The first day of the 30^th Alaska State Legislature held on Jan. 16, 2017, includes a significant portion of fanfare and celebration as new members of the Legislature are sworn in and welcomed by current members.

Family members and close friends are often on hand with flowers, gifts and a plethora of congratulations and well wishes are exchanged. As most of our readership cannot be on hand to see this occur live, the ECHO News asked our various legislators to send us photos from the event. We have compiled some of them here for you, our readers, to get a glimpse.

In this first photo, you will Rep. Cathy Tilton and Rep. Lora Reinbold in the first row left to right in the second and third positions. Rep. Dan Saddler is in the fourth row on the immediate left.

 In the second photo, Rep. Reinbold is on the far left and Rep. Saddler is on the far right swearing in for duty. 

The third photo is a close-up and the fourth photo shows Rep. Saddler on the House floor waiting to respond to a question.

Of course, this final photo is from 2015 when Sen. Anna MacKinnon (far right) swore in. She was not up for re-election this year, but as the ECHO News was not in production in 2015, we wanted to include her in this year’s pictorial. Standing next to MacKinnon is retired Alaska State Sen. Bill Stoltze. We hear he is bored these days. Bill, consider this our invitation to write a column.