Well over 500 people came together to pray and remember Charlie Kirk at the University of Alaska Anchorage on Thursday.
Kirk, 31, was a right-wing Christian influencer known for his debates on college campuses. A sniper shot and killed Kirk on Sept. 10 while he spoke on the Utah Valley University campus. Utah County authorities have charged Tyler Robinson, 22, with the murder.
Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization in 2012, when he was just 18. He is credited with bringing Trump the youth vote in the last election. He has been criticized for comments about race, women’s place in marriage and transgender people.
The Turning Point chapter at UAA sponsored the Thursday night event to remember Kirk, which moved from the campus’s student union to the Wendy Williamson Auditorium due to increased interest by those hoping to attend.
A line had already formed nearly an hour before the prayer vigil was scheduled to begin.
The crowd at the vigil was a mix: members of the Republican Party, college kids, retirees, families with toddlers and babies. Friends shouted and waved. Two women in line wore matching “Not Today Satan” hoodies. At a voter registration table in the lobby someone asked, "Anyone want to change their party affiliation to Republican?”
Matt Sims was standing by the stairs, handing out fliers for a religious school program. He said Charlie Kirk’s murder made him realize how divided the country is.
“Well, it's just a sad time for the entire country,” he said. “We see a division that we've never seen since the Civil War, and it's not North against South, it's brother against brother.”
Sims said healing is necessary, but he’s not sure it’s possible.
“We just have to fight fire with water,” he said. “Fire with fire is going to do nothing but cause more division.”
Jim Minnery, president and executive director of the Christian-oriented Alaska Family Council, was in the lobby, too. He was scheduled to open the vigil with a prayer.
Healing can come from having uncomfortable conversations regularly, like Kirk did in those campus debates, Minnery said.
“We can disagree, but we can also break bread together,” he said. “And I hope that happens more. “I think that's our highest calling.”
People continued to stream in the front doors. They passed a tiny pink card table, where Christina Sikkenga stood with her husband and their five children, handing out free, pocket-sized Bibles.
Sikkenga has been talking about Kirk with her children and said she got emotional when she told them he had been murdered.
“I pulled the kids aside and just explained there was a very good, godly man who spoke with truth,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “And yeah, his life was taken. We have an opportunity to continue that and to speak truth wherever we go. And that's not just one person's job, it's all of our jobs as Christ’s followers.”
No cameras or recording were allowed during the vigil itself.
Jack Thompson, the new president of UAA’s Turning Point chapter, introduced the speakers, including Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox, who said he’d known Kirk “since Kirk was an old soul at 21.” He called Kirk’s life a “testament to civil debate.”
Alaska Republican Party Chair Carmela Warfield garnered some of the biggest applause of the night when she said Kirk had helped return Trump to the White House. Then, she pulled out a letter from Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, declaring Oct. 14, 2025 as Charlie Kirk Day, in recognition of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
When the crowd leapt to its feet to cheer, she took a photo, to show Dunleavy, she said.
Pastor Ron Hoffman closed out the vigil. He told the crowd “this is an Anchorage problem.” What he meant, he explained later, was that he felt Anchorage was seeing a degradation of moral standards in the city.
Hoffman said he felt a duty to speak out.
“And we can do it in love and kindness,” he said. “Obviously, we're not the rioters and the violent ones. We were just saying ‘We can't do that anymore.’”
But Hoffman said speaking up is different from holding onto anger. Forgiveness, he said, is key, like when Kirk’s widow Erika talked about the man who allegedly killed Kirk during a memorial in Arizona.
“That young man,” she said, “I forgive him.”
The Bible commands it, Hoffman said.
“There's not a Christian on the planet that can live in unforgiveness and call himself a Christian,” he said. “God says, ‘I don't know you, if you can't forgive.’ That separates the quote, unquote Christians from God-fearing people.”
Christi Kelly was leaving the vigil with her son William. She said she could feel God’s presence during the event. And it felt good to be surrounded by people whose beliefs mirror hers, she said.
“A lot of people are scared to say what they believe,” Kelly said. “You know, as far as a lot of politics right now, it seems like a kind of a scary time, but I feel like in an atmosphere like this, people aren't as scared to say what they believe.”
