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A group of residents last weekend took part in a march meant to remind the community that slavery is still a problem in the world today. The United Nations' International Labour Organization estimates that over 40,000,000 people around the world are involved in modern slavery, which involves work or situations performed involuntarily and under threat of violence or penalty. That averages out to 5.4 people for every 1,000, with a quarter of those being children. Just under 25 million enslaved...
Options for finding an alternative site to a monofill selected by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation last year are limited, according to an exchange between it and the City and Borough last month. Around 18,350 cubic yards of treated, lead-contaminated soil removed from the former Byford junkyard property last year by contractors for DEC are to be interred indefinitely in a monofill site. Sixty containers of heavier-contaminated soil and debris were barged out for reprocessing, but as the unexpectedly large project had...
A local grocery store bid official farewell to its manager of nearly 50 years. Since March of 1968, Chet Powell made sure the shelves at Wrangell's City Market were properly stocked and its employees kept busy helping customers. Originally from Springdale, Arkansas, Powell first got into the grocery business at the age of 14, coming to work for his uncle, William Norton, at his market in the Seattle area. "He was the one that taught me the grocery business," Powell recalled, getting his start fi...
Wrangell Public School District has been trying something new for lunch this year, enlisting local kitchens to keep students at the middle and high schools fed. Five private food services have staked out days of the week to provide meals: J&W's Fast Foods, the delis at Bobs' IGA and City Market, Notsofamous Pizza, and the Stikine Restaurant. Secondary schools principal Bill Schwan explained the arrangement had developed in response to an in-house menu attempted last year. At the end of the...
The 2017 Tom Sims Invitational last weekend saw six of seven Wrangell wrestlers make the finals, with four of them taking first placements in their weight brackets. "It was a great tournament," said coach Jeff Rooney. "A lot of positive remarks." The hosting team's first tournament of the season followed its big fundraiser dinner the previous weekend, where players served around 180 people. "We appreciate all the support from the community for that," said assistant coach Jack Carney. The funds...
At the second school board meeting of the new year on Monday, staff and returning members welcomed newly elected fellows Dave Wilson and Jessica Rooney. Officers were selected for the reshuffled board, with Georgianna Buhler retaining her position as president, Tammi Groshong being elected to vice-president in a 3-2 vote, and Aleisha Mollen named board secretary. Perhaps the biggest news of the evening though had been an announcement from secondary schools principal Bill Schwan and Secondary...
In its Tuesday evening meeting this week, the City and Borough Assembly decided to shift focus for block grant funding to remodeling the Public Safety Building. Sited centrally to town at the start of Zimovia Highway, the aging facility has already neared the top of the city’s capital improvement priorities. In its project outline, city staff recommended putting the building forward as a candidate for Community Development Block Grant funding, a competitive program sourcing $2.4 million of Housing and Urban Development funding each year into A...
Eleven Wrangell high school students took part in a two-day workshop, enabling their certification to conduct fishing vessel drills. Secondary schools principal Bill Schwan explained the 18-hour instructional course was provided through a grant with Alaska Marine Safety Education Association, a Sitka-based organization which provides marine safety training for a variety of nautical activities across the country. Its Coast Guard-approved fishing vessel drill conductor trainings focus on safety is...
Finalized designs to replace existing facilities at Shoemaker Bay Harbor have been greenlighted by the Wrangell Assembly. Built by the state in 1977, management of the harbor and responsibility for its upkeep were devolved to the city in 2003. The wood-and-iron floats have since reached the limits of their useful life, and plans to replace them with a more modern design have been in the works for several years. A design for new floating facilities and a dredging of the harbor was put together...
Local radio station KSTK has recently hired a new reporter, following a five-month stint without one. June Leffler from Louisville, Kentucky arrived late last week after earning her master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism this spring. She flew in to Juneau with her family last week, and took the overnight ferry from there to Wrangell. "It's wild, this is totally different," she said. After earning her bachelor's degree at the University of Louisville, Leffler...
Local volunteers put together 256 packages of toys and supplies for children in need this Christmas. The 17th annual Operation Christmas Child event was held at the Nolan Center last Saturday, hosted as before by the Wrangell Ministerial Association. Each year the church coalition collects donations from congregants and various community members with the intention of buying supplies for their gift boxes. "We order stuff from everywhere," explained Deanna Reeves, who helped organize this year's d...
Celebration of the state’s sesquicentennial anniversary next week in Wrangell will be on the quieter side, with the 16th annual senior luncheon and yearly flu clinic both scheduled. Island of Faith Lutheran Church is inviting area seniors to join them for lunch next Wednesday at noon. “We kind of started it when our church was newly built,” said Joan Kading, a parishioner. “It seemed like a way to honor the senior citizens of Wrangell.” The informal meal has featured homemade soups and bread, with both a vegetarian and carnivorous option to...
Results from last week's elections were certified and accepted by the City and Borough Assembly in a special meeting Monday. Turnout in the largely uncontentious October 3 municipal elections had been low, with only 16 percent of the borough's 1,721 registered voters polling in. Of these, 242 cast votes on election day, with 29 others turning in absentee ballots ahead of time. Two other ballots had been rejected, due to the voters not previously being registered in the Wrangell polling area. Of...
