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The school district is advancing funds to cover student travel to state competition this school year, with the account at an estimated $52,000 deficit. The district is looking to the community and the newly created Wrangell Athletic Club to repay the costs before the budget year closes out on June 30. “That is our hope,” Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said in late December. Student travel to state competition cost about $46,000 in the 2022-2023 school year, which the school board voted in November to cover on a one-time basis out of reserves...
After missing out on a chance to compete at last year’s state tournament by a two-point loss at regionals, Wrangell Lady Wolves basketball coach Christina Good is ready for her team to try again this season. “We’re due again, so we’ll see how it goes this year,” she said. “Everything cycles in sports.” The season opens this weekend with home games against Petersburg. “As coaches, we want to say we’re going to go to state, but that depends on how our girls perform,” she added. “Overall, I’m always super optimistic. We have a lot of really fa...
Wrangell Wolves head basketball coach Cody Angerman watched from the bleachers as his players went through drills and practice shots in a midday session at the high school gym on Dec. 28 during the winter break. “I don’t want to say it’s a rebuilding year because we definitely have a good team,” Angerman said. But he acknowledged that a core group of seniors were lost after graduation, excellent ball players and starters who practiced diligently and, most importantly, provided leadership to the team. “Obviously, when that happens, you kind...
The school board has offered a three-year contract extension to Schools Superintendent Bill Burr, effective July 1, 2024, pending further negotiations. “We just wanted him to know that we want him to stay,” said David Wilson, school board president, confirming that he and the rest of the board are very satisfied with Burr’s performance on the job. “He’s doing an amazing job, that’s why we offered it to him,” said school board member Liz Roundtree. The board voted at its Dec. 18 meeting to extend Burr’s contract. Burr said in an email on Dec. 2...
The primary election for the Alaska House of Representatives is more than nine months away and already five-term incumbent Rep. Dan Ortiz has at least two challengers for the District 1 seat that represents Ketchikan, Wrangell and Metlakatla. Robb Arnold, a chief purser aboard the state ferries who ran unsuccessfully for the Ketchikan city council and Ketchikan school board last year, has filed for the state House. Arnold is running as a Republican, as is fellow Republican Jeremy Bynum, who serves on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly....
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed state budget for legislative consideration starting in January includes $5 million to strengthen the century-old earthen dams that contain Wrangell’s water reservoirs. The state grant would pay to “reinforce both these dams with buttresses,” likely concrete, Interim Borough Manager Mason Villarma said Dec. 15. The governor released his version of the budget on Dec. 14. Lawmakers will reconvene in Juneau on Jan. 16, with the state spending plan likely to dominate the 121-day session. Villarma and other borough...
Senior wrestler Keegan Hanson's near-perfect season culminated in triumph, as he earned the title of state champion over the weekend. Hanson defeated all four competitors in his 152-pound weight class - expanding his season's record to 30 wins and only one loss - to earn first place at the Division II state championship tournament held at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 15-16. The Wrangell Wolves earned 71.5 points overall, putting them in 12th place among...
Dec. 20, 1923 O.D. Leet, who has been in correspondence with members of the Wrangell Commercial Club for several months, arrived here a few days ago. He was present at the Commercial Club luncheon last Monday and laid his proposition before that organization. He announced that after investigating the local situation, he was convinced that there is a good opportunity here for a cold storage, and that he was willing to put in a plant if local people would go in with him on the proposition. He estimated that it would require $30,000 to put in a...
After decades of helping people remember birthdays and anniversaries, the printed community calendar may be going the way of phone books. There will be no Wrangell Birthday Calendar in 2024. The chamber of commerce decided to drop the project from its work list. The last Wrangell phone book was printed in 2020. The chamber had used the calendar as a fundraiser to provide an annual scholarship to a graduating high school senior. Last year’s scholarship was $1,500. “It was discussed and we’re somewhat short-handed over the last few years...
The borough has gone out to the public for a second time to survey their opinions on how to sell the first 20 lots of the Alder Top Village (Keishangita.’aan) subdivision, in advance of a decision by the Economic Development Board at its meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 20, at City Hall. The board is scheduled to make a recommendation to the assembly for how the lots should be sold, with the assembly expected to take up the issue in January. According to the Economic Development Department’s proposed schedule, the borough would hol...
The school district has pulled money from reserves and other accounts to cover a $46,000 accumulated deficit in the account that pays for students to travel to state competition. Covering this school year’s state travel expenses and future years is still unresolved. As students already have traveled to several state competitions this school year, including volleyball, cross country and wrestling, the account for 2023-2024 is back in a deficit until a consistent funding stream is determined. The school board voted Nov. 20 to take money from r...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said education is among his top priorities in the coming fiscal year but did not include an increase to the state’s per-student funding formula, known as the base student allocation, in his proposed budget. The budget includes about $1.11 billion to fund the formula that distributes money to school districts statewide, down almost 3% from this year due to declining enrollment. Dunleavy has proposed spending almost twice as much on next year’s Permanent Fund dividend. Lawmakers this past spring approved a one-time appropriatio...
