Sorted by date Results 868 - 892 of 3076
Dozens of hands small and large held a firm grip on the 30-foot-long dugout canoe they pushed down Angoon's Front Street despite their shoes slipping on the rain-soaked road. Neither the potholes on the road nor the rain on Oct. 26 seemed to discourage the more than 50 Chatham School District students and Angoon residents from pushing what was the first dugout canoe made in Angoon since the U.S. Navy bombardment 140 years ago. The 1882 bombardment destroyed all but one of its fleet of dugout...
Nick Begich, who is running against fellow Republican Sarah Palin and Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola for Alaska’s single U.S. House seat, will be in Wrangell on Friday. He is the only one of the three leading candidates to schedule a visit to the community. His conservative platform includes deregulating Alaska minerals development and bolstering the state’s role in supplying resources to the nation. Peltola won the House seat in August to fill out the unexpired term of the late Rep. Don Young until January. The Nov. 8 general election wil...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Senior Center is seeking an assistant cook. $16/hour DOE. Position is 25 hours a week. Benefits include a 403b retirement account, employee assistance program, 12 paid holidays, paid time off and optional supplemental insurance. Background check required. Apply online at www.ccsak.org/jobs. For more information contact Solvay Gillen at 907-874-2066. HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following positions for the 2022-2023 school year: Paraprofessionals: These are part-time positions...
Years of flat state funding create budget stress for schools across Alaska By James Brooks and Lisa Phu Alaska Beacon The Anchorage School District, which is considering the closure of six elementary schools amid a projected $68 million budget shortfall, isn’t the only district facing a major fiscal problem. At the end of the last school year, Fairbanks closed three schools. In Juneau, the school board is considering whether to fire specialists intended to help students recover reading skills lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. In rural A...
Alaskans will elect a U.S. senator, a member of the U.S. House, a governor and several dozen state legislators on Nov. 8. It’s an important vote, with real consequences for the nation, the state’s future, school funding, the ferry system, civil liberties and social justice. And yet, judging from past turnouts in non-presidential election years, maybe half of Alaska’s registered voters will cast a ballot. Which means the other half stayed home — unconcerned, uninterested and unmoved in how their state and country are run. Really, 50% is a good b...
"Guys! Stop real quick! We need to make one adjustment because I'm seeing people get behind them," Jack Carney broadcasts to the room as he weaves about the grapplers engaged in practicing moves. He scans each pair, somehow seeing every athlete, every stance all at once. He stops to give them direction and they all focus intently on his instruction. "See this shoulder? You're going to punch it right here. Boom. I punch him. All my weight's on him, then I can block his spin. Push, snap and then...
The Lady Wolves are howling with excitement over their multiple victories last week. Over the course of three days last week, the Wrangell High School girls volleyball team beat five teams in five matches to rank first in south seeding for regionals in mid-November. Craig, Klawock, Haines, Skagway and Petersburg teams came to Wrangell to battle it out in the high school gym. The competitions were delayed somewhat because poor weather conditions led to travel delays by some of the teams....
A century ago on Nov. 7, 1922, Tlingit translator and civil rights advocate Tillie Paul Tamaree helped Charlie Jones, the seventh Chief Shakes, vote in a Wrangell municipal election. Her actions led to a court case that would secure the right to vote for Alaska Natives two years before the federal Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 extended citizenship to Native people across the United States. When she was 12 years old, Tamaree entered the Amanda McFarland Home for Girls in Wrangell to avoid an...
Oct. 19, 1922 The regular monthly meeting of the Parent-Teachers Association was held last Thursday evening at the schoolhouse. H. W. Gartley spoke forcibly and to the point regarding the need for a playground for children, aside from the playshed on the school grounds. Mr. Gartley’s talk met with enthusiastic approval, and he was asked to act as chairman of a playground committee to look into the matter and report at the next meeting on available sites for a public playground where the boys can play baseball with no fear of breaking windows, w...
With voter approval of a $3.5 million bond issue, the Wrangell School District wasted no time in moving ahead with its plan to go after a state grant as it works to fully fund needed repairs at its buildings. But before the district starts any work, it first must determine exactly what needs fixing so it can set priorities and assemble cost estimates. To that end, the school board voted Oct. 11 to appropriate up to $385,900 from the district’s major maintenance fund to pay for condition surveys of all three buildings. The fund has a current b...
School enrollment is heading in the right direction, but just slightly. After counting 257 students during the state-mandated annual tally last year, this year’s Wrangell enrollment count was at 266 as of last week, said Schools Superintendent Bill Burr. The school district had estimated 263 students when it put together its budget for the 2022-2023 school year. State funding, which provides more than 60% of the district’s operating budget, is based on enrollment, with districts statewide required to submit their count every October. The hig...
The Wrangell School District could face a financial squeeze in the next several years, forcing hard decisions over which programs get cut, what classes go away and how much staff is left. It’s not that the administration or staff did anything wrong. Just as school districts statewide, Wrangell has been waiting on some legislators and governors to put aside their biases against teacher unions, their personal views on political issues and their tendency to hold schools responsible for every shortcoming in society, and move to approve an i...
The state champs Wrangell High School cross country running team was honored last Friday at an assembly in the school gym. From left: Randy Churchill III, Ethan Blatchley, Ian Nelson, Daniel Harrison, Boomchain Loucks and Devlyn Campbell, and assistant coach Mason Villarma, shared in the moment. The team placed first at state in Anchorage the previous weekend, winning the championship for the first time in the school's history. Harrison came in first overall with a time of 17:29.1. (Photo by...
