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With its controlled movements, deep stretches and emphasis on mental awareness and breath, yoga is a low-impact activity whose benefits can be enjoyed by all. Under a new program, yoga classes will be available to Parks and Recreation members at least 18 years old at 8 a.m. Saturdays in the community center multi-purpose room starting this weekend. After moving to Wrangell in October from North Carolina, Yoga Alliance certified teacher Rachel Lange quickly reached out to Lucy Robinson of Parks and Recreation about offering classes through the d...
For Lucy Robinson, the Parks and Recreation Department provides residents with far more than workouts, programs and professional development opportunities - it is the "lifeblood of a healthy community," a space where Wrangellites of all ages and from all walks of life can come together to chat, sweat and enjoy their shared love for recreation. After attending open swim as a child, lifeguarding as a teen and working as recreation coordinator as an adult, Robinson is ready to take charge of the...
Wrangell is home to a passionate community of outdoor leaders and Parks and Recreation professionals, who are committed to uniting the town by developing public programs and maintaining public spaces. This fall, the Parks and Recreation Department will pool its knowledge with other departments statewide to improve services across Alaska. In September, representatives from municipalities around the state will visit Wrangell for the annual Alaska Recreation and Park Association conference — an opportunity for the state’s recreation departments to...
The community pool may be empty after its Nov. 28 closure, but it is certainly not idle. A flurry of activity is taking place behind the scenes as borough staff and handy community members perform much-needed maintenance and prepare for major repairs. The pool's reopening date was pushed from Jan. 7 to February, then to the end of March as Parks and Recreation staff got a better sense of the scope of needed repairs. Mayor Patty Gilbert acknowledged the closure's inconvenience at the Jan. 24...
Whether you want to incubate a godlike physique during the winter months, brush up on your weightlifting form or just enjoy an early morning sweat session with friends, the community gym's new structured workouts are available to encourage you, regardless of your fitness goals. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 6 to 7 a.m., Chadd and Sabrina Yoder have volunteered to guide patrons through a series of lifts and other workouts that they and Recreation Coordinator Lucy Robinson designed...
Keely Good excitedly showed her friend Carter Hammer around the thrift store, pointing out where various items could be found. After that, she showed him how to ring up customers with the cash register. For the past semester, Keely and Carter have both worked at different businesses around town as part of Wrangell High School's special education class on-the-job training program to help them gain work and life skills for after they graduate. The schools have always had some form of job training...
For the past eight years, Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas has kept Wrangell in peak physical and mental form by fostering a welcoming gym environment where the community can swim, sweat and sustain each other through the long winter months. In the coming year, however, she will take her talents to another area of the municipal government. As the new Economic Development Director, Thomas plans to improve the borough’s economic fitness by bolstering workforce development, securing Wrangell’s place in the maritime industrial economy and...
Leroy Wynne knows the value of volunteering and has experienced its rewards on the hardwood. Throughout October and into November, Wynne helped coach fourth and fifth graders in basketball, giving them a social outlet and a way to learn teamwork. The coaching was his high school senior project and a natural fit for the student-athlete. Wynne and a few other volunteer coaches, worked with 20 children to teach them the fundamentals of basketball, instill a love of the game, build teamwork and...
The Wrangell Swim Club traveled to Petersburg to compete in the November Rain swim meet on Nov. 11 to 13. It was the first time since 2019 the club has competed in the meet. Club coach Jamie Roberts said the team didn't compete the past two years due to COVID-19. This year's team included 19 swimmers, of which 12 were at their first meet. Swim clubs from all over Southeast competed at the event, and Wrangell's swimmers competed in 146 individual races, which included 83 first-time swims with 24...
Rolland Wimberley has a bear of a time running the Wrangell Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. Wimberley, along with many others, ran and walked the Volunteer Park Nature Trail loop three times to total 3.1 miles. Many were dressed in costumes as part of the traditional event to help burn calories and raise funds for the Parks and Recreation Department, which put on the race....
Back in March, I wrote a column about being a converted sports junkie. It detailed my appreciation for high school sports, and I believe it’s what spurred me to get more involved in the community since people still remark on it nearly nine months later. On Nov. 15, the last session was held for the I Toowú Klatseen group. Before the final meeting, a make-up run took place for the kids who had missed the previous week’s 5-kilometer fun run. It was the culmination of around 10 weeks of meetings and practices — and I nearly missed all of it. So...
It's becoming a tradition in communities across the United States, and Wrangell is no exception. Every Thanksgiving Day morning, several hundred thousand walkers and runners across the country brave cold temperatures to race in turkey trots, footraces to help burn lots of calories before lots of calories are consumed. The amount of people can vary. The Buffalo, New York, turkey trot averages about 14,000 participants a year. Run to Feed the Hungry in Sacramento, California, attracts 27,000 per y...
Monday, Oct. 10 Letter served to remove a person from a licensed establishment. Civil paper service. Citizen assist. Tuesday, Oct. 11 Gunshots: Unfounded. Civil issue. Found property. Dog complaint. Wednesday, Oct. 12 Agency assist: Alaska State Troopers. Citizen assist. Thursday, Oct. 13 Debris in roadway. Dog complaint. Agency assist: Alaska State Troopers. Paper service. Friday, Oct. 14 Civil standby. Traffic stop. Saturday, Oct. 15 Disorderly conduct. Found property. Agency assist: Fire Department. Traffic stop: Citation issued for failure...
