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The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium partnered with the Center for Disease Control this week to hold a meeting on traditional foods – and showcased a variety of options available to Natives and others for healthy eating. The meeting was held at the James and Elsie Nolan Center starting on Monday, June 17 and is a required component of the CDC’s Traditional Foods Program and for all tribal entities receiving grant money under a federal program aimed at diabetes prevention in Ame...
Wrangell’s theater will be making the switch to digital on the weekend of June 28 - 30. Digital has a number of benefits, not the least of which will include lower shipping fees – rather than paying for 60+ pounds of film to be express-shipped to (and from) Wrangell each week, the film will arrive on a much smaller, lighter hard drive. Additionally there will be fewer man hours involved in splicing the films together and in actually running the film – this means that, even with the cost of going to digital – we will not need to raise our tic...
A celebration of the 2013 Wrangell King Salmon derby was the highlight event in downtown last Thursday as the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce held their annual awards ceremony at the James and Elsie Nolan Center. Jeannie Easterly took home the top prize of $6,000 in the annual event, which saw Mark Soeteber and Jeff Soles take second and third place, respectively. After the ceremony, Easterly recalled her memories of the derby – and the moment she hooked her King. She related that she and her h...
You know it’s getting close to summer when the Bearfest bears are back in town. This trio of bears currently stands watch outside the Nolan Center. Bearfest 2013 is scheduled for July 24-28....
For Alaska Natives, food is essential – and traditional foods are of extreme importance to the indigenous people of the Last Frontier as they choose to live their history and culture in the modern age. In Wrangell, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium leads the way with its traditional foods program, under the direction of Ken Hoyt. Hoyt moved to Alaska in 2012 to take over the program and has, in the past year, introduced a variety of projects to the Natives and non-Natives of W...
Anyone driving down Shakes Street during the past two months probably couldn’t help but notice the massive steel rebar structure going in at the Marine Service Center – a steel design that will reinforce massive slabs of concrete that a new marine hoist will ride on in years to come. The project, which is Phase II of the MSC renovation, includes two sections of rebar and concrete construction that was awarded by the Borough Assembly to Southeast Roadbuilders on March 12 as a base bid and alt...
The Wrangell Medical Center Foundation held their 6th Annual Brian Gilbert Memorial Golf Tournament last weekend at Muskeg Meadows – under better weather than previous tournaments – and saw a total of 60 players come out over the two-day event. On Friday afternoon, a round of casual golf was played, with a 9-hole best-ball scramble as the format. First place in the event went to the team of Greg Scheff, Ed Rilatos, Dave Doyon and Matt Jurak with a net score of 18, while Keene and Faye Koh...
Wrangell held tightly to the 2013 Ryder Cup this past weekend as the Borough’s combined teams defeated Petersburg for victory during the annual tournament held May 18-19 at Muskeg Meadows golf course. The tournament, which followed a series of four different mini-tournaments over the course of the two-day event, featured Wrangell beating their neighbors to the north by 8-2 score on Saturday – and forced a tie-breaker on Sunday which local golfer Eric Kading broke with a shot on No. 1 bet...
The entertainment lineup for Bear Fest 2013 has been announced and includes two groups from the Pacific Northwest, notably Portland, Ore. and Seattle, Wash. Opening up the festivities will be the returning musical act of Pearl Django, a Seattle-based jazz group that melds the unique style of Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt and French violinist Stephane Grappelli. The quintet’s music has been compared to the pre-World War II era “Quintette du Hot Club de France,” though with modern sensibiliti...
February wasn’t exactly the best month financially Wrangell Medical Center has seen, with the hospital showing a net loss of $184,124. According to WMC Chief Financial Officer Garth Hamblin, even though the hospital came in under budget for capital outlays, a downturn in revenue was to blame for the deficit. “For the month of February, total revenue charges was significantly under budget,” Hamblin wrote in his report to the WMC Board of Trustees during the group’s April 17 meeting. “Net re...
For Jeff Rooney, Sr., a longtime employee of the Wrangell Public Works Department and head coach of the Wrangell High School Wolves wrestling team, getting up at the crack of dawn to clean our streets or work on an important project is just something he does – and has done for years – without any major recognition or awards. That changed last weekend as the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce held their annual dinner and auction at the Nolan Center. Rooney, who was nominated by a number of local res...
Alaska Island Community Services unveiled their new “NextMD Patient Portal” program at the Wrangell Health Fair on Saturday, April 6 at the James and Elsie Nolan Center. The application, which is a web-based method of communicating with your physician or other medical staff is now online and provides a way to request, book or cancel appointments, receive and review your medical documents, request medication renewals, send messages to health care staff, and update personal medical information. The system, while online, is secure – and allow...
The final touches on the Chief Shakes Tribal House are currently underway in preparation for the May 3-4 rededication ceremony on the island – and last week saw a colossal parade of students from Wrangell High School and the Native community down Front Street to restore a pair of cedar house posts to their rightful place in the Tribal House. The posts, which were carved by Steve Brown and Wayne Price, traveled from the James and Elsie Nolan Center in a flatbed trailer and were accompanied by m...
