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WRANGELL, Alaska – The Chief Shakes Hot Springs Recreation Area, a popular recreation site in the Wrangell Ranger District, will undergo repairs beginning this summer. Scheduled work includes foundation repairs to decaying cedar posts on the indoor tub and roof replacements to the indoor tub and outdoor changing room. Work is scheduled to take place from mid-July to mid-August, and the indoor tub and outdoor changing room will be closed to the public during construction. However, this work is necessary to ensure that these facilities are a...
As the Legislature was being summoned for special session, Wrangell's Borough Assembly continued to look at its own budget for the coming fiscal year at its Tuesday evening meeting. The regular meeting was preceded by a workshop on the FY16 budget. The budget Borough Manager Jeff Jabusch presented was balanced using the existing mil tax rate, with services maintained at much the same levels as at present. Some cuts include smaller items like travel expenses, supplies and subscriptions, and a reduction in contributions to radio station KSTK and...
Wrangell residents and other Alaskans from around the state were given more opportunity to voice concerns over impending cuts to state programming during a public hearing held Monday evening for the draft of next year's budget being considered by the Senate Finance Committee. Six Wrangellites came to their local Legislative Information Office to provide testimony via telephone, along with residents of Petersburg and Ketchikan. “I am speaking in opposition to the cuts to the Alaska Marine Highway System,” borough manager Jeff Jabusch told the...
One Wrangell resident hoped to stir up some interest in an alternative to subscription-service television at the Wrangell Borough Assembly meeting March 10. Sue Horner introduced herself as 31-year military veteran and recent arrival to the community. While settling in, one of the things Horner noticed was Wrangell did not make use of Alaska Rural Communication System (ARCS) programming. “I was surprised and disappointed,” she told the Assembly. She explained the ARCS network is a system of satellite-fed, low-power television transmitters pro...
Wrangell's public radio station KSTK began its annual fall membership drive Monday, with hopes to raise $18,000 by Saturday. The fundraiser is one of two the station holds each year, raising a total of $36,000 for its yearly operating budget. The rest of KSTK's approximately $290,000 budget comes from public funds, with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) making up the largest share along with Alaska Public Broadcasters. “Without these funds we can't rely on the CPB or Alaska broadcasting money,” station manager Cindy Sweat exp...
Candidates for Alaska House District 36 met in Wrangell Thursday evening for an on-air forum hosted by radio station KSTK. Republican candidate Chere Klein and Independent Dan Ortiz – both from Ketchikan – are running in the Nov. 4 election to represent the district's communities in the State Legislature. KSTK's director Cindy Sweat acted as the evening's moderator. Candidates were given five minutes apiece for opening statements, alternating who got to answer questions posed by the public fir...
What experience or qualities do you have that would make you an effective Port Commissioner? "Commitment to Wrangell and working with others. I have lived in Wrangell since 1983 and I'm committed to and involved with this town as my home. My wife, Carol Ross, and I owned and operated a business here until 2007. I am a board member now with KSTK and Coast Alaska. I attend St. Philip's Episcopal Church, where I have served on the Vestry Committee. I am a member of Wrangell Volunteer Fire...
As the borough catches some of the last rays of summer, members of the Healthy Wrangell Coalition looked at a number of upcoming events this fall at its monthly meeting Tuesday. The coalition is a collaborative group representing the community’s health, education, recreation and religious spheres. An organ recital is planned at the Salvation Army Chapel this Sunday at 3 p.m. Major Scott Nicloy will play a variety of works ranging from classical pieces and church music to theatrical numbers. Admission is free with offering or donation of food i...
Candidates for the upcoming Republican primary of House District 36 met Tuesday afternoon at Wrangell's City Hall to introduce themselves to potential voters and answer questions in a round-table style discussion. Chere Klein, Patti Mackey, and Agnes Moran – all from from Ketchikan – made up the panel, which was moderated by KSTK manager Cindy Sweat. Audience members had the opportunity to ask the panel a policy question, which each candidate then had the opportunity to answer. There were also q...
Katarina Sostaric graduated this spring from the University of Missouri-Columbia and wanted to see somewhere beautiful. Less than a month and a half later, and after a few days of training in Juneau, Sostaric arrived as KSTK's news staff reporter June 12. "I wanted to be a public radio reporter and go somewhere that was beautiful and had a lot of nature, so this seemed like a good place," she said. Sostaric's arrival in Wrangell marks her first full-time job out of college, though she's...
The Chamber of Commerce honored Lucy Robinson with the Citizen of the Year award at Saturday's annual dinner. The event also honored new chamber members, the Business of the Year, retiring school system personnel, and distributed the Chamber Membership Appreciation Award. It drew more than 200 members and guests to the Nolan Center for dinner, drinks, dessert auctions, and games. The dinner is the sole event dedicated exclusively to Chamber fundraising, Director Cyni Waddington told the crowd....
