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As anyone who has lived in Wrangell can attest, the sea is an important part of life. Many Wrangellites make their living on the ocean, be it fishing or operating a charter boat. Even if they do not rely on it for a living, many people in town enjoy taking boats out on the water. To showcase this fact of life for Wrangell, and to bring to life part of its history, the Nolan Center will be opening a new exhibit: "Wrangell Remembers - Shipwrecks Close to Home 1908-1952." "It is very important to...
The Friends of the NRA will be hosting a banquet in Wrangell this Saturday, beginning at 5 p.m., at the Nolan Center. This has been a highly attended event in previous years, with many Wrangell residents coming out for good food, auctions, and the opportunity to buy or win new guns. Greg Stephens, NRA field representative for Southern Alaska, said he believes this will be the fourth year in a row they have held a banquet in Wrangell. It has always been a sold-out event, he said, and he expects...
The Wrangell School Board, still getting settled with new members from the election on Oct. 2, held a work session on the evening of Oct. 28 to begin a review of the district's strategic plan. The strategic plan was adopted in June of 2018, and sets a series of goals for the school district to aim for through to the year 2023. There are five main goals outlined in the plan, each with their own set of strategies and actions to be taken to accomplish them. The goals are: Student Learning,...
Wrangell was one of seven teams to participate in the Haines Invitational this past weekend. It was a hard week for them, according to Assistant Coach Jack Carney. He was very proud of the team’s performance, he said, but the trip took some of the energy out of them. As a team, Wrangell made 106 points and took third place. Ketchikan took first place at 185, followed by Thunder Mountain at 106 points. “It was a long weekend, long way up to Haines,” he said. “I’m proud of our team, it just wasn’t the best weekend.” In the Varsity 103 bracket,...
The Lady Wolves volleyball team travelled to Skagway for their most recent tournament of the season. The team had games scheduled against Haines, Skagway, Klawock, Craig, Metlakatla, and Petersburg. The team saw several wins this tournament, and while they suffered a few losses, they ended on a high note. Wrangell’s first two games were against Haines and Skagway on Friday, Oct. 25. They played three games, each, with Wrangell winning each game. Against Haines, the Lady Wolves won 25-21, 25-10 and 25-13. Against Skagway, the Lady Wolves won 2...
Running three-and-a-half hours long before even coming to an executive session, the borough assembly meeting on Oct. 22 saw a wide variety of topics covered. One of them was overseeing several appointments to various city positions. Patty Gilbert, recently re-elected to the borough assembly, was named the vice-mayor. There were two open seats on the planning and zoning commission, to which Terri Henson and April Hutchinson were appointed. Annya Ritchie was appointed to the parks and recreation a...
Wrangell was host to the Tom Sims Invitational wrestling tournament this past weekend. Teams from all over Southeast Alaska, 11 in total, came together to officially kick off the high school wrestling season. Jack Carney, assistant coach for the Wrangell Wolves, said that the teams all wrestled some on Thursday and Friday, before the official tournament on Saturday, Oct. 19. The Wolves took second place overall, according to Carney, behind Ketchikan High School. Among the smaller 1A, 2A, and 3A...
The Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau met last Thursday, Oct. 17, to look over their updated budget and to start planning for future meetings and conventions. On the agenda for the night was the selection of a new chair and vice-chair for the bureau, but as there were two unfilled seats at the time of the meeting, they decided to postpone this decision. According to the bureau's budget, provided by Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore, there is $262,000 in CPV funds budgeted for...
Donna McKay, assistant teacher at Head Start in Wrangell, was recently recognized for hitting the 30-year mark in her career. She was given a plaque last Monday, Oct. 14, in Fairbanks during an award ceremony. Head Start is an early childhood program that, according to their website, serves children from birth to five-years-old in 100 Alaskan communities. Starting her career this month 30 years ago, McKay said that she has helped to teach approximately 620 children. "By the 28th of this month...
The Southeast Alaska Conservation Council is one of several groups which have been working in towns like Wrangell to raise awareness of how transboundary mining in British Columbia could affect them. Most recently, Heather Evoy visited Wrangell to discuss some of the potential downsides mining represents, especially to indigenous communities. "A big problem is that a lot of these companies operate all over the world and are known bad actors pretty much everywhere," she said. Some of the...
The Wrangell swim team achieved more personal bests at last weekend's meet in Petersburg, on Oct. 18 and 19. In all, over 40 individual events between the two days of swimming, the team achieved 21 new personal best times. The following is a list of the results. Friday's results: Paige Baggen took 11th in the 200-yard Freestyle at 2:54.24, and 17th in the 50-yard Freestyle at 36.15. Laura Helgeson took 9th in the 50-yard Freestyle with a personal best of 31.92, and 12th in the 100-yard Backstrok...
The Baha'i faith will be recognizing the 200th anniversary of the birth of their founder this month. According to the Baha'i's website, Siyyid 'Alí-Muhammad was born in Iran on Oct. 20, 1819. He would later take the title "The Báb", which means "the gate" in Arabic. He served as the herald for the faith, proclaiming the coming of a new messenger from God, the Bahá'u'lláh. Kay Larson, of Wrangell's Baha'i community, explained that The Báb would be somewhat similar to John the Baptist in Chri...
