The Wrangell Lady Wolves were recognized for their accomplishments and hard work over the past season by the borough assembly Tuesday evening, April 9. The coaches and players all received a copy of a proclamation read by Mayor Steve Prysunka, as well as homemade cupcakes made by Aleisha Mollen.
The Wrangell Borough Assembly recognized the Lady Wolves high school basketball team during their meeting on Tuesday evening for their hard work over the recent season. Mayor Steve Prysunka, in reading a proclamation congratulating the team, pointed out that the Lady Wolves took first place in regionals, defeating Metlakatla, for the first time in 25 years, and that numerous team members had received several awards and accolades over the course of the season.
"I, Stephen Prysunka, mayor of the City and Borough of Wrangell, Alaska, on behalf of the citizens of the City and Borough of Wrangell congratulate these fine athletes for their achievement and sportsmanship and commend them on their representation of the community of Wrangell," Prysunka read from the proclamation.
After recognizing the Lady Wolves, the assembly also got to meet Leatha Merculieff, the new CEO of the Wrangell Medical Center. She was introduced by Dan Neumeister, who is the senior executive vice president of the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium.
"We're just very excited about her joining Wrangell," he said. "Leatha has been in the healthcare business for a little over 20 years, and I've had the pleasure of working with her for about 10, and she's been with SEARHC for the last four years. Leatha just comes to us with a new logistical state, just a breath of fresh air, a lot of enthusiasm and a passion for healthcare."
Merculieff joined SEARHC in 2015 as the vice president of executive administration. In a previous interview with the Wrangell Sentinel, Merculieff said that a large part of her career has been devoted to improving patient experience, which is something that she hopes to bring with her to her new position in Wrangell.
She will officially be taking over as hospital CEO on April 12. Among her priorities coming into the job, she said, will be overseeing construction of the new hospital, merging hospital and AICS staff together to prepare for the new facility, and looking for ways to improve patient experience in Wrangell.
"My contract has not even officially started yet but I already feel like I'm already entrenched in Wrangell," she said. "The paper's covered me, you have my bio, I'm not even sure what's left to tell you about myself. I'm very excited to be moving to Wrangell."
Merculieff also gave the assembly an update on the construction of the new hospital, which will be located on Wood Street next to the AICS clinic. Preparation work at the construction site has already begun, she said, and they are hoping to hold a groundbreaking ceremony sometime in early May. Construction is scheduled to be completed, and the new hospital open to new residents, by January of 2021. She also gave the assembly a "tour" through the new hospital via virtual renderings of what the inside and outside of the hospital is designed to look like.
The assembly also accepted $1,250 in donations to assist the Irene Ingle Public Library in a project to digitize archives of old newspapers. The library, which stores various old newspapers, has been wanting to digitize its archives for quite some time. Among the newspapers in the library's archives include old copies of the Stikine River Journal, the Fort Wrangell News, and the Wrangell Sentinel.
Ron and Anne Loesch, owners of the Wrangell Sentinel and the Petersburg Pilot, have been running free ads on a semi-regular basis, asking for donations to help with this project. Anne said that they first heard about the library's desire to digitize their newspaper archives last June.
One donation, in the amount of $1,000, came from the Williams Family Trust. Cindy Kilpatrick also made a donation of $250. The library has also reportedly applied for a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services worth $8,250. Should they get this grant, the digitizing project could be complete by July of 2020.
Other items covered in the meeting included various amendments to the Financial Year 2019 budget, approval of the purchase of a containerized generator from CalPower at the total cost of $135,000, and approval to send various delinquent accounts with the city to a collection agency. It was also brought up in the meeting that Congressman Don Young will be in Wrangell next Monday to hold an informal work session with the assembly.
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