The Way We Were

February 14, 1918: The Metlakatla basketball team was unable to give Wrangell a return game. When H. J. Murchison, the manager, announced a return game in the Rink the night of the game here he made the proviso, “If we have any bones left after playing Juneau.” At Thane the game was very rough and four of the Metlakatla boys were knocked out although they defeated Thane 44 to 17. The next night the Metlakatla boys played the Hoover boys of Juneau using substitutes for the four boys who were knocked out. This game resulted in a score of 20 to 16 in favor of Metlakatla. On Thursday night of last week Metlakatla played a return game with Juneau High School in which the Metlakatla boys who had been hurt at Thane undertook to do their part, but they were soon fatigued and the game went to the High School. It was very unfortunate for the Metlakatla team that four of their team were crippled in the Thane game, but they took their defeat in a real sportsmanlike manner and made hosts of friends at Juneau.

February 12, 1943: Four men from the Groundhog Basin mining project were in town recently demonstrating the latest styles in beards for the well groomed miner. This was the first visit to town in a number of weeks, since the waters of the Back Channel were frozen over from Mill Creek to Crittenden Creek and the trek necessitated a hazardous hike over roughly frozen ice with a heavy skiff in tow. The men report the ice as being about eight inches in depth, but that it sagged alarmingly in spots under their combined weights. When the edge was neared the ominous cracking made them scramble hastily into the skiff in time to save themselves from a dunking in the icy water. Temperatures at the Groundhog dropped 12 degrees below zero during the recent cold snap. Stiff winds accompanied the sub zero temperatures, making outside work impossible. The men, however, were able, after digging through 25 feet of snow and running an exhaust pipe to the outside, to tune up the diamond drill and continue work inside.

February 11, 1968: Joel Wing has a corner on the paperback book market in Wrangell. Since 1959, he has handled 18,404 books. But he hasn’t made a dime. All the money he gets from book stands at the Stikine Club and Elks Club goes into the Elks Cerebral Palsy fund. Since 1955, a total of $4,601 has been raised by the sale of books from the fund. This amounts to approximately one fourth the lodge’s total donation to the charity of $13,861. Wing collects the books, tapes the covers and corners if they need it and sorts them out for sale. He got into the book business back in 1955. “We had 24 soft back books and thought we’d see if we could sell them,” he recalls. “No one could imagine how successful we would be.” The first six months the Elks sold books, they raised $12. This last year, sales boomed to $1,036.50.

February 4, 1993: In formulating their school budget for 1994, the Wrangell School Board has decided to freeze expenditures at the 1993 level. Although the total budget tab will remain the same as last year, the board will be looking for a higher contribution at the city level. At their regular meeting Feb. 8, the School Board directed superintendent Lin Laughy to submit a school budget to the city of $3,690,144. This is the same amount as the district had in its September 1993 budget.

 

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