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As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, Wrangellites are gearing up for a fun-filled summer. And thanks to a new downtown business that will offer candy, inflatables, décor, custom clothing and more, the community's seasonal festivities are about to get even sweeter. Scott and Keeleigh Curley's new Front Street shop, Midnight Oil, will hold its grand opening starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, one of the borough's two sales tax-free days in 2023. Midnight Oil will offer the community...
State Sen. Click Bishop remembers his first paycheck as a teenager in Fairbanks in the early 1970s. His boss explained the $10 deduction for the state’s so-called school head tax. “That pays for your education,” the boss told his young employee. “I’ve never forgotten that,” said Bishop. The Legislature in 1980 abolished the small education tax, along with Alaska’s personal income tax and a tax on business gross receipts. The state was getting rich from oil and a majority of lawmakers saw little need for taxes. Bishop, now in his 11th year in...
Legislation to impose a state tax on e-cigarettes and vaping devices appears headed to next year’s legislative work list. Lawmakers raised multiple questions about the bills at two committee hearings last week, and the Legislature faces a May 17 adjournment deadline. Bills not acted on by then return for consideration next year. The legislation was heard in the Senate Finance Committee and House Health and Social Services Committee, both on May 4, with bill sponsors fielding multiple questions about penalties for underage use, the tax burden o...
Robert Paul "Bob" Farrell, 79, of Wrangell, passed away on March 21 in his home. He will be buried at Sitka National Cemetery on Thursday, May 11. Bob was born in Boston to Anna Elizabeth McGuigan and John Francis Farrell on May 18, 1943. He went to high school at Needham High School, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1961. He joined the Army on July 22, 1964, and served in Vietnam during the war. He was honorably discharged on July 21, 1970. Bob went on to earn a certificate in electronics from...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following position for the 2022-2023 school year: - Custodian: This is a full-time, year-round classified position with benefits, 7.5 hours per day. Salary placement is on Column B of the Classified Salary Schedule. Job duties include but are not limited to keeping our school complex clean and assisting with setting up rooms for classes, large presentations and business meetings as needed; and assisting with minor repairs. A High School Diploma or equivalent is desired....
The end of federal pandemic assistance and years of flat state funding have hurt the school district’s ability to cover its costs. The borough assembly has stepped up for the second year in a row to help close the budget gap. At its meeting April 25, the assembly unanimously approved a $1.6 million contribution to Wrangell Public Schools, which is the amount Superintendent Bill Burr said the district needs to essentially balance its budget. The assembly approved$700,000 from sales tax funds and $900,000 from the federal Secure Rural Schools f...
They tested their abilities to follow instructions. They designed and built structures to withstand seismic activity. They studied the inner workings of marine life. They looked at sea lion poop. Over the course of seven days, six students from Stikine Middle School attended the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. ANSEP began in 1995 as a scholarship program but has since become an educational program to help Alaska Natives follow...
Wrangell Sentinel staff won five awards in the annual Alaska Press Club competition, with radio station KSTK bringing home four honors in the statewide contest for journalists. Marc Lutz won second place in the Best Feature Story category (small newspapers) for his report in the Sept. 21, 2022, Sentinel about retired teacher Jacquie Dozier’s 1965 lunch with Queen Elizabeth II while in the U.K. on a teacher exchange program. The judge commented on Lutz’s work: “A timely memory of QEII, published just after the monarch’s death. The reporte...
The Alaska Senate rolled out its latest version of the operating budget on April 26, with a $1,300 Permanent Fund dividend, a $175 million one-time boost for public schools and a $90 million surplus to cover contingencies or if oil prices drop. The 17-member bipartisan Senate majority caucus — unlike the House Republican-led majority — has insisted that lawmakers should not draw from state savings to balance the budget. Following gloomy revenue projections last month, the House spending plan — with a $2,700 dividend — was projected to create...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following position for the 2022-2023 school year: - Custodian: This is a full-time, year-round classified position with benefits, 7.5 hours per day. Salary placement is on Column B of the Classified Salary Schedule. Job duties include but are not limited to keeping our school complex clean and assisting with setting up rooms for classes, large presentations and business meetings as needed; and assisting with minor repairs. A High School Diploma or equivalent is desired. - Ele...
The Irene Ingle Public Library has undergone countless changes in the past three decades, from the digitization of its catalog to major building renovations to the advent of e-books. Library Director Margaret Villarma has guided the facility through it all, offering support to elders and fostering a love of reading in generations of Wrangell youth. Now, after 34 years, she is ready to retire. "I'm just grateful for the job I had here," she said. "I really am. I enjoyed it. I couldn't have asked...
April 26, 1923 The Wrangell Commercial Club recently undertook to offer better advantages to fishermen, and arrangements have been made for keeping on hand a constant supply of bait and ice on the dock. Glacial ice is being brought in by Harry Coulter, who at the instance of the club is undertaking to keep a supply of ice on the dock that will be adequate to the needs of all fishermen who may come to this port. An ice room is furnished by the McCormack Dock Co. C.C. Mundy is handling the bait. During the few days since the ice and bait have...
