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BACK-TO-SCHOOL REGISTRATION for grades K-12. Online registration is open. Check the school district website at www.wpsd.us. Classes begin Aug. 22. NOLAN CENTER THEATER “Twisters” rated PG-13, at 6 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16-18. The disaster action adventure thriller runs 2 hours and 2 minutes; tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for children under age 12. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. MUSKEG MEADOWS Valley Electric nine-hole, best-ball golf tournament, Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 17-18. Tournament pla...
Between books, a laptop or tablet, lunch and whatever else students stuff into their backpacks, the load can add up to some serious weight. It also can add up to a sore back, shoulders and neck. It’s easy to overload a school backpack, said Kathleen Hansen, an occupational therapist with SEARHC in Juneau, where she works with children and adults. “Many people are very surprised to find out how much their backpack weighs,” she said. Her advice is to “pack smart as they ready for school.” The new school year in Wrangell starts Aug. 22. “There is...
With school a week away, SEARHC nutrition services manager Tara Farley has healthy advice for parents who are starting to think about packing and preparing snacks and lunches for their children. But, she adds, “You are never going to hear me say don’t eat this and don’t eat that.” Rather, she talks of picking the best foods, moderation, cutting back on sugars and refined carbohydrates — and getting kids involved in making decisions about what to eat. “Involve kids in packing their own lunches,” Farley suggests. For example, parents and t...
Alaska state law requires children to get vaccinated against multiple serious diseases to attend school, but it’s about more than keeping students and their classmates healthy, said the chief medical officer for SEARHC. “You’re protecting your community,” said Juneau-based Dr. Cate Buley, a family medicine practitioner with 21 years of experience at SEARHC. Vaccinations are an effective tool to prevent disease throughout the community, she said. “What we really worry about is our babies and our elders.” With the start of the school year just a...
It took us seven days to get from Wrangell to Juneau in the Paddle to Celebration 2024. We could not have even launched without you and your support. Gunalchéesh. We extend our deepest gratitude to all the community supporters who donated money, and those who lent us gear, especially the U.S. Forest Service and Wrangell Cooperative Association. We extend our deepest gratitude to our friends and family who offered views, likes and shares, and cheers and prayers — you paddled with us. The Wrangell-Petersburg Indian Association Canoe Team ex...
On June 1, at Sandy Churchill's retirement party from Head Start, attendees learned that fellow staff member Dawn Welch would take over as lead teacher for the preschool program. "I actually found out the day before," Welch said. Two months later, on Aug. 2, she was in the midst of giving a makeover to the Head Start building with the help of friends and family like her little cousin, Ava. "She likes to organize things," Welch said. "I'm like, 'I got a job for you.'" School starts Aug. 27. One...
The WMC Foundation and SEARHC are inviting women to enjoy some "fun and frolic" golf for a good cause. The annual Rally for Cancer Care will be held Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Muskeg Meadows. Registration starts at 9 a.m.; the event begins at 10 a.m. The day will feature a luncheon, beverages, prizes, a silent auction and a golf tournament with no scoring and no skills required. "It's not even golf," organizer Patty Gilbert, board member of the WMC Foundation said. "It's 'fun and frolic' on the...
After developer Wayne Johnson withdrew his offer last month to purchase the former hospital, the borough now is in the process of deciding how to move forward with the property. Mayor Patty Gilbert said in an interview July 10 that the assembly will discuss options at its next meeting, scheduled for July 23. The assembly will need to regroup and think about all the options, she said. Gilbert added that there are a few parties interested in the property, but said to her knowledge there have been no formal offers. The borough owns the 1.94-acre...
It really doesn’t matter why a Georgia-based real estate developer changed his mind about buying the former Wrangell hospital property and building high-end condos at the site. And it doesn’t much matter why he substantially amended his offer to the borough, months after starting negotiations, before later withdrawing the offer. Nor does it matter that he publicly blamed the Wrangell Sentinel for his decision to walk away from the development proposal, taking offense at what he perceived as criticism of his amended offer. All that really mat...
Sarah Lewis from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service will return to Wrangell July 27-29 to teach more health and food preservation classes for free. Lewis, based in Juneau, will travel on her family’s boat, the Pacific Sapphire, to visit nine communities in Southeast Alaska during the month to teach a variety of home skills and food preservation classes. “More reliable than the ferry and less expensive than flying,” she said. The Wrangell classes are a collaboration with the federal Tribes Extension Program, 4-H,...
PATS LAKE FAMILY FISHING DAY, sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and WCA Earth Branch, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 22. Free outdoor fun for the family, including fishing, games and crafts. Lunch and prizes courtesy of Stikine Sportsmen Association. Some fishing gear and personal flotation jackets may be available for use onsite. NOLAN CENTER THEATER “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” rated PG, at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 21-22. The film is an action adventure comedy that runs 1 hour and 55 minutes; tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for chi...
Juneau residents are expressing concerns about reducing or eliminating several programs that lose money at Bartlett Regional Hospital, including a 16-bed residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment facility that is projected to lose $800,000 next year. The hospital’s financial condition is unhealthy, officials said at a public forum June 4, while it faces growing competition from the nonprofit SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. About 25 people in-person and 35 online attended the first of two public forums scheduled by h...
