Articles from the June 5, 2014 edition


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  • Forest service presents logging alternatives

    Brian O Connor|Jun 5, 2014

    Representatives from the US Forest Service presented publicly for the first time potential large-scale logging alternatives for Wrangell Island. The five alternatives presented at the borough’s economic development committee meeting Thursday evening deal with the minority of old-growth timber on Wrangell Island not included with existing federally mandated old-growth reserves, or impacted by the so-called “inventoried roadless rule” land of 2001, which critically altered the economic feasibility of the Southeast logging industry. Exist...

  • Fourth of July Queen competition officially launches

    Brian O Connor|Jun 5, 2014

    Officials kicked off the annual fourth of July festivities with food and speeches Saturday evening. Queen candidates introduced their teams and delivered an opening address. Food booths, a mainstay of the annual queen competition, opened Sunday morning in the alley between Wells Fargo and the Elks Lodge. The competition, in which local residents buy tickets to vote for their favorite queen candidates up until the winner is announced in July, is the official launch not only of the heated...

  • Wrangell Prosperity candidates showcase sustainability

    Brian O Connor|Jun 5, 2014

    At least two prospective local business owners have submitted entries to this year’s Paths to Prosperity sustainable business competition. Last year’s competition saw Wrangell guitar maker Steve Helgesen and soon-to-be Wrangellite Kevin Skeek win the first iteration of the competition with a plan to make guitars from locally harvested Sitka Spruce. The deadline for this year’s competition was Monday, and it wasn’t immediately clear how many Wrangell entrepreneurs had submitted business plans for the competition, which aims to encourage sustain...

  • The Way We Were

    Jun 5, 2014

    In the Sentinel 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago. June 11, 1914: The census of the grown white population of Wrangell will be taken this week, according to information given out yesterday by Judge Thomas who received his instructions from Judge Jennings at Juneau. The object of this is to get the expressed opinions of the residents of the town on the liquor question. Heretofore when a saloon asked for a renewal of their license, they circulated a petition getting the names of the persons willing that they should sell liquor in the town, but under...

  • Young supports medical marijuana provision

    Jun 5, 2014

    JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – U.S. Rep. Don Young has voted with the majority to approve a provision that would block the federal government from interfering with states that allow use of medical marijuana. The Alaska Republican was a co-sponsor to the amendment, offered as part of a larger spending bill that passed the House. Young called it a states' rights issue. In a letter to Republican colleagues, excerpted by his office, Young said the vote would allow them to show their constituents they are serious when they cite the importance of the 10th A...

  • Police reports

    Jun 5, 2014

    Monday, May 26 Animal Complaint/Dead Eagle. Animal Complaint/Dead Deer. Citizen Report Possible DUI/Unfounded. Tuesday, May 27 Traffic Safety. Wednesday, May 28 Unattended boat. Agency Assist. Noise Complaint. Found Property. Report of Theft. Officer responded to person with dead battery out at Nemo. Thursday, May 29 Citizen Assist/unlocked vehicle. Citizen Assist. Friday, May 30 Noise Complaint. Verbal warning for loud music. Found Bicycle. Bicycle returned to owner. Possible Abandon Vehicle/Trespass. Driving Complaint. Found Bicycle....

  • Lemonade Day to sweeten the weekend

    Brian O Connor|Jun 5, 2014

    Young Wrangellites will take to the sidewalks for a borough-wide annual entrepreneurial experiment Saturday. Wrangell will celebrate Lemonade Day a week ahead of other towns, which will celebrate it on June 14, to accommodate families who might be trolling for salmon instead of pocket change that weekend. The event aims to bring first-hand experience with small business to eye-level for industrious youngsters, said borough economic development officer Carol Rushmore. “It’s a nationwide program to build entrepreneurial business skills for kid...

  • Derby Top Ten

    Jun 5, 2014

  • School News

    Jun 5, 2014

    Victoria Ingram has been named to the dean’s list at Eastern Oregon University for winter term 2014....

  • HONOR ROLL

    Jun 5, 2014

    Stikine Middle School Honor Roll: Sixth grade: Madison Blackburn, Karri Buness, Michael Buness, Kaylyn Easterly, Laura Helgeson, Adriana Larrabee, Tasha Massin, Trevor Miller, Lillian O’Brien, Hank Voltz, Hunter Weiderspohn. Seventh grade: Riley Blatchley, Helen Decker, Kellan Eagle, Abigail Gerald, Jean-Luc Lewis, Issacc Mingming, Dillon Rooney. Eighth grade: Jonathan Barratt, Anna Dow, Erin Galla, Kayla Hay, Zachary Lane, Kiara Meissner, Hannah Miethe, Racquel Mingming, Tymon Teat. Honorable Mention: Sixth grade: Jonah Comstock, Skylar L...

  • PHS students record LeConte Glacier movement

    Kyle Clayton|Jun 5, 2014

    PETERSBURG ­– ­Last week, the Petersburg High School LeConte Glacier survey team tracked the latest movements of the tidal glacier after surveying its terminus earlier this month. Students traveled by skiff and helicopter to the site where they measured LeConte’s terminus, or the point of the face of the glacier furthest out. They used vertical and horizontal plane measuring instruments called theodolites. “To make it easier for ourselves, there are stakes driven into the rocks so we can set up on the same points year after year after year,...

  • Title I, kindergarten shifts part of early engagement strategy

    Brian O Connor|Jun 5, 2014

    A pair of motions passed during the May 21 school board meeting might seem unrelated. One vote moved Evergreen Elementary school to school-wide Title I funding from the schools previous status as a targeted Title I school. The other move extended kindergarten instruction through the end of the day. Despite their seemingly different aims, both seek to address the needs of Evergreen students as early and as flexibly as possible, according to superintendent Rich Rhodes. “It gives us more time with kids,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest...

