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For Artha DeRuyter, flowers have always been a passion. She's owned flower shops in Fairbanks and now Wrangell. Sometimes she operates seasonally - other times, year-round. At one point, she even ran a shop out of her boat in the Wrangell harbor. But now, the lifelong passion is taking her to the White House Last month, DeRuyter was invited to help decorate the White House for the Christmas season. She will join a team of roughly 300 other volunteers from around the country to - quite literally...
In the run-up to Election Day, high school teacher Jack Carney took a hands-on approach to teaching his U.S. government students about the issues at stake. The class is predominantly made up of seniors. Over the past few weeks, Carney’s students researched, studied and formed opinions on the ballot measures and candidates in the Nov. 5 election. Though just one of the nine students was eligible to vote in the actual election, eight of the nine students participated in the mock election. (One student was absent.) The results were relatively in l...
As temperatures drop below freezing, many folks in town will turn to their wood-burning stoves for some warm respite. And while there may be nothing cozier than a pair of wool socks and a wood stove on an icy evening, there is certainly nothing cozy about a chimney fire. Chimney fires are common but are easily preventable by regular maintenance. They are often caused by a buildup of creosote on the inside of chimney walls. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s fire safety guide, creosote is essentially the residue left over b...
After a two-week hiatus, the girls high school volleyball team returned to the court, winning six of their seven matches in the second and final seeding tournament of the year. Their record was enough to secure the No. 1 seed for the upcoming Southeast championships held in Craig later this month. The three-day tournament in Petersburg Nov. 7-9 is one of just two tournaments that determines the seeding for the Nov. 21-23 Southeast championships. The Wolves got their Petersburg play off to a hot start on Nov. 7, brushing aside the hosts in two...
The Wolves put on a show at the Bill Weiss Wrestling Invitational in Ketchikan. By the time the meet had wrapped up on Nov. 9, Wrangell walked away with two champions, three runners-up and three bronze medalists. The girls team finished fourth overall while the boys team finished fifth. Palmer’s Colony High School won the meet with 369.5 points. Wrangell boasted the tournament’s third-highest winning percentage, with Wolves winning 68 of their 106 matches. Additionally, the boys and girls teams combined with the fifth-highest number of pins acr...
Almost 20 years after the legislation was signed into law, the Real ID deadline has a new final date: May 7, 2025. Starting then, Alaskans who want to use their drivers license to travel on commercial airlines will be required to present a Real ID to TSA as their form of identification. For those without a Real ID, other federally issued identification like passports, military IDs or Bureau of Indian Affairs cards will suffice. Wrangell residents without a Real ID — distinguishable by the star in the top-right corner — are in luck: Jayme How...
Jamie Roberts is leaving Wrangell better than she found it. After 26 years on the island, Jamie is saying goodbye to a town that not only formed her, but that she helped form for the better. The Roberts family moved out of their 11.25-Mile home after the Nov. 20, 2023, landslide. Since then, they have been unable to find a tenable housing solution. Later this month, Jamie will join her husband, Greg, at their new home in Veneta, Oregon. The Wrangell chapter in the book of Jamie Roberts begins...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association, alongside the borough, invite community members to come together at the Nolan Center for a one-year remembrance of last November’s deadly landslide. The event is set for 6 p.m. on the slide’s anniversary, Nov. 20. Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese said both the tribe and the borough want the structure of the event to be flexible in order to best meet people’s needs. There will be speeches to open the remembrance, but Reese said they are going to try and keep that portion of the evening short...
Almost a year after a landslide on the night of Nov. 20, 2023, blocked and destroyed parts of Middle Ridge Road, the U.S. Forest Service was able to clear two of the four locations where the slide crossed over the switchback-style road. The clearings allowed for the rescue of Stan Guggenbickler’s abandoned truck, which became trapped in the slide debris last November and remained there until the blockages were cleared last month. Despite the partial clearing, Wrangell District Ranger Tory Houser expects the road, as well as the Middle Ridge C...
NBA champion Chucky Brown should probably be back in Raleigh, North Carolina, preparing his St. Augustine’s University Falcons for their basketball season opener. He is their head coach, after all. But following a Zoom call with Wrangell Cooperative Association Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese earlier this fall, he realized that a trip to Wrangell was not something he could turn down. Brown will join a coalition of Team Hollywood athletes and officials in Wrangell on Monday, Nov. 11, to lead all-day programming for students. Team Ho...
There's not much on the walls of Mason Villarma's borough manger office. There is a minimalist whiteboard (purchased with his own money, he noted), a couple vintage maps of downtown, and some photos of fishing boats Villarma trolled on growing up. But one decoration stands out: a blown-up black and white image of an older man with a smile so infectious that even if Villarma's office's walls were decorated like Paris' Louvre, the image of the elder gentleman would stand out. "Who's that," I...
Wrangell High School wrestlers attended the Mountain City Christian Academy Invitation tournament in Anchorage this past weekend. Over the meet’s two days (Nov. 1-2), every single Wrangell wrestler won at least one match. The team also returned home with the first-place award for small teams. This is the third time in four years that the Wolves were the recipients of the award. Ben Houser was the team’s sole champion of the tournament. The junior finished atop the podium in the 125-pound weight class after finishing in second place in Jun...
By Sam Pausman Sentinel senior reporter If you weren't at the Nolan Center on Saturday afternoon, you must have been out of town. It seemed all of Wrangell piled into the center to witness the blessing of the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree. Led by the Wrangell Cooperative Association, the event was moved indoors after a persistent storm turned a cloudy afternoon into a rainy one. The event was attended by folks from Wrangell, folks from throughout Alaska and folks from Washington, D.C. Even Smokey...
