It’s not often that a small town welcomes two new community leaders at the same time. But that is Wrangell’s good fortune with the arrival of Joshua Garrett as the new schools superintendent and Albert Rinehart’s return to Wrangell to serve as tribal administrator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association. Garrett moved here from Kazakhstan, where he oversaw a private, international school about 20% larger than the Wrangell school district both in student enrollment and budget. He had worked in education overseas for more than 20 years befor...

• Murkowski bought time for a new governor to do better

  Wrangell Sentinel|Jul 9, 2025

  Among all the sections in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill that will drive up the federal deficit, pour billions into defense and border security and cut federal spending on Medicaid is one item that shows Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was thinking ahead. The senator said she successfully negotiated to add a provision that delays until at least 2028 new federal penalties on Alaska for its shamefully high error rate in processing SNAP benefits (food stamps) for needy people. The penalties — if the state cannot solve its problems and reduce its e...

• Governor deposits a veto to help predatory lenders

  Wrangell Sentinel|Jul 2, 2025

  Thousands of Alaskans get so squeezed on their finances every year that they turn to high-interest payday loans to help cover their bills. That may sound manageable — short-term borrowing with the intent to pay back the debt with the next paycheck — but it digs a deep hole into financial quicksand for many people. More than 7,000 Alaskans took out payday loans totaling $17.4 million in 2023, according to the state’s Division of Banking