{{Short description|American politician}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Kenneth Fanning | image = | alt = | caption = | office = | state_house = Alaska | state = Alaska | district = 20th | term_start = January 12, 1981 | term_end = January 17, 1983 | predecessor = Charlie Parr | successor = Niilo Koponen (redistricting) | office2 = | state_senate2 = Alaska | district2 = K (Seat A) | term_start2 = December 11, 1987 | term_end2 = January 9, 1989 | appointer2 = Steve Cowper | predecessor2 = Don Bennett | successor2 = Steve Frank | birth_name = Kenneth James Fanning | birth_date = {{Birth_date and age|1947|04|28}} | birth_place = Tampa, Florida, USA | death_date = | death_place = | education = University of Alaska Fairbanks | party = Republican Party | other_party = Libertarian (before 1983) | spouse = Jill | children = 1 }}

'''Kenneth James Fanning''' (born April 28, 1947) is an American hunting and fishing guide and former politician. In 1980, Fanning was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives as a Libertarian, becoming the second person elected to a U.S. state legislature under that party, following his political mentor Dick Randolph. Fanning served a single term, losing reelection. He later joined the Republican Party and was appointed to fill out a vacancy in the Alaska Senate in 1987, serving in that body for a little over a year.

==Early life== Fanning was born on April 28, 1947, in Tampa, Florida.<ref name="BlueBook">{{cite book|editor1-first=Elaine B.|editor1-last=Mitchell|title=Alaska Blue Book|edition=Fifth|year=1981|chapter=The House|publisher=Alaska Department of Education, Division of State Libraries and Museum|location=Juneau|page=99}}</ref> He studied at Colorado State University from 1966 to 1967, then moved to Alaska.<ref name="Fairbanks">{{cite news |last1=Zarnke |first1=Randy |title=Hunter, trapper, guide and politician, Ken Fanning believes in Alaska's wilderness |url=https://www.newsminer.com/sports/local/hunter-trapper-guide-and-politician-ken-fanning-believes-in-alaska-s-wilderness/article_ef815362-c829-57e7-9ecc-0c87dc74aa96.html|url-access=subscription |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Fairbanks Daily News Miner |date=January 17, 2010}}</ref> He settled in Fairbanks in 1969, where he studied wildlife management at the University of Alaska (UA) and built a home in the Fairbanks-area suburbs southwest of the university's campus.<ref name="Fairbanks"/>

After graduating, Fanning worked as a hunting and fishing guide, a trapper, and was also employed at one point by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.<ref name="100 years">{{cite web |title=Ken Fanning |url=https://akleg.gov/100years/bio.php?id=1077 |website=100 Years of Alaska's Legislature |publisher=Alaska Legislature |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> He became involved in politics during the late 1970s through additional work as a consultant and lobbyist on natural resource and wildlife issues.<ref name="Fairbanks"/><ref name="100 years"/> Fanning was the executive director of the Real Alaskan Coalition, which, in 1979, organized the Great Denali-McKinley Trespass to protest the federal government's conservation efforts in Mount McKinley National Park.<ref name="History"/><ref>{{cite news |title=Alaskans Protest Public‐land Action |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/15/archives/alaskans-protest-publicland-action-paul-reveres-ride-and-george-iii.html |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=January 15, 1979}}</ref> He gained state-wide notoriety after the protest.<ref name="History"/>

==Political career== ===State House=== Fanning joined the Libertarian Party (LP) in the late 1970s. He became a protege of Dick Randolph, a Fairbanks insurance agent who served as a Republican in the Alaska House from 1971 to 1974, who himself had joined the LP after meeting Roger MacBride in 1976.<ref name="History">{{cite news |last1=Doherty |first1=Brian |title=The Libertarian Party's Internal Strife Is as Old as the Party Itself |url=https://reason.com/2022/09/03/we-were-thinking-we-were-going-to-change-the-world/ |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Reason Magazine |date=September 3, 2022}}</ref>

