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Fourth grade students from Wrangell and Petersburg were treated to a trip on the Stikine River last Thursday. Jet boats from Alaska Waters, Summit Charters, Alaska Charters and Adventures and Alaska Peak & Seas transported the students to six learning stations that were situated along the lower river. The hooligan fishery station was manned by Brennon Eagle and Winston Davies. Virginia Oliver shared her enormous wealth of Tlingit culture in the second station at Lower Limb Island. At the Upper...
Alaska Superior Court Judge Kevin G. Miller has denied a local physician’s request to be allowed to work at Wrangell Medical Center pending the court’s decision on his appeal to having his privileges at the hospital denied. In March, the WMC Board denied Dr. Greg Salard the right to see patients at the hospital. Salard soon filed an appeal in Wrangell Trial Court. He also requested the court allow him to work at WMC while his appeal is considered. In his order filed Friday, April 27, Miller states WMC followed the required procedures set out...
Vendors will not be allowed to solicit visitors on the City Dock this cruise-ship season, which begins this month, according to the Port and Harbor Department. Only vendors with existing contracts or agreements with the cruise ships that arrive in Wrangell will be allowed on the actual dock. Harbormaster Greg Meissner said any other vendors or guides will have to wait until the travelers come off the dock to approach them. The city has decided to enforce these new policies this season because of the complaints it received last year. Meissner...
Kenny Wilson throws the first pitch to open the season of Little League ball in Wrangell. Kellen Eagle caught the pitch before the first games began Saturday morning (left). Elizabeth Armstrong sings the Star Spangled Banner on Little League’s opening day Saturday. The weekend rain didn’t deter teams from hitting the field in new uniforms and crowds of parents and friends rooting on the players from the stands (right)....
Wrangell has been named the best small town in Alaska to visit by Sunset Magazine — a monthly publication geared toward travel and outdoor living in western states. Wrangell is featured in the “Beginners guide to Alaska” article inside the May edition of the magazine. Instead of visiting “artsy” Homer or “cruise-ship-stop” Ketchikan, the article tells readers to head to Wrangell for the “most quirk-for-the-buck.” Wrangell’s false-front buildings make the town look like a “Wild West prop” the article states. Though, it does point out the lack...
Third, fourth and fifth grade-girls participated in the third annual Wrangell event “Girls on the Run” Tuesday — a 5k run/walk from City Park to Shoemaker Bay. Girls on the Run is an international non-profit prevention program that encourages pre-teen girls to learn self-respect and a healthy lifestyle through running....
The Wrangell Medical Center (WMC) wants to bring back an Anchorage attorney to lead a workshop on Alaska’s Open Meeting Act. In early March, the City and Borough of Wrangell hosted two free days of training on the state law. The classes, open to the public, were taught by Michael Gatti, an attorney who works for a private firm in Anchorage, and Krista Stearns, who serves as the city attorney in Kenai. At its meeting last month, the WMC Board of Directors agreed to bring Gatti back to Wrangell to lead a workshop for board members on the Open M...
The Wrangell High School softball team hosted Craig over the weekend, and won its last game of the season Saturday. The Lady Wolves first faced the Lady Panthers Friday in Wrangell and lost 26-38. Saturday, Wrangell won 20-7. Wrangell coach Kathleen Harding said her team was ahead of Craig during Friday’s game. However, she switched up the pitchers to give players more game time and the Lady Wolves lost the lead. Yet, the Lady Wolves were hitting well Friday night, Harding said, with s...
With the cruise ship season starting this month, crews are working near City Dock to finish pouring concrete in the cul-de-sac hoping to have the area paved before the tourists start arriving in Wrangell. The city is also making improvements to the City Dock this year and the contractor for that project is scheduled to arrive in town soon. That is why the cul-de-sac is being paved with concrete before Front Street, said Mitch McGraw of Southeast Earthmovers at an April 26 meeting on Wrangell’s road and utility improvement project. “The rea...
Mr. Merritt’s fourth-grade students work on an art project at the Elementary School April 26 with visiting artist Sandy Shepard. It was one of the many classes Shepard led at Wrangell’s schools last week as part of her visit for Bird Fest. Shepard, of Ketchikan, was the Fest’s featured guest artist in Wrangell....
One came from Janell Privett, whose request includes a list of 14 items of information including WMC’s total expenditures on various legal fees and travel expenses for hospital administration and board members. Privett initially made her Freedom of Information (FOI) request in writing to WMC Chief Executive Officer Noel Selle-Rea March 19. She came to the Board meeting last week to ask the WMC Board members to reconsider her request for information — what hospital staff has estimated would total 6,000 pages in documents. If her request is fulfi...
Two-year-old Aadyn Gillen (front) shows off his snake tattoo on his forehead while he rides around on a tricycle during “Tot Gym” Monday morning — one of the numerous early-childhood local activities highlighted this week by the Wrangell Early Childhood Coalition (WECC) in honor of “Week of the Young Child.” The week is recognized annually across the nation and is it focuses attention on the needs of young children and their families and recognize early childhood programs in communiti...
