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Several new hires and resignations in the school district were a big topic of discussion in the Wrangell School Board's last meeting on Monday, Aug. 19. One such hire was Tawney Crowley, who will start this year as both the new high school art teacher and middle school home economics teacher. The school board approved this hire unanimously, with minimal discussion. Crowley has spent the past year working at the Wrangell Sentinel, and also runs a side business making custom artwork that can be...
Construction of Wrangell's new hospital is on track, according to Hospital Administrator Leatha Merculieff. Construction began back in April, as land next to the AICS Clinic was cleared of trees and leveled. An official groundbreaking ceremony was held on May 30. Back in 2018, the old Wrangell Medical Center was acquired by the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. As part of this deal, SEARHC agreed to build a new hospital for the city. Designs for the new hospital will connect to the...
The Wrangell Mariners' Memorial Board will be hosting a fish fry at the future memorial site, by Heritage Harbor, this Friday at 5 p.m. The fish fry is one of the memorial's bigger fundraisers, according to Board President Jenn Miller-Yancey. The event will be pay-what-you-want for a plate of food, she said, but $20 is the suggested minimum. Besides a seafood dinner, Miller-Yancey said that attendees can also participate in a silent auction full of items that the community has donated for the...
Thanks to the generosity of several Wrangell residents, and support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a fundraiser for new games for the Evergreen Elementary School playground was fully funded in a 24 hour window recently. Jenn Miller-Yancey, head teacher of the elementary school, said that the school wanted to get some new yard games for the kids, with the new school year just around the corner. These games include items like giant chess, giant jenga, and a large connect-four game, am...
PETERSBURG – A call was placed to the Petersburg Fire Department at 7:40 P.M. Monday night after residents reported seeing dark, black smoke coming from the Public Works Department lot on 2nd St. Flames were coming from a shed that was filled with large, spare tires for the borough's vehicles. Nearby residents stated they also heard loud popping noises. The fire was contained by about 8 P.M., but firefighters didn't leave until around 9:30 P.M, said Assistant Fire Chief Dave Berg. The cause of...
In the August 15 court report, we incorrectly reported that Donavan Bean was found guilty of theft, burglary, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was only found guilty of burglary. The charge of theft was dismissed, and the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor occurred last year....
A planning and zoning commission meeting, scheduled for Aug. 8, was postponed due to a lack of quorum. Of the five members of the commission, only Commissioner Kate Hein was able to attend. The others were unavailable due to unspecified personal reasons. Among the items to be covered in this meeting was a variance permit request for an “after-the-fact” permit for a reduction in the side yard setback for a residential addition by Dale Parkinson, as well as an encroachment permit request by Mike and Kim Lane for a chain link fence. Aleisha Mol...
The Wrangell School District's budget/finance committee held a brief meeting last Wednesday, Aug. 7. One of the topics covered related to infrastructure and capital improvements. Capital improvement projects, or CIP, have been an ongoing discussion for the school district as of late. CIPs generally involve improving or renovating existing infrastructure. The Wrangell School District, with their budget season recently coming to a close, has sought city support for various projects. Back in June,...
Anny Newport, locally known as the "Free Toy Fairy" by some around town, has organized a parade for this weekend. The "Wonderfulness Parade," as it is called, is a tradition that has travelled with Newport across Southeast Alaska. In a previous interview with the Wrangell Sentinel, she said that the very first parade took place on Zarembo Island in 1978. After that, it was a common occurrence in Petersburg for many years. Newport moved to Wrangell in 1998. She tried to reorganize the...
Renovations to Shoemaker Harbor are about 95 percent complete, according to Wrangell Capital Facilities Director Amber Al-Haddad. The project was originally planned to be finished in June, but renovations faced delays in getting floats built and shipped to Wrangell. Work has been ongoing despite delays, and there is light at the end of the tunnel. Electrical and water work has been finished, Al-Haddad said, and they have begun moving boats back into the harbor. "All of the main floats are in, an...
Renovations to Bennett Street and the Airport loop road, which began last May, are still ongoing. Workers with SECON have been doing a complete rehab of Bennett Street. This includes repaving the road, putting in new drains, repairing old sidewalks and constructing new ones. They have also been repaving the airport road. Another part of the project that was added at the eleventh hour, according to Project Director Ralph Vigilante, was replacing a city water line along the road. Adding this to...
As the dry weather persists though the summer, Tyee Lake water levels continue to be below the normal levels for early August. As part of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency, Tyee Lake dedicates its power to Petersburg and Wrangell, while Swan Lake produces power for Ketchikan. Water in Tyee Lake reached 1,313 feet Monday morning. The water level is lower than the norm for Tyee Lake this time of year, but it is higher than the water level this time last year, said Utility Director Karl Hagerman....
