Bill Beltz

{{Short description|Inuk politician}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}}

William Earnest Beltz (April 27, 1912 – November 21, 1960) was an American politician and carpenter.

Born in Bear Creek on the Seward Peninsula, Haycock, Alaska, Beltz was an Iñupiaq, the Inuit of Alaska. Beltz worked as a carpenter, elected President of the Alaska Council of Carpenters, and lived in Unalakleet, Alaska. A Democrat, Beltz served as a member of the House in the Alaska Territorial Legislature in 1949. He then served in the Territorial Senate from 1951 until 1959, when Alaska became a state. Beltz served in the Alaska State Senate from 1959 until his death in 1960.{{cite book|author=United States. Congress|title=Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1W6HykEKYQkC&pg=PA2639|year=1961|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|pages=2639–}} Beltz died at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska from a cancerous brain tumor.[http://www.ourfamtree.org/obituaries/view.php/William-Beltz/id/128 The Alaska Sportsman-William E. Beltz-obituary]'Last Rites For Beltz Held Today,' Fairbanks Daily News Miner, November 23, 1960, pg. 1

He was born to John Skyles Beltz who went to Alaska during the Yukon Gold Rush{{cite web |title=Informal legislative planning session |url=https://vilda.alaska.edu/digital/collection/cdmg11/id/1334/ |website=Alaska's Digital Archives |publisher=University of Alaska Fairbanks |access-date=December 3, 2020}} in 1897 and Susie Goodwin Beltz. In 1953, Beltz married Arne Louise Bulkeley who was a U.S. Public Health Service village nurse in Unalakleet when they met; they had seven children.

In 1958 the first senate of the state of Alaska, unanimously elected Beltz president of the first senate of the state. Nome-Beltz Junior/Senior High School was named in his honor because of his efforts to provide education for rural residents.{{cite web |last1=Nome Schools |title=Nome Schools |url=https://www.nomeschools.org/Page/1943 |website=Nome Schools |access-date=December 3, 2020}} A conference room in the Thomas B. Stewart Legislative Office Building was named for Beltz.{{cite web |title=SR 9: Dedicating a committee room in the Thomas B. Stewart Legislative Office Building to former Senator William Beltz. |url=http://www.akleg.gov/basis/Bill/Text/26?Hsid=SR0009A |website=Alaska State Legislature |publisher=State of Alaska |access-date=December 3, 2020}}