Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 27
Three-peat secured. The Wrangell High School volleyball team are Southeast champions. After entering the tournament as favorites, Wrangell beat Hoonah, Petersburg and Metlakatla en route to head coach Brian Herman's third consecutive title in as many years at the program's helm. The Southeast 2A tournament was held at Craig High School on Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 21-23. The champs have a week to rest up before the state tournament Dec. 5-7 in Palmer. Wrangell trounced the Hoonah Braves...
A large contingent from Wrangell will be in the crowd as the switch is flipped to light up The Capitol Christmas Tree on Tuesday, Dec. 3, including tribal members of the Wrangell Cooperative Association who will bless the 80-foot-tall spruce. The lighting ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. Alaska time and will be available for online viewing, including on the YouTube channel of the Speaker of the U.S. House at https://bit.ly/3V5EDQg. The tree, with a trunk almost 22 inches wide, arrived in the nation’s capital on Friday, Nov. 22, after a long j...
Virgina Oliver set the reflective tone for the community’s landslide remembrance by singing the first verse of “Silent Night” in Tlingit, and then inviting people to sing it together in English. The town gathered on Wednesday, Nov. 20, at the Nolan Center to remember their six friends and neighbors who died in a destructive landslide a year ago that evening. With the words “sleep in heavenly peace” resonating in the hall, Esther Aaltséen Reese, WCA tribal administrator, explained the vision for the evening: coming together to remember,...
For about half the average price of a home in Seattle, you could buy Wrangell’s former hospital property. The borough assembly passed a resolution on Nov. 18, dropping the price of the property from its appraised value of $830,000 to a new asking price of $498,000, pretty close to the reduced price of $470,000 the borough advertised in 2022. The property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved out in 2021, currently sits empty. It costs the borough several tens of thousands of dollars a year to insure and maintain the building against d...
Nov. 20 1924 The present week has been observed as National Education Week in the schools. No elaborate program has been prepared but the emphasis in all the regular classes has been placed upon the country’s need of an educated citizenship. Col. Knott, who was with Gen. Allenby on the occasion of the taking of Jerusalem in the world war, gave a vivid picture of some world war scenes in connection with a very inspirational assembly lecture at the high school on Thursday. In the afternoon of the same day, Brigadier Simms, of The Salvation Army,...
TURKEY TROT on Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 28, at the covered basketball court, hosted by Parks and Recreation. Sign-up is at 8:45 a.m. and the fun run starts at 9 a.m. Costumes encouraged. All donations will go to the Stikine Middle School cross-country team travel fund. ELKS HOOP SHOOT free-throw contest for ages 8 to 13 will be Saturday, Nov. 30, at the community center gym: 10 a.m. for ages 8 to 9; 11 a.m. for ages 10 to 11; noon for ages 12 to 13. For more information, call Jeff Jabusch 907-305-0086. A hamburger lunch for all participants...
The Wrangell school district is running out of money — literally. If state and borough funding continue at the current levels, the schools will empty their reserves within two years. To help counteract the funding woes, the school board and superintendent met with the borough manager, mayor and borough assembly to workshop potential solutions on Nov. 19. The conversation lasted nearly two hours and began with slide deck presentations from Borough Manager Mason Villarma and school district Business Manager Kristy Andrew. Villarma was blunt. “We...
No question about it, the state is delinquent in funding public schools in Alaska. It has failed to do its homework, turn in assignments, come to class prepared and whatever other analogy you want to use. The mathematical fact is that the state’s per-pupil funding formula hasn’t had a permanent raise of any significance since the Chicago Cubs broke a 108-year drought and won the baseball World Series in 2016. And while 2016 was a good year for Cubs’ fans, that shouldn’t also be remembered as the last year the Alaska Legislature and governor agr...
I like flying. I like looking down at the Earth and trying to identify what I see. I like having breakfast in one state and dinner in another. I like resetting my watch as if I am traveling in time, which I am. And I enjoy imagining stories about people on the plane. It’s as if I am writing a novel, only no one will review and criticize my work. The key point being I imagine what I like. I don’t really want to know their long stories, so I generally don’t talk to people on planes. Of course, it doesn’t always work. I was flying back to Alaska...
In a unanimous decision, the borough assembly took the first step toward increasing flexibility for the number of annual tax-free days, allowing for anywhere between zero and two days in a year. Currently, there are two sales tax-free days per year, often bookending the summer season so that full-time residents (rather than tourists) can enjoy the town-wide discounts in the spring and fall. On tax-free days, Wrangell’s 7% sales tax is removed for 24 hours. Local businesses tend to run additional sales on these days, with the hope of increasing...
The sale of 20 borough-owned residential lots at the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision near Shoemaker Harbor is on track for summer 2025. The sale — half of the lots by auction and half by lottery — had been planned for this past summer, but site work pushed that back to the fall and then a nationwide shortage of electrical transformers delayed it even further. However, the borough assembly at its Nov. 18 meeting approved a contract with a South Dakota-based company for a dozen electrical transformers for the subdivision. The b...
Participants in the nationwide Elks Hoop Shoot have to be a lot younger than the event itself. The free-throw contest is more than 50 years old, but it’s open only to kids 8 through 13 years old. The annual Hoop Shoot will be held Saturday, Nov. 30, at the Wrangell community center gym. The times are 10 a.m. for ages 8 to 9; 11 a.m. for ages 10 to 11; and noon for ages 12 to 13. Kids’ age as of April 1, 2025, will determine which group they will shoot in. They will each get five warm-up shots at the hoop, followed by a round of 10 throws and a...
