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Graduation formalities were finished and down came the balloons, floating over the 14 graduates at last Friday's ceremonies at the community gym -- in the school colors, of course. For more photos, see Page 7....
Concerned with increasing cost estimates to repair and renovate the water-damaged 34-year-old public safety building, the borough assembly wants to explore a new option to see if it would be less expensive: Permanently move as many tenants as possible into the old hospital instead. “I’ve been driving this,” Mayor Steve Prysunka told the borough assembly at a workshop Tuesday evening. He said the borough needs to figure out what it would cost to remodel the hospital into space for the police and fire departments, state courts, jail, feder...
Alaska legislators are in the second week of a special session to finish work on the state budget for the fiscal year that starts in just five weeks, while also deciding the amount of this year's Permanent Fund dividend. Lawmakers have held few committee meetings and many have left Juneau, as private discussions involving House and Senate leaders, their colleagues and the governor's office generally dominate such negotiations. The Legislature adjourned its regular session after 121 days on May...
Zoom is a thing of the past for Wrangell borough assembly meetings. The next meeting June 8 will be in person, no more freeze frames, no more digital hassles. The assembly voted unanimously Tuesday evening to repeal the resolution directing online meetings during the pandemic. “Conducting meetings with the Zoom stuff is exhausting,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said. Borough Clerk Kim Lane recommended the assembly approve the return to in-person meetings. “Since we are trying to move forward and climb out of this pandemic,” she said, it would be approp...
Congressional action exempting large cruise ships from having to stop in Canada on their summer voyages to Alaska will provide a boost to heavily tourism-dependent Southeast communities. Although Wrangell was never on the itineraries of the largest ships, it’s possible the town may see some additional visitors with the change in U.S. law. Without the temporary exemption from a century-old U.S. maritime law, the foreign-registered ships would have been required to stop in Canada, which has not been possible since the country shut down its p...
May 26, 1921 That the Alaska Sanitary Packing Co. cannery in Wrangell will run this season is now a certainty, a cablegram having been received from O.A. Brown yesterday to that effect. It is not known how long the run will be, but it is expected that the season will be rather short. Last year’s salmon harvest in southern Southeast was down more than one-third from 1918, with even lower returns expected this year. The cannery was built in 1918. May 24, 1946 Ray Day, deputy collector of Customs in Wrangell, received the following wire this w...
Norwegian Cruise Line was the first operator to resume ticket sales for voyages to Alaska after Congress passed a bill that could help save the state’s annual summer pilgrimage of cruise ship visitors. Norwegian’s sailings will start the first week of August. A few hours after the House approved the measure last Thursday, following earlier passage by the Senate, Carnival Corp. joined Norwegian on the calendar. Carnival’s three largest cruise lines said they would run one ship each between Seattle and the bigger ports in Southeast Alaska start...
It had been about a dozen years since Wrangell High School wrestlers came home with two state title winners, and this year juniors Ryan Rooney and Liana Carney both took first place in their weight divisions at the state tournament in Anchorage last weekend. Rooney wrestled in the 160 weight class; Carney in the 135 weight class. It was her second state title; she took first in 2019. Wrangell racked up the highest score among all Southeast schools at the state meet last Friday and Saturday,...
I know things change and I too sit around with friends and bemoan how it used to be, how we miss the old days, how much better things were then. Good thing I went online to complain to friends instead of writing a letter. Who knows when it would have arrived. Though the U.S. Postal Service motto says "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night" will delay the mail, that has not protected it from politics, poor management at the top and lack of congressional action. I admit that impatience...
Just a couple weeks ago, Ketchikan reported 20 new COVID-19 cases in a single day and had more than 100 active cases in the borough. A week ago, the community still had more than 80 active cases and four people in the hospital. About 20% of all the cases reported in Ketchikan since the pandemic infected and inflicted its misery on the world more than a year ago have occurred in just the past few weeks. Many of the recent cases are people who did not choose to get vaccinated. Almost 40% of...
We need to preserve the biggest of the kings Tyee is a Native word that has several meanings. The Big One is the one that describes a 30-pound or bigger king salmon. At the south end of Wrangell Island, there are five rivers that at one time had a lot of big kings, like the one that derby winner Gary Smart caught in 2017. Not all kings are created equal, the genetic strain is what makes the big ones so special. If we lose this genetic strain, it will be lost forever. More than 70 years ago, the...
Following new federal guidelines, the Wrangell borough has decided that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are no longer required to wear face masks in borough facilities, programs and activities. Individual businesses can set their own policy. The borough issued the change in guidelines on May 18. As of last week, almost 60% of Wrangell residents age 16 and older had received at least one dose of a vaccine. “It’s the honor system,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said last Friday of the mask-free policy that applies only to vacci...
