, renamed Alaska Professional Communicators, and served as their president in 1967.

Genie Chance later asked KENI radio for a raise, a request that was denied on the grounds that she was already being paid the maximum salary for a woman in her position.

Genie Chance quit soon after and started her own public relations firm.

Genie Chance was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1968, where she served for three terms, from 1969 to 1975.

That year, Genie Chance ran for the Alaska Senate for the two-year short term from the new two-member District E, centered on downtown Anchorage and surrounding neighborhoods.

Genie Chance served as vice chairman and chairman of the House Health Education and Social Services Committee.

Genie Chance was appointed by the Secretary of Defense to serve on the Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in Military Service from 1967 to 1970.

Genie Chance met her first husband, Winston Cash Genie Chance, in the small Texas town where she grew up.

Together, they moved to Juneau, Alaska in 1986, where Genie Chance stayed active in her political endeavors, and remained married until Boardman's death in 1993.

Genie Chance had been gathering materials to write her autobiography but succumbed to dementia and died May 17,1998, at age 71, in Juneau, Alaska.

In 2016 and 2017, Genie Chance was the subject of a spoken-word performance presented by author Jon Mooallem as part of Radiotopia Live.