The four seniors on Wrangell's girls volleyball team had but one chance. Just one. A single night to play in front of their classmates, their loved ones, their families and friends. Though the match's outcome contributed nothing toward Southeast seeding or state tournament qualification, the crowded high school gym told another story: This match mattered. Following an emotional senior night, the high school girls volleyball team defeated Ketchikan 3-2 on Oct. 24. In their only home match of the...
In an effort to recognize the building’s impact on the town, Parks and Recreation staff will dedicate the community center to Wrangell athletes of the past, present and future. The event will take place at noon on Nov. 9 and will be sandwiched between the fourth and fifth grade all-star basketball games against Petersburg. Devyn Johnson, Parks and Rec’s recreation coordinator, said that after the department’s recent upgrades and capital improvement projects, dedicating the community center felt like the right thing to do. “We’ve been putting a...
In the Wrangell High School swim team’s fourth meet of the year, the water-bound Wolves keep getting quicker. The Sitka Invitational took place on Oct. 25-26 and served as a final regular season opportunity for swimmers to compete against Southeast rivals before this weekend’s regional championships in Petersburg. Of the 24 individual events Wrangell swimmers competed in, they walked away with nine personal-best times. Even better, the Wolves’ relay team finished with season-best times in all four events they competed in. Andrei Bardi...
The Wrangell High School wrestling team secured six podium finishes at the Juneau Southeast Showdown on Oct. 26-27. Senior Vanessa Johnson finished first in the girls 165-pound bracket while sophomore Jackson Carney continued his unbeaten season, finishing first in the boys 140-pound class. Ben Houser, Della Churchill, Cody Barnes and sophomore Hailey Cook all finished second in their respective events. Senior Kyan Stead came in fourth place for the boys 125-pound weight class. Of all the...
The assembly unanimously voted to raise annual boat launch fees for Wrangell’s harbors at the Oct. 22 meeting. The fees — which have remained stagnant for years — now mirror other Southeast towns’ equivalent fees. The annual launch permit for those with a boat stall will increase from $28 to $35. For those without a stall, the fee will increase from $55 to $70. Per the borough’s figures, the average annual Southeast launch fee for those without a stall is just over $74. The borough is also eliminating the commercial launch permit category...
This November, when the President steps out on Pennsylvania Avenue and looks toward the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, he's going to see a Christmas tree from the Tongass National Forest. Better yet, Wrangell High School students were tasked with keeping it alive. Members of the T3 program (Teaching Through Technology), a federally funded teaching nonprofit, teamed up with a local inventor to make sure the tree continues to absorb water on its nearly month-long journey from Wrangell to Washingto...
Two thousand and ninety to one. Those were the odds of winning the only elk-hunting permit on Zarembo Island this year - the first time in nearly 20 years the state Board of Game has permitted elk hunting on Zarembo after they were urged to do so by the Wrangell Fish and Game Advisory Committee. Quite literally against all odds, Wrangell resident Curtis Kautz won the lottery. His prize? A 31-day window to try and bag a creature Kautz described as smart, skittish and fast. "They're hard to sneak...
Jenya Anichenko just wants to know what happened. In 1908, the Star of Bengal - an iron-sided sailing ship carrying 138 people - sank off the coast of Southeast Alaska's Coronation Island. The ship was carrying 106 Chinese, Japanese and Filipino salmon cannery workers, and 32 white crew members. The crew's survival rate was over 50%, but just nine percent of the Asian cannery workers survived. Anichenko's talk explored possible reasons for the racial discrepancies in the survival rates, as well...
Wrangell swimmers continue to chip away at their race times, boasting 11 personal bests against Southeast competition on Oct. 11-12. The Juneau Invitational was the Wolves third meet of the season. And as the season nears its close, head coach Jamie Roberts remains optimistic about her last couple of weeks at the helm of the Wrangell swim program (she is moving out of town this winter). The reason for her optimism? Her swimmers keep getting faster. Of Wrangell swimmers’ 25 individual events in Juneau, 11 resulted in personal-best times. Better...
The Wrangell High School wrestling team competed in its first meet of the season this past weekend in Hoonah. The three-day meet Oct. 17-19 was a success for the Wolves, as they boasted four tournament champions, three second-place finishers and two bronze medalists. On the girls side, senior Della Churchill finished atop the podium in the 120-pound bracket, while Hailey Cook won the 114-pound weight class against her nationally ranked opponent in the gold medal match. For the boys, sophomore...
Evergreen Elementary teachers want the school district office to lock its doors for security. So far, their fight has been an uphill battle. The entire teaching staff of Evergreen Elementary signed a letter last month imploring the school board to make several safety changes. The teachers want to better protect students and staff against hostile intruders and potential school shooters. The teachers requested that the district office doors, which provide entry to the classroom area, remain locked during school hours. They also requested a...
Wrangell's famed Three-Frog Totem on Shakes Island is no more. The clans involved in the pole's history decided its purpose had long since passed. It was taken down in a ceremony on Sept. 6. Kiks.adi clan mother Katherine Geroge-Byrd said the pole's origins date back to the 19th century. A Naanyaa.aayí chief's three sons were slated to wed Kiks.adi women in a series of arranged marriages. Instead, the three women instead fell in love with - and ran away with -slaves. For the Naanyaa.aayí chief,...