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A southeast Alaskan pilot had told family members the weather might be bad before his single-engine plane was found crashed, a report said. An investigation began after the July 11 crash killed 68-year-old Wrangell pilot and attorney Michael Nash, the Anchorage Daily News reported Friday. Nash was headed to Wrangell, Alaska, from Friday Harbor, Washington, after an annual inspection of his PA-24 Comanche aircraft, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Nash t...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Biological oceanographer Sonia Batten experienced her lightbulb moment on the perils of too many salmon three years ago as she prepared a talk on the most important North Pacific seafood you'll never see on a plate zooplankton. Zooplanktons nourish everything from juvenile salmon to seabirds to giant whales. But as Batten examined 15 years of data collected by instruments on container ships near the Aleutian Islands, she noticed a trend: zooplankton was abundant in e...
July 30: Aaron Young pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. He was sentenced to 180 days imprisonment with 150 suspended. He was also given a $3,000 fine, has had his license revoked for a year, must undergo a substance abuse treatment assessment, and will be on probation for a year. Young also pleaded guilty to violating conditions of release. He was sentenced to 10 days imprisonment and will pay a total of $150 in fines. A petition to revoke Caleb Miethe’s probation was withdrawn by prosecution. Miethe was found guilty of reckless i...
It was a perfect day to be outdoors last Sunday, Aug. 4. The sun was shining, the water was smooth, and the temperature was warm. Besides the nice weather, concerned locals also spent the day outdoors to raise awareness for another issue: Mining along the Stikine River. The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission, SEITC, held a rally upriver last Sunday. Tis Peterman, CEO of the commission, said that the Stikine was recently listed among the top 10 endangered rivers in the country...
This coming weekend, Muskeg Meadows Golf Course will host the annual Rally for Cancer Care tournaments. The rally has become a longstanding and popular tradition for people in Wrangell and Petersburg, drawing people from both towns. Betty Abbott, with the Wrangell Medical Center Foundation, said that the program has been around since 2009. She explained that the foundation uses the tournament to raise funds, which they then use to help offset travel expenses for cancer patients. As Southeast...
In last week’s photograph of the Wrangell Community Orchestra’s Bearfest performance, we misidentified Bonnie Demerjian as Michael Bania.... Full story
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held an online press conference last Friday, Aug. 2, to announce the release of their annual report to Congress on the state of the country's fisheries. This report, for the year 2018, looks at 479 federally managed fish stocks across the United States. Alan Risenhoover, director of the office of sustainable fisheries, said that the report was designed to give Congressmen and the wider public more insight into the state of American fish stocks....
As the District 36 Representative, my primary assignment now in the Legislature is to serve as the Vice-Chair on the House Finance Committee. In that duty, I traveled to Juneau, Anchorage, Wasilla, and Fairbanks between July 15-18 in order to hear Public Testimony on HB 2001, the special session budget bill. During those three days of testimony, we heard over 600 people testify in person. During the month of July, we had over 2,300 Alaskans provide testimony to the House Finance Committee. Over 85% of the testifiers were in support of...
Closing on July 19 last month, the Wrangell Community Prioritization Survey garnered what Ruby McMurren called a surprising number of responses. A total of 482 people responded to the survey, she said. Most of these surveys were completed online, but 49 of them were hard copies. The survey is part of a grant project by the Administration for Native Americans, lead by McMurren and Talea Massin of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, seeking to combat outmigration of tribal citizens and improve t...
With approximately 400 members of the Inlandboatmen's Union going on strike last Wednesday, July 24, the Alaska Marine Highway System came to a halt. Without ferry services, many people across the state, especially in Southeast Alaska, found themselves stranded. In the communities of Wrangell and Petersburg, many people are facing disruptions to their schedules, families, and work. WRANGELL: Several of Wrangell's children and adults attending a church camp in Juneau were stranded when the ferry...
SEARHC hosted an Alaska Native culture camp during Wrangell's annual Bearfest this past week. Running from July 24 to 28, the camp invited anybody interested to come together to make paddles and headbands, and to learn more about Wrangell's native culture. "The high school shop was where we were doing the paddle making, then we had the sewing in the middle school commons with our elder, Donna Kuntz," Tammi Meissner said. The wood for the paddles was donated by the Sealaska Corporation, Meissner...
One of the central parts of the annual Bearfest celebration are the symposiums. Experts on bears and bear-related subjects are invited to come speak in Wrangell each year. This year saw several such speakers, including Lance Craighead who spoke on federal and state regulations on bear conservation, Harry Reynolds on the endangered subspecies of Gobi Desert brown bears, and John Nary on bear observation challenges at the Mendenhall Glacier. A roundtable discussion was held on Thursday, July 25,...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association, once again, is helping out with the Tlingit and Haida Central Council's back to school backpack event. Tribal Administrator Esther Ashton said that the WCA partners with the central council every year for this event, which aims to provide backpacks and school supplies to native children across Southeast Alaska. Applications to receive a backpack will close on Aug. 2. "Basically, it's for Alaska Native or American Indian," she said. "You have to reside in...