Joint locks and compression locks might sound like the perils of getting old, but they are among hundreds of moves that are incorporated into Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighting. Though the sport can seem intimidating to first-time students, a group in Wrangell is working to welcome newcomers and highlight the many benefits. Jiu-jitsu was created over 100 years ago, originating from judo. Brazilian jiu-jitsu was created in the 1920s and has become one of, if not the fastest-growing martial arts in the...
What some would see as just a portion of muddy lawn at City Park, Angie Flickinger saw as an opportunity to better the environment. A couple years ago, Flickinger, who works on a part-time basis with the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition in Juneau, conducted a community watershed assessment to determine areas that would be ideal for a rain garden in Wrangell. Rain gardens act as natural filtration for rainwater that empties into streams and other waterbodies. "Basically, I went around on...
It's taken a few years of requests and planning, but the community center weight room finally has new equipment, freeing up valuable space and increasing safety. Two metal frames allow users to do pull-ups, triceps dips, landmines, seated rows and many other exercises, helping to create targeted workouts. A survey was conducted to identify the value of each piece of equipment in the weight room before the upgrade was made. Free weights were unanimously chosen as the most used items. However,...
The competitive high school swimming season has only just begun and already the athletes are being challenged. Coach Jamie Roberts so far has four returning swimmers and two new swimmers, but she's wasting no time in making practice tougher and getting her team in winning form. "They're already doing harder practices than where we would start," she said. "(It's) more like interval work where you're pushing yourself against the clock to do repeated distances of swimming. We might do 10 50-meters...
Uncovering historical items can have its ups and downs. In some cases, that's the literal truth. Somewhere around 1915, a set of stairs was built that saw a lot of use over the next 80 years. But they began to fade like an old photograph until suddenly they disappeared. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that the stairs were found, leading to a conversation about their place in Wrangell's history. Peter Karras, of Sitka, was in town on a visit in mid-July. Not one to be idle, he was cutting...
July 6, 1922 The U.S. Secretary of Commerce has approved an amendment to the general rules which requires that no candidate for original license as master, mate, pilot or engineer shall be examined unless he has completed a course of instruction in first aid. “The manual is intended primarily to furnish officers and men of the American Merchant Marine a simple but comprehensive textbook on ship sanitation and hygiene, an outline of surgical and fundamental information regarding the treatment of disease,” an announcement by the Health Ser...
A new Parks and Recreation Department program focuses on keeping student athletes stronger, more flexible and injury-free to keep team rosters healthy and full this coming school year. From July 18 to July 22, the Youth Strength and Conditioning Camp will teach high school and middle school-aged students how to set and attain physical and nutritional goals. "We'll certainly emphasize the importance of all the work that we put in, including strength, mobility and range of motion in the spirit of...
THANK YOU Thanks and Gunalchéesh to Alaska Vistas, ANB, the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce, Harbor Department, Parks and Recreation Department and WCA for all their support with the July 3 canoe races. Both scheduled and spontaneous helping hands made it possible for 100 entrants to participate. John and Cindy Martin THANK YOU Thank you to Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood for the donation and frybread sale on the Fourth of July. Gunalchéesh ho ho! Wrangell JOM THANK YOU The Stough family, James and Rachel, would like to say a big thank y...
A babbling creek and screeching eagles weren't the only music that could be heard among the swaying trees at Shoemaker Bay. The first Music in the Parks concert was held at Shoemaker Park last Wednesday evening, with about 200 people listening to the tunes played by artists Kaylauna Churchill-Warren and The Powers. First Bank and Alaska Marine Lines sponsored the free concert, which was organized by the Parks and Recreation Department. The Wrangell Police Department donated 250 hamburgers and...
A group of 6-, 7- and 8-year-old kids poured over the rocky beach near City Park on June 8 like a bunch of young Indiana Joneses, looking for artifacts. But this group, unlike Dr. Jones, was looking for shells as part of a Beach Explorers program to use in a science experiment. During last week's exploration, children were given a cup, guided to the beach, and instructed to find two intact seashells. "It's fun," said Bo Ritchie, 6. "We find stuff like glass. That's what my sister does. She...
Volunteers cleaned up 14 garden beds along Front Street, from the Stikine Inn down to Rayme's Bar, last Saturday to keep downtown looking nicer for tourists and residents alike. The annual cleanup came about after the beds needed more maintenance, as bushes had become overgrown and caused line-of-sight problems for motorists, said Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas. "Over 550 hours of labor went into (cleaning) them last year," Thomas said. "That's not the cumulative season, it was just...
Schools try to prepare students for life beyond the walls of academia and sometimes that requires more than classroom education. Last Tuesday, high school and middle school staff held a health fair that centered around not only physical and mental health but financial health and planning for the future. Separate sessions were held for the high school and the middle school and each was brimming with students actively going to various tables, asking questions, playing games and competing with...