The girls on Wrangell High School’s volleyball team forayed into their first pair of games last weekend, taking on Craig and Klawock. Traveling across to Prince of Wales Island by charter boat the morning of October 6, the Lady Wolves’ first match-up was at Craig. There, the Lady Panthers’ varsity won in three sets, besting Wrangell 25 to 17 in the first, and 25 to a close 22 in the second two sets. The two schools’ junior varsity squads also had an opportunity for a match, and after losing the first set to Craig 22 to 25, the Lady Wolves...
Every year Southeast Conference presents a number of awards to municipalities, businesses and individuals for their contributions to the region. At this year's annual meeting in Haines last month, Wrangell was among the recipients, being named the organization's "Community of the Year" for 2017. "I think that was absolutely fantastic, that's very exciting," said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell's longtime director for economic development. "I think it's a great honor that SEC recognized Wrangell."...
At last week’s Borough Assembly meeting, members discussed stepping up abatement of public nuisances around the island. The item came up as a priority during last month’s goal-setting workshop with recently hired city manager Lisa Von Bargen. Returning to the Assembly last Tuesday, she put it to members that she would like to see removal of junk vehicles management take higher priority. She called back to the borough’s recent experience with the former Byford property, a privately managed junk site which after several decades of use was signi...
The last ballots were cast and polls closed Tuesday evening on the 2017 municipal elections. Turnout was low in a relatively low-key election, with no ballot measures to consider and candidates running for six of the eight available seats uncontested. No letters of interest were put forward to be considered as a write-in candidate, and one unexpired term on the Wrangell Medical Center Board garnered no interest. The only race in contest was for an unexpired two-year term on the Public School...
The local Tribe has received a substantial grant from the Administration for Native Americans to address outmigration over much of the past several decades. Wrangell Cooperative Association began applying for the grant in April, putting forward a project proposal to the federal agency, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The two-year grant is for $200,000, with the first year’s allotment set at $110,916. With those funds, WCA will be hiring one full-time and one part-time staff member to handle the project. “They’re going...
The local Friends of the Library have acquired a new resource for research at Irene Ingle Public Library. The web-based reference tool, ProQuest’s Ancestry Library Edition, helps users trace family trees more easily. The program maintains millions of family records dating as far back as the 15th century. In a news release late last week, the library explained the new resource responds to local interest in family history. “More and more of our patrons want to explore their past, and these resources make it easy and convenient,” explained Wrang...
The Petersburg-Wrangell area moose harvest seems set to break 100 again this year, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. So far 67 moose have been checked in during the first 18 days of the monthlong hunt. Petersburg ADFG wildlife biologist Rich Lowell explained that generally the larger share of bulls are killed during the first half of the season. Over the past eight years the final two-week average has seen around 45 moose harvested, ranging from a low of 36 to a high of 57. The number of moose taken illegally in the district...
In a media release from Wrangell Medical Center, the hospital announced that for the month of October it will be discounting mammograms. Nationally, October is informally recognized as Breast Cancer Awareness month, during which women are encouraged to focus on this important healthcare issue. Outside of skin cancers, behind that affecting the lungs, breast cancer is the second most common form of cancer among American women. According to the American Cancer Society, the average rate of risk over a lifetime is 12 percent, or one in eight...
Around 40 residents came together last week for dinner, drinks and a presentation about mining issues at the Stikine Inn. Campaigners with advocacy group Salmon Beyond Borders hosted the event, one of a series being held last month around Southeast communities. Meeting in Wrangell on September 27, one of its purposes was to bring residents up to speed with recent developments in the mining industry in neighboring British Columbia. There are three rivers of primary interest, being the Stikine,...
Wrangell Cooperative Association’s environmental office this month began notifying the public of the presence of coliforms in a popular off-grid water source. The pipe just to the north of the Mile 10 marker on Zimovia Highway has supplied Wrangell residents with fresh water for decades, a fixture well before the logging road had been paved. For those living beyond municipal water sources, options for potable water are fairly limited, and for those without a water catchment or well system set up, the pipe provides relatively easy access to s...
At Southeast Conference last week in Haines, Alaska Marine Highway Reform Initiative presented its draft report assessing the state ferry system SEC had been tasked by the governor's office in May 2016 with organizing a statewide planning process to improve the ferry service's long-term viability. The 12-person steering committee subsequently formed to direct that effort has since moved into its second phase, preparation of a proposed organizational model which would better meet the state's tran...
Undaunted by pouring rain, hunters in the Wrangell and Petersburg areas have been bringing in their fill of moose for the 2017 season. As of Tuesday afternoon, Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported a total of 47 bulls have so far been shot since the season's opener on September 15. Of these, only three have so far been confirmed as noncompliant specimens. "We've got a couple that we're looking at," ADFG wildlife biologist Rich Lowell added. The department investigates the carcass in...