  • Minnesota to be new home for rescued wolf pups

    Jun 5, 2014

    ANCHORAGE (AP) – An Alaska Zoo official in Anchorage says five wolf pups rescued by firefighters from the Funny River wildfire will have a new home at the Minnesota Zoo once they're healthy enough to travel. KTUU-TV reports that Alaska Zoo Executive Director Pat Lampi says the zoo in Anchorage has worked previously with the Minnesota Zoo, located south of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Fish and Game Department spokesman Ken Marsh says the two females and three males will remain at the Alaska Zoo infirmary for now. Zoo officials say the pups were left w...

  • EPA asks Alaska to cut carbon emissions 26 percent

    Jun 5, 2014

    ANCHORAGE, (AP) – Alaska state officials will study a federal plan to lower carbon pollutant emissions before weighing in on its effects, according to a Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner spokesman. The Obama administration on Monday unveiled an initiative aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels. Emissions cuts vary by state. In Alaska, the plan calls for a cut of carbon pollutants by nearly 26 percent over the next 15 years. The draft rule is more than 600 pages l...

  • ... Brave, clean, and reverent

    Jun 5, 2014

    Scouts from Wrangell Boy Scout Troop 40 spent part of this week cleaning up trash along a one-and-a-quarter mile stretch of beach on Zarembo Island between Brown Point and Nesbitt Point. They off-loaded the garbage Friday. Assistant Scoutmaster Brennon Eagle, scouts Curtis Wimberley, Jonah Comstock and Kellan Eagle, and Scoutmaster Shirley Wimberly participated in the clean-up efforts, part of a $5,000 environmental grant to remove invasive species from Twin Lakes and maintenance near Roosevelt...

  • Federal Subsistence Board Closes Stikine River Subsistence Chinook Salmon Fishery

    Jun 5, 2014

    The Federal Subsistence Board has closed the May 15-June 20, 2014 subsistence Chinook salmon fishery on the Stikine River and delegated authority to the Wrangell District Ranger to reopen the fishery if the in-season Chinook salmon terminal area abundance estimate allows a directed fishery.The 2014 pre-season return estimate for the Stikine River is 26,000 Chinook salmon. The U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty stipulates that a directed Chinook salmon subsistence fishery is not authorized if the pre-season run estimate is less than 28,100 Chinoo...

  • Nurses trained as part of ongoing Level IV certification

    Brian O Connor|Jun 5, 2014

    Eight Wrangell nurses recently completed a course aimed at certifying them to better assist local trauma victims. The training is part of the ongoing hospital push to seek a level IV trauma certification for the Medical Center. Nursing Director Denise McPherson said the hospital is almost two-thirds of the way through the process of obtaining the certification, and the final review in preparation to receive the designation could happen in February 2015. Officials started the drive late last...

  • Predator-control effort aims to boost moose

    Jun 5, 2014

    FAIRBANKS (AP) – State wildlife biologists have again killed dozens of bears in an effort to increase the number of available moose for subsistence hunters in part of the western Interior. The Department of Fish and Game said it's too early to draw firm conclusions about whether the Board of Game-endorsed predator-control effort is having the desired effect. But the department said data gathered this spring show a higher rate of moose-calf survival during the past year. More information is expected following surveys later this year. This was t...

  • Senate candidates weigh in on outside money

    Jun 5, 2014

    JUNEAU (AP) – This year's U.S. Senate race in Alaska is the first major race here in the super PAC era. Independent expenditure groups, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, and other outside groups are running ads or reserving air time ahead of the Aug. 19 primary. In the lead-up to this year's elections, The Associated Press will publish an occasional list featuring the positions of the highest-profile Alaska U.S. Senate candidates on different issues. The subject this time is the outside money being spent on the race. All t...

  • McGuire withdrawing from lieutenant gov's race

    Jun 5, 2014

    ANCHORAGE (AP) ­– An Alaska state senator says she's withdrawing from the race for lieutenant governor, a move that appears to leave Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan alone in the Republican primary. The Anchorage Daily News reports that Sen. Lesil McGuire on Monday cited concerns about how the race would interfere with her family life. McGuire also said she thought she could be more effective in the Senate. McGuire and Sullivan had been vying to be Gov. Sean Parnell's running mate later this year. Parnell is not expected to face any real pr...

  • Fish Factor

    Laine Welch|Jun 5, 2014

    If genetically modified salmon gets a green light by the federal government, it will be labeled as such if US Senators on both sides of the aisle have their way. The Senate Appropriations Committee last week passed the bipartisan Murkowski-Begich amendment requiring that consumers be advised of what they are buying. During testimony, Senator Murkowski questioned if the so called Frankenfish can even be called a real salmon. “This takes a transgenic Atlantic salmon egg, which has genes from an ocean pout that is somewhat akin to an eel, and it c...

  • Cost of Funny River wildfire: $6.1 million so far

    Jun 5, 2014

    KENAI, Alaska (AP) – The cost of battling the 300-square mile Funny River wildfire has climbed to $6.1 million. Fire operations cost $1.13 million and $1.05 million a day at its peak last Saturday and Sunday, according to financial data from the Alaska Interagency Incident Management team. That figure has since fallen to about $750,000 a day by Tuesday. Nearly one-quarter of operational costs have been spent on air support for the ground crews, including the costs of fire retardant, helicopter support, water-scooping planes and fixed-wing a...