The senator sold garnets, too

It was a homecoming of sorts when Sen. Lisa Murkowski (second from left) and her sister, Carol Murkowski Sturgulewski (left), visited the Ritchie family garnet and jewelry stand near the city dock on Sept. 12. The two Murkowski sisters had sold garnets to tourists when they were kids in the mid-1960s, when their father, Frank Murkowski, managed the National Bank of Alaska branch in Wrangell. "We sold them on the dock, separated by size in egg cartons. I seem to recall 25 cents seemed like a big score!" Murkowski Sturgulewski said. Barbara Ritchie said this was the first summer she and her daughter, Bella, 12, have been selling handmade jewelry, though the family has brought out the garnet trays for tourists for years. The senator purchased a pair of sterling silver and garnet earrings. Bella helps her mom with the design and creating earrings, bracelets and necklaces for Ritchie's Rocks. Besides for talking about garnet jewelry, Bella, part of a fishing family, also talked with the senator about the heavy toll sea otters are taking on Dungeness crab in Southeast, her mom said.