FAIRBANKS - Former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Juanita Helms died Saturday night at Denali Center.

She was 68.

Helms served as borough mayor from 1985 to 1991.

The Chicago native entered local politics in Fairbanks in 1980, first winning a seat on the Borough Assembly that year and again three years later. In 1985 she turned her attention to unseating borough Mayor Bill Allen. She won by 3,000 votes in what was viewed as an upset.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to win at all,” she said in a September 1988 story in advance of her re-election effort.

She handily won a second term, defeating nearest competitor Donna Gilbert by about 3,000 votes.

Helms arrived in the Fairbanks area in 1954 with her parents, two brothers and one sister. Her father had been assigned to Eielson Air Force Base as a civil engineer.

Her early years in Fairbanks, according to a previous account, included work as a car hop at a drive-in, as a secretary, as a court clerk, as an employee of the Fairbanks city attorney’s office, and as an administrative assistant at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Aside from her involvement with local politics, Helms was also involved with the long-standing sister city relationship between Fairbanks and the Russian Far East city of Yakutsk. She and her husband made several trips to Yakutsk.

She is survived by her husband, Orville R. “Sam” Helms and the couple’s four children.