KOTZEBUE — Myles A. Creed of Kotzebue received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication during commencement exercises at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., on Sunday, May 8.

This fall Myles Creed will attend graduate school at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he will pursue a master's degree in linguistics, a press release said.

Myles received a Leadership & Service Scholarship while at Lewis & Clark, where he studied several languages and international politics as part of his degree program.

Myles grew up in Kotzebue and attended local public schools. His interest in languages, he said, was piqued by his Inupiaq language instructors as a child.

"My first exposure to another language besides English did not come in the conventional study of Spanish, French, or even Chinese," said Myles. "The first language I studied other than English was Inupiaq."

"Linguistic study is underway in Kotzebue to ensure that Inupiaq does not go extinct, which is a real threat," said Myles, who said he would like to work "to revive and strengthen dying languages."

"Any opportunity to help stop the bleeding truly drives me," said Myles, who has studied Spanish, Dutch, German, Vietnamese and Chinese.

Myles is a 2007 graduate of Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a state-run boarding school in Sitka. He traveled throughout Alaska and elsewhere as an Edgecumbe student, including to China.

In the summer before entering college, Myles worked as an intern in Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office in Washington, D.C.

During his junior year abroad, he attended the University of Maastricht in Europe and then headed to Vietnam, where he lived in dormitories with Vietnamese students from Hong Bang University in Ho Chi Minh City and the Open University in Hanoi. He also traveled extensively in Southeast Asia.

"In Vietnam, I studied the semantics and symbols in propaganda on billboards and distributed by the Vietnamese government," Myles said.

Myles received local scholarships from the Kotzebue Lions Club and the Northwest Arctic Borough's Frank R. Ferguson Memorial Scholarship Program.

Myles has three younger siblings, Tiffany, who is studying film at Portland State University, and twins Trevor and Deirdre Creed, who attend Mt. Edgecumbe. Myles is the son of Susan Andrews and John Creed of Kotzebue.

This story is posted with permission from Alaska Newspapers Inc., which publishes six weekly community newspapers, a statewide shopper, a statewide magazine and slate of special publications that supplement its products year-round.