As Wrangell’s population continues to age, the total value of senior citizen-owned homes exempt from property taxes continues to grow. About 27% of Wrangell’s population was 65 years or older last year (551 of 2,039 residents), according to Alaska Department of Labor statistics. That’s up from just under 23% in 2020 (482 of 2,127) and 19% in 2015 when the town’s population was much larger at 2,442. State law requires municipalities to exempt from property taxes the first $150,000 in assessed value on homes owned by senior citizens and disable...
A canoe with 16 paddlers from Wrangell and at least four more canoes from other communities were scheduled to push off Wednesday morning toward Juneau, roughly a 150-mile journey to Celebration, the biennial Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultural festival. The paddlers are scheduled to arrive in downtown Juneau at 11:30 a.m. June 4. Celebration will run June 5-8. The Wrangell canoe planned to leave from the Reliance Float. The theme for this year's event is "Together We Live in Balance," and the...
On May 29, a 39-foot canoe of Wrangell paddlers will start the week-long, 150-nautical-mile journey to Juneau for Celebration, the biennial Native culture festival. This year marks the first time Wrangell will have its own canoe making the journey since 2014, signifying a return of enthusiasm for canoe culture in town. Canoes from other communities will make the journey alongside Wrangell, including Juneau, Kasaan, Metlakatla and a veterans' canoe - all beginning here. Up to seven other canoes...
The SEARHC community wellness team is using a mobile kitchen to hold classes on healthy cooking in Wrangell and around Southeast. A session is available to the public at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 14, at the Wrangell Medical Center. Seating is limited. "It was bought to just be another resource to talk about health and wellness," department case manager Kathryn Nuckols said of the mobile kitchen. "A fun way to participate in some education (on healthy eating)." Over the past week, she has hosted...
The Alaska Supreme Court overturned a 20-year-old precedent April 26 by ruling that Alaska Native tribal organizations can more easily receive the kind of sovereign legal immunity that individual tribes have. The 4-1 decision means that tribal consortiums, such as SEARHC in Southeast, which provide health care for tens of thousands of Alaskans — both Native and non-Native — are largely immune from civil lawsuits in state court, unless those consortiums waive their immunity. Under the decision, immunity is now established by a five-part tes...
The community's medical equipment loan closet that has been in a number of locations over the years will likely have to look for a new home once more. With the forthcoming sale of the former hospital next to Evergreen Elementary School later this month to Georgia-based real estate developer Wayne Johnson, the Wrangell Community Loan Closet will have to move its reserve of medical equipment to a new location. Don McConachie Sr., who runs the service, talked on April 4 with borough manager Mason...
A video filmed of the award-winning play “Blue Ticket,” a historical fiction of dark pieces of Juneau history in the 1960s, will show at the Nolan Center at 6:30 p.m. April 15. The author of the play, Maureen “Mo” Longworth, will be present for a discussion following the film. The play is based on true stories about gay Alaska men who were secretly removed from Juneau by police in the 1960s. When Longworth moved to Juneau with her partner Lynn in 1992 to work at SEARHC, she discovered that LGBTQ topics were not talked about openly. She learned...
After last year’s comprehensive review of every piece of property in Wrangell pushed up the borough’s total taxable assessed valuation by more than 50%, this year’s assessment notices are tame. Property tax assessments were sent out March 20, and initial numbers are down slightly from last year, though the numbers are not final until approved by the borough assembly. This year the total assessed value of taxable property comes to $229 million, with non-taxable property at $158 million, which includes state, federal, borough, SEARHC and churc...
The borough’s economic development board voted unanimously March 5 to recommend the assembly approve the sale of the former hospital property for $200,000 to Wayne Johnson, a Georgia-based real estate developer. Johnson is planning to demolish the building and construct up to 48 units of condo-style housing, with covered parking. He also wants to purchase six borough-owned vacant lots behind the hospital property, which the borough manager has said would be sold at their appraised value. Regardless of some concerns, economic development b...
A Georgia-based developer who has taken a liking to Wrangell has offered the borough $200,000 for the former hospital property, with plans to tear down the building and construct as many as 48 new housing units. Wayne Johnson’s offer on the 2-acre property is contingent on striking a deal to purchase six smaller borough-owned lots behind the hospital building, adding an additional 1.3 acres to the development site. The purchase price for the hospital property, which has been vacant since SEARHC moved into its new Wrangell Medical Center t...
Don’t think of it as selling the borough-owned former hospital building and it’s almost two acres of land for a steep discount to its appraised value. Think of it as potentially getting an immense amount of future value from an unused liability that is costing the borough about $100,000 a year to heat and insure. When you look at the math that way, a developer’s offer to pay the borough $200,000 for the hospital property looks pretty reasonable. Borough code allows the municipality to sell property at less than its appraised value if the sale w...
As Ken Hoyt prepares for the Tlingit canoe paddle making workshop at the high school shop room Friday through Sunday, March 8-10, he explained how there are two different types, depending on its intended use. "Real canoe paddles ... never have relief carving," he said. "They don't have inlays. They don't have anything ornate. They're utilitarian. People will sometimes be disappointed when they see old canoe paddles have a lot of geometric designs, straight lines, way different from the...
A minimum wage of $25 an hour for direct-hire employees is being implemented by the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, the Native-run health care organization announced Feb. 7. The change applies to about 85% of SEARHC’s total workforce and will result in pay increases for about 16% of the organization’s employees, said Kathryn Sweyer, a SEARHC spokesperson, in an interview Feb. 8. She said various assistant positions, clerks, technicians and care attendants are among the employees who were paid less than $25 an hour. Contractor emp...