Clara (Billie) Lewis, RN

Billie Lewis served as the executive director of the Anchorage Senior Center from 1993 to 2004, after a lengthy career as a nurse.

Lewis is a native of West Virginia. From 1958 to 1973, she was a nurse in New York state after graduation from the Jamestown School of Nursing in Jamestown, NY She then worked with the Alaska State-Operated Schools, Copper River School District and the Copper River Native Association to develop their Indian Education Act, Title IV, Part A program.

From 1976 to 1985, she was health director or the Copper River Native Association, with the Indian Health Service and the State of Alaska. From 1985 to 1993, Lewis was health director for the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. “This gave me a true awareness of their remoteness, as well as an appreciation for good pilots and better weather,” she says.

She has served on the Board of Education for the Copper River School District, Board of Directors of the Copper River Emergency Medical Services and the boards of the Southern Region Emergency Medical Services and Alaska Council of Emergency Medical Services.

Lewis also is a member of the Anchorage Transit Advisory Board of Directors, as well as the board of Elders Services, Inc. She was elected to the Qualis Health Board of Directors in 2003.