The Wrangell teachers union and school board have agreed on a new three-year contract that starts this summer and includes a 1% raise each year and higher out-of-pocket deductibles for teachers enrolled in the district’s insurance plan. The contract also includes an optional insurance plan with even higher deductibles that would reduce the share of premiums paid by the Wrangell Teachers’ Association. Employers have been increasingly switching in recent years to high-deductible plans in an effort to stem the rising cost of health insurance. The...
The weeks of cleaning up after others and asking pet owners to pick up what their dogs leave behind looks to have made a difference at Volunteer Park. Volunteer picker-upper Joan Sargent was at the park last Friday and said, “It’s so much better. … Right now I’m feeling pretty positive.” Sargent, who serves on the Parks and Recreation advisory board, estimates she collected more than 100 pounds of dog waste at the park this spring. “It was solid. You couldn’t walk across the entry area without tiptoeing.” She had written the borough assembl...
The community swimming pool has had to cancel a couple of sessions due to a lifeguard shortage, but a training class is scheduled for June 1-4 and it’s still open for sign-up. “This year we really haven’t been able to recruit,” said Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas. It usually takes about 20 part-timers to staff the pool, some working just a few hours. Many of the lifeguards are high school students or retirees working limited hours, Thomas said, and it takes a lot of juggling to fill all the slots to keep the pool in operati...
The Salvation Army has rounded up enough community donations to provide free lunches for 50 children a week during June and July. Separate donations are funding snacks for 75. “People have donated specifically to make sure kids in Wrangell have food this summer,” said Lt. Jon Tollerud, of the Wrangell Salvation Army. The program is limited and kids will be enrolled on a first-come, first-served basis, so Tollerud advises parents to call the Army at 874-3753 as soon as possible to sign up their children. The meals and snacks will start next Mon...
Not a single legislator voted against the bill to reconfigure the public advisory board for the Alaska Marine Highway System, taking away from governors the power to appoint half the members. The Senate president and House speaker would each appoint two of the nine board members, with the governor naming the other five to the panel that would advise the Department of Transportation on operations and long-term planning for the ferry system. The final decision on the change in state law rests with the governor, who will have until next month to...
Wrangell is one of four Southeast communities selected for a joint U.S. Forest Service and University of Alaska Southeast project to learn more about how the pandemic has affected the tourism industry in the region and what it means for the economy longer term. The other communities selected for the survey and report are Skagway, Hoonah and Angoon. “Each one is very unique,” said Robert Venables, executive director of the Southeast Conference, which is helping to publicize the online survey. “Take a look at Skagway, the biggest small port...
Evergreen Elementary School students last week exercised their green thumbs at the school's annual plant and seed sale and garden cleanup and prep for the summer. Fourth grader Brogan Booker spreads fresh dirt in the raised bed as Jacoby Hunt keeps adding to the pile on May 18. Students were busy filling the beds for next year, mixing in coffee grounds and eggshells, said Jenn Miller-Yancey, lead teacher and assistant principal at Evergreen Elementary. They also were harvesting the last of this...
Joanne J. Roberts, a 27-year Wrangell resident, died May 13 at the SouthEast Regional Health Consortium's Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center. She was 74, and died of pulmonary disease, her family said. "Wrangell was her style," her family said. Roberts moved to Alaska with the U.S. Army in 1976 and later, when she grew tired of big cities, left Fairbanks and moved to Wrangell, where she tended bar, worked aboard commercial fishing boats and hunted. "She lived a colorful life." "She was married five... Full story
While the Alaska Legislature continues to work in special session this week on the state budget and deciding the amount of this year’s Permanent Fund dividend, lawmakers managed to pass 34 bills before the regular session ended last week — among the lowest number since statehood. Gov. Mike Dunleavy will have at least until sometime next month to decide whether to sign or veto the bills, depending on when the Legislature sends the documents to the governor’s office. Among the bills approved by lawmakers: A measure sponsored by Juneau Rep. Sara...
The Wrangell High School cheer squad placed second in Division 2A in this year's virtual Southeast regional competition, and now they have the plaque and medals to prove it. The squad sent in videos of their four routines to the judges back in March, and the awards just arrived last week, said coach Stephanie Cartwright. In addition to the team award, Wrangell squad members Aaliyah Messmer and Brodie Gardner were named to the 15-member all-conference squad, Cartwright said. Schools were...
Wrangell police, assisted by several other law enforcement agencies, arrested Wilson Taylor Boon, 32, on a felony drug charge at the post office May 19. Boon was being held at the Wrangell jail as of Monday on a $10,000 cash bail. He was arrested in possession of 84 grams of methamphetamine, almost three ounces, said Wrangell Police Lt. Bruce Smith. “U.S. Postal Service employees in Wrangell intercepted a suspicious package. A search of the package revealed it contained a controlled substance,” according to a press release from the city. Boo...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency continues to review damage and repair costs after a fire at its Zimovia Highway warehouse and office building May 13. The fire did not affect electrical service to the community. The Sentinel last week incorrectly reported the fire caused “minimal damage.” The news report should have said SEAPA was “appreciative of the rapid response of the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department, which minimized damage to the structure and its contents....
