Walter Joseph “Wally” Hickel, 1919-2010

Walter “Wally” Hickel — US Secretary of the Interior in President Richard M. Nixon’s administration and two-time governor of Alaska — died yesterday, the Washington Post reports.

Hickel served his first term as governor as a Republican in the 1960s, and was fired by the Nixon White House after criticizing the administration’s policy versus anti-war protests in the wake of the Kent State shootings in 1970. He is most remembered, however, for his second term as governor, which he won on the Alaska Independence Party’s ticket in 1990. He rejoined the Republican Party in 1994.

Hickel, 90, died of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Anchorage.