The Wrangell Medical Center Board of Directors has decided to distribute a questionnaire regarding WMC Chief Executive Officer Noel Selle-Rea’s annual performance evaluation. At the April 18 WMC Board meeting, Board President Mark Robinson said in the past, evaluations of WMC CEOs have been either “painful” or “non-existent.” “This year, I decided I want to get more quantitative in the process,” Robinson said. The main outcome of the performance evaluation is to hopefully create a planning document that can help the WMC Board and CEO “improve...
At its April 18 meeting, some members of the Wrangell Medical Center (WMC) Board of Directors discussed the petitions filed with the city, which seek to recall eight of the nine board members. The signatures on the petitions were found to be sufficient by the Borough Clerk earlier this month. And, on Tuesday, the Assembly considered an ordinance to create recall ballots for a special election in June. WMC Board Vice President Jim Nelson, who is included in the petitions, told those gathered in the packed hospital boardroom last week he has enjo...
After many months of work, students in Wrangell High School’s (WHS) Marine Fabrication class are nearly finished building three jet boats. The students began working at the beginning of the school year to create the metal boats, and they should be ready to travel up the river sometime next month. The leaders of the teams are the students who pay for the approximately $3,000 of aluminum needed to build the18-foot jet boats. To add the boat’s motor is an additional cost, said class teacher Dav...
Next weekend, Wrangell will participate for the first time in a nationwide event: Lemonade Day. The day offers students across the country the chance to learn how to operate their own business through a lemonade stand. “The foremost objective of Lemonade Day is to empower youth to take ownership of their lives and become productive members of society – the business leaders, social advocates, volunteers, and forward-thinking citizens of tomorrow,” according to LemonadeDay.org. Alaska’s officia...
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) held a meeting April 19 to discuss possible changes to how the federal agency manages Anan — the popular bear-viewing site near Wrangell. It has been roughly ten years since the USFS made any major management changes to Anan. USFS Wrangell District Ranger Bob Dalrymple said last week’s meeting served as the “first step” in the management review process, which is expected to take years to complete. The USFS will have to begin a scoping period, which will include additional public meetings, and create an Environ...
Last year, Bob Gorman, cooperative extension agent from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), came to Wrangell to teach the “Master Gardener” class — a nearly 40-hour course offered throughout the state of Alaska that teaches residents the essentials for home gardening. Gorman returned to Wrangell earlier this week as a follow up to the Master Gardener course. On Monday, he visited with master gardeners, and on Tuesday led a free class on growing fruit in wet, cool and cloudy Wrangell. The cold, wet soil throughout Southeast Alaska is th...
The Wrangell Medical Center will be purchasing a new mammography machine for the hospital that will be paid for entirely through grants. The machine, which takes x-rays of breast tissue and is used to screen for breast cancer, will cost $99,999, and WMC has received $100,000-worth of grants to buy it. The grants came from a number of organizations including Alaska Run for Women, American Seafoods, First Bank and Fred Meyers. The largest grant WMC received to purchase the mammography machine came from the Denali Commission in the amount of...
The Borough Assembly voted in favor Tuesday night to create a committee that will review the City and Borough of Wrangell Charter and Municipal Code. The review process as been prompted by Borough Clerk Christie Jamieson, who said it became clear after the Open Meetings Act classes the city offered in March that various sections of the municipal code need to be revised and updated to comply with state law. Jamieson proposed creating a special “Charter and Code Review Committee” made of five members to complete the task. Assembly member Bil...
Members of the Wrangell Medical Center Board of Directors were at the Stikine Inn last Friday morning meeting with members of the public over coffee. The hour-and-and-a-half session marked the first of what is to be a weekly occurrence, giving members of the public the opportunity to talk one-on-one with hospital board members, the majority of whom have had recall petitions filed against them. WMC President Mark Robinson and Vice President Jim Nelson were the two hospital board members present...
Wrangell Public School District is expected to receive $84,517 from the State of Alaska to use towards the upcoming school year’s budget. The extra money is part of a one-time $25 million allocation to Alaska schools approved by the State Legislature Sunday. District Superintendent Rich Rhodes announced the news at Monday’s School Board meeting, as well as other additions to the school budget. Rhodes said Wrangell will also receive a proposed additional $17,772 for Career and Technical Education and Vocational Education, which will mainly be...
Paving of Wrangell’s main street began this week, as crews were set to begin pouring concrete at the north end of Front Street Wednesday. As of earlier this week, car traffic has been blocked from approximately the north end of Campbell Drive to McKinnon Street as paving work takes place. The section of road was torn up at the beginning of the year to install new water and sewer services as part of Wrangell’s road and utility improvement project. At a construction progress meeting at City Hall April 12, McGraw Custom Construction Sup...
Representatives of the Juneau Economic Development (JEDC) were in Wrangell April 12 to discuss a recent regional initiative aimed at strengthening specific industry within Southeast Alaska. JEDC is leading the economic development strategy — called the “Southeast Alaska Cluster Initiative”— through funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The process has brought together representatives of four different industry sectors from the region — visitor products, ocean products, timber products and energy. These industry-sector groups ha...
Wrangell’s inaugural community market season begins next month with what is expected to feature a number of vendors selling locally-grown-and-made veggies, breads and artwork throughout the summer. The first community market is scheduled for May 19 at the covered play area next to Evergreen Elementary School on Bennett Street. Markets will continue every third Saturday of the month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through September. At a market meeting last week, interested vendors and members of the volunteer steering committee discussed possibly h...