Commercial salmon harvesters have had a tough year in Alaska, with preliminary state estimates showing that the 2024 season had the third-lowest catch since 1985 and the third-lowest inflation-adjusted ex-vessel value to fishermen since 1975, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The department released its annual salmon harvest summary on Nov. 18. Statewide, commercial fishermen landed 101.2 million salmon of all species during the 2024 season, according to the summary. That’s down 56% from the total harvest of 232.2 million i...
State and federal fisheries managers predict that Southeast Alaska fishermen will harvest about 29 million pink salmon in 2025, an “average” harvest based on catch data going back to 1960 but a 45% boost over this year’s catch. The prediction comes from a joint National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries and Alaska Department of Fish and Game 2025 Southeast Alaska Pink Salmon Harvest Forecast that the state released Nov. 19. The 2025 forecast for 29 million pinks is “approximately 60% of the parent-year (2023) harvest of 48 mill...
The music is almost 300 years old, and it’s been at least 20 years since it’s been performed at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Wrangell, but George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” is timeless and the community is invited to a sing-along Sunday, Dec. 1. “We decided to try to revive it,” Bonnie Demerjian said of the community sing-along event. “We’re just going to sing along with the recording” of “Messiah” by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, she explained. “They’re our backup.” It’s “classical (music) karaoke.” It will be a much shorter version tha...
One day Wrangell will attend a wrestling meet where they don't come home with a podium finish. The Sitka Invitational on Nov. 22-23 was not that day. Four Wrangell wrestlers ended the weekend on the podium's top step. Two finished with silver medals and two more finished third. The team finished in fourth place, just 10 points behind third-place Ketchikan. Mt. Edgecumbe High School won the meet, but Wrangell boasted the highest winning percentage, beating opponents in 53 of their 75 matches....
State officials and industry leaders trying to rescue the ailing Alaska seafood industry are facing daunting challenges, recently released numbers show. The industry lost $1.8 billion last year, the result of low prices, closed harvests and other problems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Direct employment of harvesters last year fell by 8% to the lowest level since 2001, when counts of harvesting jobs began, the Alaska Department of Labor said. The monthly...
Alaska seafood processors hired fewer people in 2023 but paid them more and relied more on nonresidents to fill the jobs, a state analysis shows. The employment trends are what would be expected in an industry struggling to find workers, said Dan Robinson, the state economist who wrote the analysis for the Alaska Department of Labor’s monthly magazine. “I do think the reason for that is just they’ve had to work harder to get workers and to pay workers more to come there,” said Robinson, the department’s research chief and author of the artic...
Monday, Nov. 18 Agency assist: Fire Department. Civil matter. Agency assist: Ambulance. Tuesday, Nov. 19 Welfare check. Wednesday, Nov. 20 Child neglect. Agency assist: Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs Task Force. Traffic stop. Thursday, Nov. 21 Agency assist: Fire Department. Loose dog. Friday, Nov. 22 Motor vehicle accident: Car versus deer. Theft: Unfounded. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for no taillights. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for headlight out. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for no turn signal. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for...
Willard Dee Lowe, 85, passed on Nov. 18, 2024, in Colfax, Washington. Willard was born on July 29, 1939, to Otis and Gala Lowe in Green Hollow, Washington, on the family farm. His birth was assisted by his maternal grandmother, Margaret Frederick, and his paternal aunt, Dorothy Lowe. He grew up loving hunting, fishing and camping. He attended Colfax schools in Washington state. During his junior year in high school, he was invited to the Sadie Hawkins dance by Anne Pierce, a freshman. This...
A final ballot count on Nov. 20 cemented the narrow lead for supporters of Alaska’s ranked-choice voting and open primary system, who defeated a ballot measure that would have done away with the state’s 4-year-old voting process. After 6,074 additional ballots were counted, bringing the total to 340,110 ballots in the decision, the repeal initiative, Ballot Measure 2, was on track to narrowly fail in a 49.9% to 50.1% split. Its losing deficit after the Nov. 20 final count was 664 votes. Supporters of the ballot measure argued that the open pri...
It is with great sadness that the family of William "Will" Cook Snyder announces his peaceful passing on Nov. 4, 2024, at age 64. "Will was an extraordinarily talented and unique human who was loved by many. He marched to the beat of his own drum and lived his life to reflect that mantra," his family wrote. He was born Feb. 6, 1960, in Cleveland, Ohio. Early in his life, he earned a bachelor's degree in automotive restoration from the prestigious McPherson College in Kansas and graduated to beco...
Republican Nick Begich has won Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat, flipping it from Democratic to Republican control. Results of the final ballot count Nov. 20 showed Begich defeating Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, who first won the seat in a special election in 2022 after the death of Republican longtime Rep. Don Young. Peltola was the first Alaska Native woman elected to Congress, and the first Democrat to hold the seat since Begich’s grandfather, Nick Begich, won the seat in 1972. Begich captured 48.4% of first-choice votes in Ala...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for: - Elementary Library Paraprofessional: This is a part-time, 9-month classified position, working 5.75 hours daily. Salary placement is in Column A of the Classified Salary Schedule. Job duties include but are not limited to working with students individually and in small group settings in the library at Evergreen Elementary School. A High School Diploma or equivalent and an associate degree or the ability to pass the ParaPro Assessment is required. Start date: Dec. 16, 2024 -...