A power outage left Ketchikan and Wrangell without power for about an hour Friday afternoon. Lights and signs all along Front Street and throughout town abruptly shut off at about 4 pm. Power had been restored to most of the town by about 5 p.m. Lights remained on at businesses with back-up generators, most powered by either diesel fuel or propane. Petersburg reportedly suffered some temporary fluctuations about the same time, but never lost power entirely. Some businesses, like radio station KSTK, Alaska Island Community Services, and City Mar...
October 30, 1913: Martin Hofstad has been a busy man during the past two weeks getting the new General Merchandise Store of Martin and Richard Hofstad into shape for the opening the latter part of next week. The store is situated in the new Uhler Building and will carry a full stock of general merchandise. Both men are well known in Wrangell and are sure of their share of their patronage. October 28, 1938: The gas screw Etolin, fishpacker owned and operated by Capt. Manuel Loftus, was reported a total loss by flames last Saturday morning in Red...
A proposed 1.5 percent sales tax cut in the City and Borough of Wrangell has split the community ahead of an Oct. 1 vote. The borough administration sent out an informational flyer this week outlining the details of cuts approved with the budget May 28, sparking at least one accusation of advocacy against the cuts. Business owners and citizens have taken out an advertisement against the reduction in the Sentinel. Assembly members and citizens have spilled ink for and against the proposal in letters to the editor. The proposal’s author and a...
A fire destroyed the Allen mill site on Tuesday, July 30, leaving Mike Allen’s business venture a smoking heap of twisted metal and burnt lumber – and saw the largest response from the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department in recent memory. According to WVFD Fire Chief Tim Buness the fire began in the early afternoon and saw a quick response given the distance to the fire from the Zimovia substation and the Fire Hall. “We received the call at 2:08 p.m. and twelve minutes later the first engin...
On Aug. 6 the City and Borough of Wrangell will have a new interim Borough Manager to fill the spot left by the departing Tim Rooney – and it’s a familiar face to everyone in town. The Borough Assembly appointed Jeff Jabusch, who currently sits as the finance director for the city, to the top municipal spot last week in a unanimous vote, though Assembly member Ernie Christian was not present. Jabusch, who previously served as acting manager when Rooney or other past managers were out of town, sa...
KSTK FM has a new general manager – and she is someone we have all loved on the air and behind the scenes at Wrangell’s community-supported radio station. In a news release on KSTK’s website, station board president Amber Al-Haddad welcomed Cindy Sweat as the new head of operations at the Coast Alaska affiliate. “We are very excited to bring Cindy into this important role,” Al-Haddad wrote. “While we conducted a national search for the position, we believe that Cindy’s passion for broadcasting...
Jerry E. Elliot, a resident of Wrangell, Alaska from 1969 to 1989, died at home June 14, 2013. He was born in Amboy, Minn. July 5, 1931. Jerry graduated from Central Valley High School outside Spokane, Wash. in 1949 and shortly thereafter joined the Navy serving 5 years in Korea and Japan. After discharge he went to work for Pacific NW Bell in the Columbia Basin area. He married wife Carol in 1956 and they had 2 daughters. In 1969 they moved the family to Wrangell where Jerry took over the...
Sentinel writer Mike Symons, the general manager of KSTK FM, has resigned his position as head of the station citing a wish to return to California. His position with the station will end on Tuesday, May 14. Symons was hired in 2012 and his 10-month tenure was marked by a consistent goal of reaching pledge levels in the bi-annual fundraising drive the station takes part in each year. Before volunteering at KSTK and being promoted to GM, Symons held down volunteer stints at KFSK in Petersburg...
To the Editor: My 77th Birthday came and went recently, and unfortunately I’ll never see it again. That’s how birthdays are; just another day. An example of Time passing. As a friend of mine said many years ago, over the rim of his glass (his portable horizon—-), “Wayne, do you realize that our lives are passing by at the rate of one minute per minute?” Clever observation. But this birthday was a unique blessing because a Wrangell Lady, one of my first friends, took a long time to assemble a book of birthday greetings from you folks at Home (Wr...
Sentinel writer When you look at a website, a business card, or just about any sign or graphical image you can imagine, you can expect to see information. That information is usually one-dimensional and does not extend beyond what you might see with your own eyes. A group of students from Wrangell High School are working to change that, however. An after-school “AVATAR” club led by WHS teacher Michele Galla has been working on developing a technology that will “augment” the reality of images...
A tersely worded letter from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Land Office to Mayor David Jack is spelling out the Trust’s views on issues surrounding a timber sale near the former Wrangell Institute property. In the letter, Paul Slenkamp, who is a senior resource manager for the TLO, said that while his office and Alcan, the winner of the bid to log the area, will work to ensure viewsheds and water/wind quality, there are other issues which his office takes issue with related to recent public c...
An emotion-filled public comment session at the most recent Borough Assembly meeting brought to light concerns about a coming logging operation near the former Wrangell Institute property near 5.25 Mile Zimovia Highway. The issue first came to light during the March meeting of the Borough’s Planning and Zoning Commission. It was during that meeting that local residents, including Daryl Gross and the family of Mark Armstrong, spoke up against what they perceived as a plan to build a logging road from an Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority prope...
