FAIRBANKS — For the Rev. Anna Frank, it’s all about God’s plan, with a little bit of Elvis thrown in for fun.

Anna laughs about the Elvis posters and paraphernalia that fill her office at the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska chancery, which she jokingly refers to as her “Elvis shrine.”

“I even have an Elvis phone, and I get an Elvis calendar every year,” she adds with a laugh.

Anyone who knows Anna enjoys not only her humor, but respects her lifelong involvement helping out people throughout the Interior and beyond — first as Minto postmaster and health aide and for the past 26 years in her multiple roles as an Episcopal minister.

“Anna does lots,” said the Rev. Scott Fisher, vicar at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. “It’s easier to figure out what Anna doesn’t do. She’s involved in fundraisers, funerals, baptisms, weddings, flood victims, garage sales, counseling, plus being a grandmother and great-grandmother, and listening to Elvis Presley.

“She’s just good,” Fisher continued. “She can be compassionate; she can be tough. She can be the grandmother and say ‘do this and don’t do that.’ She’s a great lady.”

In 1983, Anna became the first Native American woman ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. In the intervening years, her work and reputation has spread nationally and internationally and she has been recipient of many prestigious awards.

Last month, Anna was honored with the Alaska Federation of Natives President’s Award for Public Service at the AFN convention in Anchorage for her years of service and prison ministry outreach.

She calls the latest recognition all part of “God’s plan.”

It wasn’t the award Anna was interested in. It was the opportunity to talk to the hundreds of Native delegates about something close to her heart. Something she hopes will spread throughout the state — prison ministry.

“God just knows,” Anna said, explaining that one of her goals had been to talk one day about prison ministry to all of the AFN delegates. The award made all of that possible, she said.

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Doyon Ltd. nominated Anna for the AFN award.

“What she is doing is so remarkable and so important and we felt it was so important to nominate her, Norman Phillips, Doyon CEO said. We are so very proud of her.”

Sharon McConnell, Doyon vice president of communications and marketing, said Anna teaches us all “about humanity and watching out for one another.”

“She is a wonderful role model. She is a very caring and giving person but she can be tough when she wants to be.”

McConnell said that when Anna spoke of the prison ministry at the convention, she had people tearing up in the audience when she told about some of the situations she encountered.

Fisher said Anna’s just-do-it attitude gets things done.

“Anna shepherds together families and works out this deal so they can go down to visit. She works through all the regulations and pulls it off with no big splash or anything. She just does it,” Fisher said.

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Anna did not want to do prison ministry.

“It was not my choice, but the compassion that God put in my heart for our men,” she said.

About six years ago, Bishop Mark McDonald asked Anna to accompany him to Florence, Ariz., to visit Alaskans imprisoned there. In Florence, two priests held a small service and ate prison food with the men.

“Each prisoner I talked to, talked about missing his family or wife at home taking care of the children and telling me, ‘It hurts not to be there,’” Anna said. “The compassion just came over my heart.”

When Anna returned to Fairbanks, she kept thinking about the prisoners and how to establish some much-needed communication between the men and their loved ones.

That’s when Anna started writing letters to make arrangements to visit Red Rock Correctional Center, a medium-security prison in Eloy, Ariz., where approximately 850 Alaska men are incarcerated.

She also started fundraisers to raise money for plane tickets for family members to visit. The first year, she was able to bring half a dozen family members to visit prisoners there.

Word spread among prisoners who contacted family members in Alaska, and Anna began getting letters and phone calls from both.

“It’s a sad ministry,” Anna said. “Each time you see young men making wrong choices.”

But there are good memories as well.

“The first year, I had an old grandma with me. There were guys all over the place and she was looking for him (grandson).

“I hear a voice say ‘grandma,’ and she turned and called his name,” Anna recalled.

“It’s good to see that and remember that.”

Anna’s dream is to have someone in each of Alaska’s regions coordinating similar visits to prisons where Alaskans are incarcerated.

“I’ve taken people from all over the state,” she said. “God just gives me what I can handle.”

Last year there was a group of 18 with Anna, two were teens, ages 18 and 15. The 18-year-old was four when her father went to prison and the 15-year-old was introduced to her father for the first time.

“That was a very emotional,” Anna said. “You see things like that and you cannot, not do the ministry.”

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Anna, 70, was born in Minto in 1938 to Jonathan and Rosie David, one of 13 children. She was raised living a subsistence lifestyle. In 1955, she and Richard Frank eloped and were married by a justice of the peace in Fairbanks. When they returned to Minto a week later, they were instructed to repeat their vows in St. Barnabus Episcopal Church in Minto, which they did.

Anna and her husband of 54 years are parents of four children; Roxanne, Darrell, Parker and Robin, grandparents to eight and great-grandparents to one. In 2005, they were named Elders of the Year.

Anna’s ministerial duties often find her traveling on the road or in the air, but the couple always finds time for family activities. In fall, they take their extended family moose hunting in Minto Flats and in spring they go camping in the same area, enjoying the wilderness and each other.

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Each year, the prison ministry project becomes larger.

“I take whoever wants to go and can go,” Anna said.

All visitors must go through a background check beforehand, and anyone with a criminal background is excluded.

This is the first year Anna hasn’t traveled to Arizona. She was committed to attend the AFN convention. Shirley Lee went in her place, leading a group of almost two dozen people including two elders ages 88 and 77.

Lee said Anna understands what families of prisoners are going though. “She offers support and she is non-judgmental which is really important.”

The trip allows a day for a potlatch, and every year Anna solicits donations of moose, dry fish and pilot bread and it all has to be sent to the prison beforehand.

“We try to make a potlatch every year for them,” Anna said, “but only the ones who have visitors can join in. The rest have to stay behind a fence.”

Anna said she tells the men, “I am your auntie. I am your sister, I’m representing the women of your family. That’s why I’m here.

One prisoner told her, “We do pay the price here. We pay for our crime. ... Some have lost family. ... but we are still human beings.”

At the end of the visit, the group leaves with a final prayer on the prison grounds.

Driving away from the prison is the hardest part. “There are a lot of tears,” Anna said.

When the travelers return from Arizona, Fisher said, he sees something special.

“Watching Anna’s face and the faces of the family members when they come back and tell me, ‘I got to see my son,’ that is a holy thing to see.”

Anyone interested in supporting the Arizona Prison Ministry can send checks with that title to the Episcopal Diocese, 1205 Denali Way, Fairbanks, AK 99701. Anna can be reached at 452-3040.