Just as we in North Carolina are proud of the late U.S. Sen. Terry Sanford (who also served with distinction as governor and president of Duke University), Alaska boasts of Sen. Ted Stevens as a hero, a pioneer and the state's "saint" who was killed in a plane crash this week at age 86.
In addition to his other achievements, Sen. Stevens made an outstanding contribution, with the late Sen. Warren Magnuson, in creating the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, enacted in 1976. The act, besides creating eight regional fishery councils, phased out exploiting foreign fisheries in the U.S. exclusive economic zone extending 200 miles from shore.
Ted Stevens was a staunch supporter of rebuilding our collapsed fish stocks. He died on his way to a fishing village near Dillingham, Alaska. Sen. Stevens was a great statesman and fine family man.