The Borough Assembly undertook one of their longest and most productive sessions in recent months this week as they attempted for a second time to form an “energy committee,” approved a number of contracts and construction projects, and took under consideration a recent protest over use of the former Wrangell Institute property for storage of timber from an Alaska Mental Heath Land Trust land sale. The formation of an energy committee, which would be tasked with looking at the possibilities of d...
The Wrangell Medical Center Board of Trustees took no action on three key proposals at their March 20 meeting at the James and Elsie Nolan Center, instead deciding to hold off on making any decisions for the near term. The first item the board considered was whether or not to allow attendance at executive or other closed sessions by electronic means, including telephone, Skype or other methods. After a lengthy discussion by the members, board president Woody Wilson restated the feelings of the...
The Alaska Army National Guard held a memorial service at the James and Elsie Nolan Center on Monday, March 18 to remember the Wrangellites that served in the Alaska Territorial Guard – and to present two flags in memory of our soldiers. Corporal Jeremy Goff and Specialist Serita Johnson comprised the Honor Guard and presented flags to veterans Arnold “Cappy” Bakke and Kjell Nore, Sr. Bakke received a flag on behalf of Wrangell’s American Legion Post No. 6, while Nore was presented with a flag...
The 2013 Wrangell Medical Center Health Fair is scheduled for April 6 at the Nolan Center – and this year’s fair will include a new Vitamin D level test in addition to the normal Health Profile, Thyroid Screen, Prostate Screen and Hemoglobin A1C diabetes screens. For the past 19 years, WMC has sponsored the event – which has grown in size each year. Cathy Gross, WMC’s Director of Health Information Management, said the event is unique in Southeast Alaska. “Wrangell Medical Center sponsors...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency held their regularly scheduled meeting on March 5-6 at the Nolan Center in Wrangell. During the meeting the group came to a consensus on whether voting or non-voting members can make and second motions, and took a detailed report from Seattle-based attorney Joel Paisner where he informed the board of the basics of the agency – and their “fiduciary” duties to SEAPA. Before Paisner’s report, however, the board took public comment from Borough Assembly member...
Students of Wrangell Public Schools will join thousands of youth across the country by taking part in Kick Butts Day on March 20 in a nationwide initiative that makes kids leaders in the effort to stop youth tobacco use. Elementary, middle and high school students in Wrangell will participate in a variety of Kick Butts Day activities, such as attending assemblies that will educate them about the impact of tobacco use and demonstrate the ways that the tobacco industry is daily striving to target them as “replacement smokers,” and several stu...
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board of Directors held their regular bi-monthly meeting in Wrangell on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 5-6 to discuss a number of items of both new and old business – and to announce the agency is working with a public relations firm to try to “foster a positive public image.” In SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson’s report to the board, he outlined his plans for improving the image of the agency – and challenged that misinformation and inaccuracies are abundant in local med...
An analysis of the financial status of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency by Alaska Power & Telephone is estimating what the member utilities it serves are valued at – and makes a conclusion that the member municipalities of Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan should take over ownership of the Tyee Lake and Swan Lake power plants. The analysis, which was performed in-house by AP&T CEO Robert Grimm, states that SEAPA currently holds $16 million in total debt, with a liquidation debt of $15 million – the amount the communities would have to pay...
To the Editor: Hospice of Wrangell is interested in you. We are stretched thin to meet the needs of our community. We need your help. Organized in 2001, we've supported those living with a life-threatening illness and those at the end of life. Hospice philosophy believes that the end of life is not a medical experience, it is a human experience that benefits from supporters bringing comfort, self-respect, and tranquility to people in the final experience of life. Hospice of Wrangell is an all-volunteer program. Volunteers offer their time,...
Movie lovers may soon get a new digital projection system for the theater at the James and Elsie Nolan Center after the Seattle-based McRae Theater Equipment, Inc. filed the single bid for a replacement to the old-fashioned 35mm film projectors currently in use. The bid for $62,482.85 will be discussed and possibly approved during the Jan. 22 meeting of the Borough Assembly....
A new mayor, renovations to the Shakes Island Tribal House and Marine Service Center, and the ongoing Wrangell Medical Center debate – all of these stories were newsmakers in 2012. Let’s take a look back at some of the biggest stories in Wrangell over the past year. JANUARY A late night blaze destroyed a trailer and sent a woman to Wrangell Medical Center with severe burns on Dec. 22. The fire, which began at 10:30 p.m. in a small pull-behind trailer near the top of the park, severely inj...
An electrical fire in the fish tank at the James and Elsie Nolan Center caused smoke but did no real damage to the building or its artifacts early last week. The smoldering fire, which originated in the light ballast of the tank, began sometime before five o’clock in the morning on Sunday, Dec. 23 and created enough smoke that the Nolan Center’s fire detection system was triggered. “After the fire system was engaged, it sent a call out to the monitoring service in Juneau,” said Wrangell Volunte...