It is a voyage of 43,000 miles encompassing the Pacific Ocean, and it begins in Southeast. The Hawaiian canoe Hōkūleʻa and its crew will set sail from Juneau in June to circumnavigate the vast, blue body of water over the course of four years. On its way south, it will stop in Wrangell for a few days. The double-hulled plywood, fiberglass and resin canoe, which was built in 1975 and made its first voyage the following year, was lifted out of the waters of Honolulu Harbor and was scheduled to be delivered to Tacoma, Washington, last Friday. Fr...
Active shooter drills have become as commonplace in schools across the country as fire drills. However, that is not the case in Wrangell just yet. At the school board meeting on April 17, Devyn Johnson, a parent with two children enrolled at Evergreen Elementary School and one in Head Start, asked that the schools implement some kind of drill. “Wrangell has high access to firearms. Mental illness is high. Depression rates are high. And substance abuse is high,” Johnson said to the board during public comments. “In my opinion, these are all the...
Residents will have two opportunities in the next couple of weeks to pitch in, bend down, pick up, lift and carry in a collective effort to make the community cleaner and greener for the summer. The annual community events are a source of pride for residents who see these streets and sidewalks every day. They also are a chance to put Wrangell’s best flowers, benches and footpaths forward for visitors. The town could attract an estimated 33,000 tourists this summer — the most since 2005. It’d be smart to showcase a cleaned-up community, sending...
Rather than requiring a specific course in financial literacy for high school graduation, lawmakers have amended the legislation so that school districts could incorporate the same information into one or more classes as long as the material is covered. The amended Senate bill would require school districts to teach students how to open and manage an account at a financial institution, prepare a budget and manage debt and credit cards. It also would require districts to teach students about loans, insurance, taxes, financial fraud, retirement...
Wrangell’s annual community cleanup is planned for April 29, with free lunch, free trash bags, free disposable gloves, and cash prizes for volunteer picker-uppers. And while organizers hope the incentives will get people to turn out, the real prize is a cleaner community. “Trash is expensive,” said one of the organizers, Kim Wickman, of WCA. It’s expensive to buy the goods, which are shipped into Wrangell, it’s costly to send the trash out to a landfill in Washington state, and it’s unsightly when the garbage litters the town. She hopes peopl...
April 19, 1923 The home of John Bradley, which was badly damaged by fire recently, is being repaired this week through funds raised by a subscription list circulated last week by Mayor Grant. The Sisters and Brothers Society also made a donation of $50. Mr. Bradley is one of the older and well-known Natives of Wrangell and has always been highly respected. Last summer he lost his savings in a small hand cannery in which he was a partner, and this, added to the long illness of his wife, made it impossible for him to repair the damage done to...
As the Alder Top Village development moves through its design process, borough officials, the planning and zoning commission and members of the public will have the opportunity to shape what these new neighborhoods will look like. At its April 11 meeting, the borough assembly unanimously approved the first reading of a rezoning for the subdivision, which will be built on the site of the former Wrangell Institute, a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. The assembly will hold a public hearing April 25 and could vote to amend or approve the...
A wise economist made the point last week that while it’s true more people have left Alaska each of the past 10 years than have moved here, the problem isn’t so much the departures as it is the drop in arrivals. Alaska has long had a high turnover rate — not everyone likes the weather, the isolation or the lifestyle. They come, they see, they decide to move on. Which means Alaska needs to draw in a constant flow of new residents so that the keepers outnumber the shakers who get away. It’s that shortage of enough people moving to the 49th st...
Another school year is almost done and, once again, I’m truly impressed by the caliber of young people Wrangell produces. For the past two years, I’ve interviewed the students of the senior class for their graduation projects. Each story revealed unique characters who were all equally prepared to walk into adulthood, albeit by different paths. I have a list of five standard questions I ask in the senior project stories: What’s your name? What’s your project? What are your plans post-high school? What will you miss about high school? What wo...
The Alaska House has debated the state budget and, as the representative for southern Southeast, helping to create the budget is one of my main duties. There were some amendments in the House Finance Committee that are encouraging: We increased funding to Head Start, public radio, the multi-state WWAMI medical program to accommodate 10 more Alaska students, dive fisheries assessments, and community-based grants through the Division of Senior and Disabilities Services. My biggest issue with the current budget is that there is a significant defic...
Elias Decker wants to elevate the stature of the pep band drummer - literally. For his high school graduation project, the 18-year-old senior is building a platform to allow the band's drummer to play alongside the saxes, clarinet and cowbell. The idea for the platform came to Decker when he attended basketball regionals in Juneau in March. Two drum platforms were set up at opposite ends of the bleachers in the Thunder Mountain High School gym so that bands from competing schools could take...
The Wrangell School District would receive an additional $425,000 in one-year state money under a budget headed toward approval in the Alaska House, falling short of a permanent increase in the education funding formula sought by school districts statewide. Under the House budget, state funding for K-12 public education would increase by about 14% for the 2023-2024 school year. The state’s foundation funding, based on enrollment, covers about 60% of the Wrangell district’s total general fund budget. The Republican-led House majority str...
There is no wisdom in the state House majority’s decision to put Permanent Fund dividends ahead of the public education budget. Paying for larger PFDs before schools is not the way to build a better state, to keep families from leaving, to entice new residents and businesses to move here, to educate children. It does nothing to address the fact that more people have left Alaska than moved here in each of the past 10 years. It’s as if the legislators want a new state motto: “Give me liberty, or give me death, but give me my dividend eithe...