Back in April of this year, Wrangell resident Kipha Valvoda filed a civil suit against several past and present members of the Wrangell city government. Valvoda, in several letters to the editor to the Wrangell Sentinel, has argued that the city has used discriminatory hiring practices that have kept him out of jobs. His complaint to the court, filed on April 17, contends that borough officials were lax in their hiring practices, and that they held onto his resume for seven years but never gave...
Tasha Morse, music teacher for Wrangell High School, said that six of her students will be traveling to Juneau soon for Honor Fest. The annual music festival, taking place from Oct. 20 to 22 this year at Thunder Mountain High School, brings together some of the best musicians that Southeast Alaskan high schools have to offer for several days of performances. Morse said that this is the highest number of students Wrangell has seen in Honor Fest in several years. "Last year we took two kids," she...
The Wrangell Port Commission held their first meeting since April last Wednesday, Oct. 9. Meetings were put on the city calendar monthly, but due to vacant seats on the commission and conflicting schedules of several commissioners over the summer, they were cancelled due to a lack of quorum. With summer at an end and Wrangell's recent election, the commission was finally able to meet again. Commissioner John Yeager, who was excused from the meeting, was re-elected to the commission for a...
Wrangell's Planning and Zoning Commission met last Thursday, Oct. 10, to continue their discussion of rezoning the old Institute property, located near Shoemaker Park. The property was once home to the Wrangell Institute, a native boarding school, but has sat unused for several decades. The borough began considering putting the land to new use several years ago, putting together a "master plan" in 2017. However, Economic Development Director Carol Rushmore said in the commission's last meeting,...
The Lady Wolves volleyball team traveled north this past weekend for the Juneau Invitational Volleyball Extravaganza. The tournament, taking place on Oct. 11 and 12, saw six teams from across Southeast Alaska compete. The Lady Wolves, saw several wins and losses through the tournament, but Coach Alyssa Allen said she was very proud of how they performed. In two games against Klawock on Oct. 11, Wrangell lost with a score of 21-5 but claimed a win at 21-16. They won and lost games against Craig,...
The Wrangell School Board met last Tuesday, Oct. 8, to reorganize after the borough's Oct. 1 election. The election saw three new people take positions on the board, Patty Gilbert, Jeanie Arnold, and Beth Heller, and also saw the re-election of Board Member David Wilson. After holding an early orientation session for the new members, the regular meeting was called to order. Board Member Aaron Angerman was elected to the position of school board president. Later in the meeting, he was also made...
With the final votes tallied by the canvass board earlier that morning, the Wrangell Borough Assembly met last Thursday, Oct. 3, to confirm this year's local election. There were several positions open for election on the assembly, school board, and an open seat on the port commission in the election on Oct. 1. The public also voted on a proposition to remove the Wrangell Medical Center Board from the city's charter. In total, there were 365 votes cast on election day, plus an additional 41...
Kicking off last Monday, Oct. 7, Evergreen Elementary School has begun a Read-A-Thon to see if their student body can spend a total of 80,000 minutes reading. This would be roughly 55 and a half days doing nothing but reading. With 158 "readers" listed on the school's webpage for the competition, that is only roughly 506 minutes per student. Librarian Jen Gerald said that if the students can hit the 80,000 minute goal, they will have a "pirate day" at the school. If they go above and beyond...
This Saturday, Oct. 12, the Wrangell Ministerial Association will be holding an Operation Christmas Child event. The annual program, operated by the Christian organization Samaritan's Purse, sends shoeboxes full of Christmas gifts, school supplies, toiletries, and other items to children in need around the world. The Wrangell Ministerial Association has played a role in Operation Christmas Child for many years. According to the event's Facebook Page, Wrangell started packing and collecting...
The Wrangell Parks and Recreation Advisory Board met last Wednesday, Oct. 2, to discuss the increasing use of trails and parks by tour groups, as well as beginning to lay the groundwork for the next Helping Our Parks project. Tourism has been steadily increasing in Wrangell, with approximately 22,000 tourists expected to visit town via cruise ships next year. As locals may have noticed this spring and summer, tour groups could be seen being led around Wrangell's popular sites, including the...
After a season that has seen constant improvement, as Coach Drew Larrabee said in several interviews, Wrangell's cross country season has come to a close. Last Saturday, Oct. 5, the ASAA State Championships took place in Anchorage. The girls cross country team qualified for state after taking third place in Regionals. Ethan Blatchley was the only boy on the boys team to qualify for state when he ran a sub-20 5k. Wrangell's girls took fourth place in the Division 3 portion of the competition....
The Wrangell High School swim team competed in the Ketchikan Invitational Swim Meet this past weekend, Oct. 4 and 5. In a newsletter to the high school, Coach Jamie Roberts pointed out that this was the first meet for team members Sophie O'Brien and Jacob Allen. She also pointed out that of the 49 individual events her swimmers competed in, there were 27 personal best times. "This was the first meet, and probably the only meet, that the entire team travelled to," said Roberts. "We had all 13 swi...
Monday, Oct. 7, members of the Forest Service and high school oceanography students, boated over to the east side of Wrangell, near Channel Island, to retrieve the remains of a gray whale that washed up back in June. The whale, a 30-foot male, was one of the victims in a UME, or "unusual mortality event" that has seen numerous gray whales die. According to NOAA, as of Sept. 30, there have been 47 gray whale strandings in Alaska, or 212 across the whole American, Canadian, and Mexican west...