The Wrangell High School swim team traveled to Sitka last Friday and Saturday to compete in the town’s invitational swim meet, turning in three personal bests, four season bests and eight top 10 finishes. Head coach Jamie Roberts said the team has been working on breathing patterns and other techniques, and “sometimes, it takes a while for their practice patterns to translate into race patterns, as muscle memory can be challenging to overcome.” Despite that, the individual swimmers did well in their categories. Wrangell didn’t have a men’s r...
Former Wrangell real estate broker John L. Tullis Sr., 99, passed away peacefully with his two daughters present on Sept. 28 in Camas, Washington. Tullis was born on Jan. 16, 1923, in Pendleton, Oregon. He was raised on a ranch, caring for animals, pitching hay, building fences, cleaning the barn and cooking with his mom. He was one of six kids, second from the bottom. He drove a Model T Ford to high school and later sold it for $25. Serving in the Navy during World War II took him to the...
Child care has been a pressing need in the community for some time, and the Wrangell Cooperative Association is hoping to address the issue at least in some part. Starting last week, the WCA distributed surveys on bulletin boards around town, on its website and on Facebook. The survey will help the organization assess how great the need is. “We’re looking to assess the need in our community as a whole,” said Esther Reese, tribal administrator for WCA. The organization is asking how many families need child care, what days of the week are neede...
In a relatively short season, the Wrangell High School boys cross country team went from training to champions. The team won the Division III state title last Saturday at the ASAA/First National Bank Alaska Cross Country Running Championships in Anchorage, making it the first in the program's history. Assistant coach Mason Villarma predicted the runners had the potential to make history for the school after only a couple of meets earlier in the season. That prediction came true with the team...
Patty Gilbert was sworn in as mayor last Thursday, and in her first days in office plans to “(continue) the heavy work.” She hopes to revitalize the borough’s economic development committee, support local businesses and promote new ones. “It’ll be a full agenda,” she said. The borough assembly certified the election results last Thursday. The ballot proposition to issue $8.5 million in bonds for Public Safety Building repairs failed 259 to 324 in the Oct. 4 election. Since the building is still in need of costly repairs, the assembly wi...
No less than 100 people turned out on Sept. 26 right before sunset for the dedication of the Wrangell Mariners' Memorial at Heritage Harbor. What some said has been in the works for decades has finally been completed, honoring those who have lost their lives at sea and those who made their lives from the sea. "It's amazing (that it's finished)," said Jenn Miller-Yancey, president of the memorial board. "We stand out here and can't believe it sometimes." Miller-Yancey, who's late husband Ryan...
Josh Fish would like to see kids win at the game of life across the board rather than be pawns, so he took a gambit with a classic game. The first chess club will start after school next Monday at Evergreen Elementary, with Fish and helpers teaching students the rules of the game, with the hope of developing social skills and critical-thinking skills in the young players. Fish, 25, learned to play chess in Fayetteville, North Carolina, when he was a freshman in high school. The game turned his...
Wrangell is great at helping neighbors in need, at filling holiday food baskets and supporting student activities. The community excels at watching out for each other, watching over our elders and keeping watch over mariners. There are multiple examples just in last week’s and this week’s Sentinel and on the Wrangell Community Group Facebook page: Volunteers working to reopen the roller rink after a three-year shutdown; all the effort that has gone into growing the community garden; the dedication, labor and money that have gone into bui...
Last Saturday, Sept. 24, I had the pleasure of helping work the finish line at the Capital City Invitational cross-country meet in Juneau. The previous night’s monsoon had passed, and the cool, damp air at the running field throbbed with the pent-up energy of about 225 young runners from all parts of Southeast Alaska. It was high school athletics at its finest. I must say I was one of many people who were impressed by the grit and toughness of the Wrangell boys team. They’ve clearly been working hard, and they run like a pack of red hungry wol...
The Wrangell High School boys cross country team came home from an eventful weekend in Sitka, taking many top spots at Southeast regionals. Once again, sophomore Daniel Harrison led his team, only this time he powered through to take first place out of 56 runners with a time of 16:50, nine seconds faster than senior Luke Davis of Haines. “Daniel had an incredible race,” said head coach Kayla Rooney. “He did exactly what we have been working on this season, pacing himself with other runners that we’ve been competing with every weekend and pus...
The Wrangell High School swim team dove into the competition in Petersburg last Friday and Saturday, with junior Jack Roberts winning the top spot in the 100-yard freestyle event. Four of the swimmers had nine top 10 finishes at the meet, and three had six personal bests. Roberts finished first in the 100-yard freestyle, third in the 200-yard individual medley and third in the 100-yard butterfly. Sophomore Max Lloyd finished fourth in the 50-yard freestyle, while junior Alisha Armstrong finished eighth in the 50-yard freestyle, 10th in the...
A Republican Ketchikan Gateway Borough assembly member is challenging the four-term incumbent to represent Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Coffman Cove and other communities of southern Southeast Alaska in the state House. In Jeremy Bynum's first time running for state office, he got 44% percent of the votes in the August primary to Rep. Dan Ortiz's 52%. Both live in Ketchikan. About 4% of voters chose Wrangell resident Shevaun Meggitt, who has since withdrawn and will not appear on the...
