Former resident returns to help, and finds home at Thanksgiving dinner

The community effort to bring in food and games, set up tables and chairs for a Thanksgiving meal at the community center was intended to help residents come together just days after the landslide tragedy. But it also provided solace for officials who came to Wrangell to help with recovery efforts.

For Rhonda Butler, emergency operations specialist for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, it was a homecoming. Butler, who is based in Juneau, grew up in Wrangell with her family. She had learned to play basketball in the old gym, beginning in the first grade.

"I didn't think I was going to be home for Thanksgiving, let alone sitting in my old gym having Thanksgiving dinner," she said with a laugh. "I'm going to go and eat at my aunt's and have my family Thanksgiving dinner now. I get double Thanksgiving!"

Butler noted that she has been gone from Wrangell for 12 years, "but for the most part, everything still has remained the same. ... Home is always going to be here."

Willis Walunga, state emergency operations coordinator from the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, also came to the community Thanksgiving dinner.

"It's my first time having Dungeness crab and I'm pretty hooked now," Walunga said as his tablemates laughed in response.

The borough's Parks and Recreation Director Lucy Robinson led the coordinating efforts for the Thanksgiving afternoon event, with help from volunteers and businesses, including Sweet Tides Bakery, Nic's Place, Stikine Restaurant, Harbor Light Assembly of God Church and The Salvation Army, as well as community members in Petersburg, who donated food and other supplies after the Nov. 20 landslide.

Thanksgiving morning featured Parks and Recreation's annual Turkey Trot, giving people a chance to walk or run with or without costume, and some of those costumes were still draped across the bleachers against the wall as holiday music played at the afternoon meal in the community center.

Away from the tables on the gym floor for diners to savor plates and bowls full of holiday foods, children ran, whooped and played in the open space and took turns jumping inside a bounce house, while others ventured across the hall to the room next to the kitchen to watch movies on the widescreen and delight in desserts arranged on a nearby table.