Sorted by date Results 1253 - 1277 of 3076
Oct. 6, 1921 The Town Council on Aug. 4 passed an order removing the extra charge of 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, which the council has permitted Mr. Palmer to charge since May 1, 1920. A few days ago, Mr. Palmer and the Town Council had a conference at which they went into the matter at length. The result of the conference was that the council decided to rescind its action of Aug. 4 and permit Mr. Palmer to continue charging the extra 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour. This means that until further notice the rates will prevail that charge 17.5...
The Lower 48 TikTok craziness continues. September’s challenge was to vandalize school bathrooms. Wrangell schools got off lightly — a few messes in the bathrooms and small items like soap dispensers and toilet paper were stolen. Overall, nothing too serious. In fact, I was feeling fairly confident that we had gotten ahead of this trend, and that we could focus on better and more important things. Unfortunately, there is now a “devious licks” challenge for each month of the school year. October’s challenge is “Smack a Teacher;” December’s ch...
"Low, guys! Heads up, elbows in! Tap that floor a couple times," said Jack Carney, assistant coach of the high school wrestling team. His direction is met with a resounding THUMP! as the squad of 14 student-athletes hits the mat. They continue to run drills and warm up without any further instruction from their coach. Wrestling season started on Wednesday and athletes are already poised to pin the competition at the first meet on Oct. 22. "They're looking tough," said head coach Jeff Rooney in...
Kayla Rooney hated running when she started. Now she can't imagine her life without it. The four-time state placer returned to Wrangell specifically to coach the high school cross country team, continuing a family legacy of coaching. "My mom (Trisa Rooney) made me start running. I told her I didn't want to do it. She told me I could try it out, and if I didn't like it, I could quit," Rooney said. "So, a few weeks in, I didn't like it and I wanted to quit, and my mom told me, 'Well, you've...
Wrangell voters in Tuesday’s election will decide on three borough assembly seats, three school board members and three port commission members. Of the nine races, five are uncontested — unless a write-in candidate declares by Friday — and the other four present voters with a choice of candidates. The polls will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Nolan Center. People need to bring their state-issued voter ID card, said Kim Lane, borough clerk. If voters don’t have their ID card, they will be allowed to cast their ballot if the electio...
The free testing station for individuals without COVID-19 symptoms but who what to get tested because they had recently traveled or just for peace of mind has moved from the airport to the hospital. “It’s more efficient here, we’re able to utilize our staff and resources,” said Alicia Gillen, COVID-19 screening manager for SEARHC, which operates the Wrangell Medical Center and ran the airport testing site. It also will be warmer at the trailer in the far corner of the hospital parking lot than outside the airport terminal as winter weather...
Ever since Nancy Murkowski’s friend had a cancer scare in the early 1970s, Murkowski has made it a mission to raise funds to help fight the disease. On Aug. 20, the Waterfall Foundation, a nonprofit organization Murkowski founded more than 20 years ago, presented the WMC Foundation with a check for $10,000. In turn, the Wrangell foundation helps cancer patients and their families with travel and lodging expenses related to cancer care. Murkowski’s friend had to travel from Fairbanks to Seattle all those years ago in order to find a clinic with...
A plan to start testing student-athletes for COVID-19 will produce faster results and make it possible to continue scheduled home and away games while keeping kids safe, school officials said. Athletes have to test twice a week, before and after games. Results from the tests that look for genetic material from the virus in a nasal swab take two to three days, known as PCR tests. The schools are going to use an antigen test, which looks for a protein from the virus and can yield results in 15 minutes. Antigen tests for COVID-19 “are generally l...
Former Wrangell resident Pacita "Cita" Laws, 76, passed away peacefully at home on Aug. 29, in Hemet, California, surrounded by her family. She was a beloved mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister and auntie. Cita was born in 1945 to Theodore and Edna Cabot and raised in Wrangell. She graduated high school in 1964. Although she moved away in her early 20s, Wrangell remained close to her heart. She often returned to visit family and friends. On her visits, she would often go out fishing,...
John Martin's first watercraft "would have been the canoe I got when I was 13." Now 72 years old, he has had "a number of boats" and a number of years on boards and councils in the community. Martin is seeking his third term on the port commission in Tuesday's municipal election. He also has served on the WCA tribal council, the hospital board, and "I did a tour on the museum board." Martin is unopposed for a three-year term on the port commission. He and Chris Buness are the only two declared...
Filling out an election ballot isn’t very hard. Ink in the ovals, being careful to stay within the lines, and then turn in the single-sided piece of stiff paper for counting. It’s not much to ask of residents once a year. Wrangell holds its municipal elections next Tuesday. And while several races are uncontested, three school board seats and a borough assembly seat will be decided by voters. This is a chance for residents to have a say in the direction of the borough and the school district, which combined spend more than $10 million a yea...
From building smokehouses and gardens to assisting with utility and food bills, the Wrangell Cooperative Association has been working to help its tribal citizens make it through the financial and emotional stress of the pandemic. "We took a hard look at what the WCA citizens were facing with the pandemic," said Esther Ashton, tribal administrator. That included financial needs and helping to build food self-sufficiency, she said. The eight-member elected tribal council last year considered how...