Barbara Lee Patrick passed away on Dec. 4, 2023, at the age of 88 in Monroe, Washington. Barbara graduated from Wrangell High School in 1954. She married Russell Theodore Patrick on Nov. 3, 1956, at the University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. She attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, for a year and a half and then attended business college in Seattle. She and Russell made their first home together in Madras, Oregon. They moved back to Wrangell in the late 1950s, where she worked...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following positions for the 2023-2024 school year: - Paraprofessional: This is a part-time position working with students in Grades 6 through 12, at 5.75 hours per day in the Special Education Program at Stikine Middle School and Wrangell High School. A high school diploma or equivalent is required. An associate degree, equivalent credits or the ability to pass the para pro assessment is also required. - Middle School Volleyball Head Coach: This is a part-time contracted posi...
Dec. 13, 1923 Red Campbell of the Mountain City Athletic Club has arranged with Mickey Prescot to train the latter, and believes that he will prove the best boxer in Alaska for his class. “The kid is game; he has brains and an almost perfect physical development. He is quick as a cat and at the same time well muscled. Once he is trained to put his whole weight behind his blows, it will require a first-class man to stand up against him. Take it from me, that kid is a wonder. All he needs is proper training and coaching.” Red said today. Dec...
Therapy dogs Cupid and Tia calmly waited with their handlers Margaret Griffo and Terry Yeomans, greeting arrivals before class in the high school courtyard on Friday, Dec. 8, after starting their morning with the coffee crowd at the Stikine Inn and Restaurant. The dogs had arrived in Wrangell the day before, coming to town from their Anchorage-area homes for a few days to help people coping with the tragedy of the deadly landslide and the stress of the search and uncertainty, the loss and the...
Music teacher Tasha Morse conducted a combined choir of sixth through 12th graders in the final piece of the middle school and high school winter concert program at the high school gym on Dec. 5. It was a busy week for holiday music, with the Wrangell Community Chorale performing Dec. 3 and the elementary school winter concert Dec. 7....
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor sent letters to libraries and school districts throughout the state in mid-November, warning that minors should not have access “indecent materials” at libraries and that parents must be given two weeks notice about any instruction related to “human reproduction and sexual matters.” The topic of gender identity, Taylor said, falls under this category. The letters align with a parental rights bill proposed this year by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, which would require parental approval for classes, textbooks, lessons an...
The Wrangell Wolves wrestling team took third overall at the Southeast Division II regional championship, with eight individuals coming home with first-place finishes in their weight classes. Wrangell Junior Della Churchill was voted Outstanding Female Wrestler of the tournament. Mt. Edgecumbe, with 202 points, won the Division II title in the Friday and Saturday, Dec. 8-9, competition at Juneau's Thunder Mountain High School. Haines came in second at 138, with Wrangell tallying 134.5 points,...
Otto Heinz Florschutz III, 65, a nearly 40-year resident of Wrangell, departed mortality on Nov. 20, 2023. A private service will be held for the family, with a public memorial to be announced at a later date. Otto was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on April 4, 1958. He graduated from Washington High School in North Carolina before attending Beaufort County Community College in North Carolina to become a machinist - work that he continued to enjoy throughout his life. Bitten by wanderlust, Otto...
David Roy Churchill passed away on Dec. 3, 2023, at the age of 94 in Wrangell. A graveside service will be held at the Sunset Gardens Cemetery Columbarium at 9 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 14. "All of his family and friends are welcome to attend," his family wrote. David Roy Churchill was born on April 8, 1929, to Mary and Frank Churchill in Wrangell. David graduated from Wrangell High School in 1948. He then went to Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. The Korean War was on, so David and his broth...
On Dec. 1, Wrangell lost our special brother-in-law, close friend, fishing buddy and military hero. As Har would have said, “It’s time to go.” At the age of 82, it was time to rest and join his loving wife, Carol, with the angels. Born in Oregon to Betty May (Truxall) and Hubert Texas Snoddy, Harold Marshall attended the public school system while spending extensive time in the outdoors, hunting, which would have a major impact on coming home safe and sound later in life. In 1963, he moved...
The Alaska Board of Fisheries voted 4-2 against requiring in-season management to more effectively hold the sport fishery chinook catch within its harvest limit. The board voted on Friday, Dec. 1, at its meeting in Homer, which was primarily devoted to Southcentral fisheries issues. The controversial proposal would have tightened in-season management of the Southeast chinook catch to better guard against resident and nonresident sport fishermen exceeding their share of the overall sport and commercial harvest. The proposal’s intent was to b...
Dec. 6, 1923 The monthly report of the community nurse as given to the executive board of the Red Cross reveals the need of the nursing service for the community for as long a time as it can possibly be continued. The fact that a thoroughly competent, well-trained nurse can be sent for in case of accident or illness and that her services can be secured for a small fee – which is turned into the Red Cross at the end of the month – should be a matter of pride and congratulations to every citizen. Dec. 3, 1948 The drive, which began just one mon...