Fanning was elected in 1980 to a single term in the Alaska House of Representatives as a Libertarian.<ref name="pbs">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/libertarian_history.html|title=Libertarian Party History|date=July 5, 2000|access-date=November 15, 2013|publisher=PBS|archive-date=January 8, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140108021110/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/libertarian_history.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> He followed Randolph, who won election to the House as a Libertarian in 1978 and was reelected alongside Fanning.<ref name="History"/><ref name="pbs"/> Randolph and Fanning represented the Fairbanks North Star Borough as a whole as part of the 20th District, a six-member district without designated seats, coming in first and second respectively.<ref name="History"/> Fanning originally served as a member of the House's minority, and was given a lone committee assignment on the House's Transportation Committee.<ref>''Alaska Blue Book'' (Fifth ed.), p. 90</ref>

During his term in office, redistricting eliminated the system of multi-member, at-large districts. Running for reelection in 1982, his constituency had been drastically altered. Fanning was placed in the single-member 21st District, containing the liberal-leaning western portions of the borough. He lost reelection to the late Democratic challenger Niilo Koponen by a nearly two-to-one margin, in a contest with no Republican nominee.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bergland |first1=David |title=Running Third |url=https://reason.com/1984/11/01/running-third/ |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=Reason Magazine |date=November 1984}}</ref>

===State Senate=== Fanning was one of a number of Alaska Libertarians who left the party in the wake of the schism revealed during its 1983 national convention, joining the Republican Party. In 1987, Alaska governor Steve Cowper appointed Fanning to a vacancy in the Alaska Senate when Republican incumbent Don Bennett died suddenly at home at age 56.<ref>{{cite web |title=Appointments made to fill vacancies that occurred more than thirty days after death or resignation of legislature |url=https://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?session=32&docid=26119 |publisher=Legislative Research Service |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Senator Ken Fanning |url=https://www.akleg.gov/basis/Member/Detail/15?code=FAN |publisher=Alaska Legislature |access-date=1 October 2025}}</ref> Fanning filled out the remainder of Bennett's term and was not a candidate for election to a full term.

==Life after politics== Ken Fanning was married to Jill Kathleen Fanning (1948–2006), who was involved in the real estate business in Fairbanks.<ref name="Jill">{{cite news |title=Obituary - Jill Fanning |url=https://akgenweb.whalen-family.org/AKJuneau/obits/fanningjill.html |access-date=1 October 2025 |work=THE JUNEAU EMPIRE |publisher=AK Gen Web |date=December 21, 2006}}</ref>

Fanning assumed the management of a hunting and fishing lodge in Yakutat, Alaska, before his election to the House.<ref name="Jill"/> Following his Senate tenure, he moved to Yakutat permanently, and he eventually became the owner of the business.<ref name="Jill"/> Most of the lodge's business has centered on fishing excursions in the Situk River. He later began spending winters in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he was involved in the management of a bar.

==Quote== * "One of the great things about hunting and fishing and trapping, particularly in Alaska, is that you are frequently in areas that are beyond the reach of the law. There's a moral judgment to be made between you and the animal and God."<ref name="Fairbanks"/>

==Bibliography== * (with John Manly) ''Behind The Scenes in the Alaska Legislature'', 1982

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Portal|Alaska|Biography|Libertarianism}} * [http://100years.akleg.gov/bio.php?id=1077 Ken Fanning] at ''100 Years of Alaska's Legislature'' * [http://ballotpedia.org/Kenneth_J._Fanning Kenneth J. Fanning] at Ballotpedia

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fanning, Ken}} Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century Methodists Category:21st-century American businesspeople Category:21st-century Methodists Category:Alaska Libertarians Category:Republican Party Alaska state senators Category:American expatriates in Mexico Category:Methodists from Alaska Category:Businesspeople from Fairbanks, Alaska Category:Businesspeople from Tampa, Florida Category:Colorado State University alumni Category:Libertarian Party (United States) officeholders Category:Republican Party members of the Alaska House of Representatives Category:Politicians from Fairbanks, Alaska Category:University of Alaska Fairbanks alumni Category:Writers from Fairbanks, Alaska Category:20th-century members of the Alaska Legislature