Wrangell is seeing some positive growth. The number of farming operations is on the rise throughout the community, and it's contributing to a healthier economy. There are two farms in Wrangell that grow a variety of fruits and vegetables and sell to residents and businesses, no less than nine residents that grow for their own consumption, and even Evergreen Elementary has a small farm. According to the Alaska Farmland Trust, the number of farms in the state increased by 30% from 2012 to 2017,...
Virginia Oliver has been teaching Tlingit at Wrangell schools since 2016, and this fall will expand her student body to include adults in a new twice-a-week program at the WCA Cultural Center on Front Street. The classes will include a monthly bingo event, with a fluent Tlingit elder calling out the game. Gift cards to local businesses will be awarded the winners, and “everybody is welcome to come,” Oliver said. The language class will be held at noon Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a bag lunch provided. The program will be funded by a grant from...
There is no precise count but it looks like federal pandemic aid distributed or allocated over the past 18 months to Wrangell residents, businesses, the borough, school district, tribe and nonprofits totals close to $30 million. That's about equal to all the income earned by every household in town in half a year, according to U.S. Census numbers. It's almost three times the annual budget of the borough and school board combined. Most of the money came as grants or simply as federal aid to keep...
I used to believe that living on our island isolated us from all of the craziness of the Lower 48. I've often bragged about how in Wrangell we still lived the white-picket-fence, kids-playing-in-the-streets life of the 1950s. Unfortunately, that is no longer something I can say. Social media is pumping all sorts of Lower 48 craziness into our town. You can find the latest craziness by going to #deviouslicks on TikTok. There you will find hundreds of short videos from all over the country...
The borough is waiting on further guidance from the U.S. Department of the Interior on the agency’s nationwide initiative for researching and even searching the sites of former Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools, including the former Wrangell Institute property. The borough plans to subdivide the property for residential development, turning the 134 acres into 40 building lots. While waiting on the Interior Department, borough officials are talking with the State Historic Preservation Office and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure t...
Event organizer Jill Privett is looking to make a positive change with Tent City Days. In the past, the event celebrated the gold rush era, but Privett wants to focus more on “celebrating all things Wrangell, whether that be your love of the land, people, fishing, berry picking, etc.,” she said. From Oct. 14-17, various in-person and virtual events will be held, such as the Gold Nugget Open Swim, Alaska Day Fun Run, Tent City Steak Night, a food cache contest, Shady Lady Saturday Night, Zoom Story Time, Fisherman’s Crawl and the Wild Woman...
Six candidates are vying for three seats on the Wrangell school board. Angela Allen, Alex Angerman, Brittani Robbins and Elizabeth Roundtree are running for two open three-year terms. The top two vote-getters will win the election. Julia Ostrander and Jessica Whitaker are competing to fill one seat for an unexpired one-year term. Although each candidate has similar goals they want to achieve during their term if elected, they all have varied backgrounds and experience they believe would lend a...
One of the bigger issues that got David Powell interested in serving on the assembly several years ago was his belief that the borough needs to get out of the real estate business. He wanted Wrangell to sell off more of its property for private development, and to do it at a faster pace. He also wanted to serve because "I was interested in how things work with the city," he said. "In a roundabout way, I found it doesn't work as everybody thinks it works." Powell is running for a one-year term to...
The Wrangell High School swim and cross country teams competed in meets last weekend. The results were mixed, but a few athletes turned in personal bests and first-place finishes. Swimming The swim team competed in the Petersburg Invitational Swim Meet, going against teams from Juneau-Douglas, Thunder Mountain in Juneau, Petersburg, Craig, Sitka and Ketchikan. Renée Roberts finished first in three of her events: the 50-yard freestyle (25.92); the 100-yard backstroke (1:05.02); and the 50-yard...
Devlyn Campbell, a junior at Wrangell High School, finishes the boys' 5-kilometer race, coming in 11th out of 69 runners. Teams from a dozen Southeast schools competed in cross country competition last Saturday in Wrangell. Read the full story here....
Daily COVID-19 cases across Alaska over the past 30 days are about triple the average of the 18-month pandemic — more than quadruple on several days last week. The heavy caseload, particularly seriously ill unvaccinated individuals infected with the highly contagious Delta variant, has strained hospitals in the state’s population centers. Wrangell has fared better than much of the state, however, with just five cases reported in the first 14 days of September, a steep drop from the community’s record of 48 cases in August. State health offic...
Social distancing and masking requirements will continue to stay in place at Wrangell public schools. At the school board meeting on Monday night, Superintendent Bill Burr updated board members on a change in some language in the district’s COVID-19 mitigation plan, but students and staff will still be required to wear masks and stay apart. The board in August agreed to review the mitigation plan and masking requirement monthly. “There were a few additions we had to [the mitigation plan],” Burr said Monday, which will ease the testing requi...
Despite intermittent downpours, the Wrangell High School boys' and girls' cross country teams took on several other runners in the first in-person meet of the season last Saturday. Forty-six girls and 69 boys from around Southeast competed in the soggy conditions, with Wrangell boys placing third as a team against 11 others, and the girls' team placing fifth out of nine in the 5-kilometer event. "The boys stuck together like we have been in practice, and they listened to me as I told them to...
