Sorted by date Results 951 - 975 of 3069
Correct spelling is the law for newspapers. Especially for unusual names. And especially for my first week on the job as the Sentinel's new reporter. I grew up in Salt Lake City, a fact which explains the weird spelling of my name - Utah parents love to get creative, and in a state filled with Madysens and Saydees, my version of Caroline is relatively tame. After graduating from high school, I moved to Connecticut to study English at Yale. Though I loved to read and discuss brick-thick...
Julie Williams believes life is a "limited time offer," and that opportunities should be taken where they can. The new school counselor is invested in helping Wrangell's high school and middle school students plan their futures, while helping them understand that sometimes adjustments need to be made for the curveballs life throws their way. Williams holds degrees from Stanford University, Goddard College and the University of Idaho and her focus has been on curriculum and instruction. She grew...
The competitive high school swimming season has only just begun and already the athletes are being challenged. Coach Jamie Roberts so far has four returning swimmers and two new swimmers, but she's wasting no time in making practice tougher and getting her team in winning form. "They're already doing harder practices than where we would start," she said. "(It's) more like interval work where you're pushing yourself against the clock to do repeated distances of swimming. We might do 10 50-meters...
A "hero" walks among us. Junior Mia Wiederspohn has been selected as one of six Alaska teenagers to receive a scholarship through the Summer of Heroes program. The program each year recognizes teens who are making positive impacts in their communities. Wiederspohn was selected because of her efforts to keep the Tlingit language and culture alive through radio broadcasts and podcasts and for her work in the high school BASE (Building a Supportive Environment) program. Wiederspohn, 15, was awarded...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following positions for the 2022-2023 school year: Middle School Secretary: This is a 10-month position that may be up to full time, supporting the principal and completing all office duties of a school secretary in the middle school office. Salary placement is Column D on the Classified Salary Schedule. A high school diploma is required, experience working with teens and/or in an office setting is preferred. Special Education Paraprofessional: This is a part-time,...
More than 6,700 passengers a year boarded a state ferry in Wrangell 2010 through 2015, and more than 6,900 a year walked or drove off the ships during that six-year period. In calendar 2021, those numbers were down to 690 passengers boarding a ferry and 771 getting off a ship, a drop of about 90%. Those 2021 passenger counts are up from the pandemic-worst travel year of calendar 2020, when just 264 boarded in Wrangell and 274 arrived, but the decline in ridership has been constant since 2014, according to statistics provided by the Alaska...
With the first classes just over two weeks away, students are getting ready to return to their education-filled days. Before that can happen, administrative and teaching staff are prepping classrooms, curriculum and registrations to welcome back students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said based on the number of kindergartners and graduated seniors from last year, the district is anticipating about 263 children in the student body this year, similar to last year’s number. Online registration will begin M...
Aug. 10, 1922 It has been decided to use the Guild Room back of St. Philip’s gymnasium for kindergarten, which the Wrangell school will add this year. There is no room in the school building for such a department, and a survey of the available buildings failed to locate anything else that was entirely suitable, most of the rooms being on Front Street where no playground could be secured for the tots. While the Guild Room seems at first thought to be rather far from the center of town, the location is really a central one when the fact is c...
As students start school on Aug. 25, two new administrators will be joining them. Ann Hilburn is the new principal for Evergreen Elementary and Bob Burkhart is new the principal for Wrangell High and Stikine Middle school. Hilburn was previously the special education teacher at the high school and middle school, while Burkhart was working as a principal in Missoula, Montana, after having been retired. Leadership positions at the schools opened after Bob Davis retired from the high school and...
August is a time for fishing, the last of any gardening work and the enjoyment of harvesting the fruits (and vegetables) of that effort. It’s a time for home repairs, while there is still a plausible chance of dry weather to patch the roof, refinish the deck or scrape and repaint the siding. It’s also a time to consider serving in public office. Probably you’re thinking you’d rather pick garden slugs or clean the gutters than serve on the borough assembly, school board or port commission. At least no one criticizes you for those other pursuit...
And they're off! The Wrangell High School cross country practice began July 27, with many returning runners and a few new faces to race toward a successful season that started with a different training approach. Head coach Kayla Rooney is returning for her third year to guide the team with the help of new assistant coach Mason Villarma. Both coaches have had success as runners in the past, with Rooney placing at the state level each year of her high school career and Villarma running from...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following position for the 2022-2023 school year: Title I Paraprofessional: This is a full-time position working with students in Grades K-5, 7.5 hours per day at Evergreen Elementary School. Salary placement is Column A on the Classified Salary Schedule. A high school diploma or equivalent is required. An associate degree, equivalent credits, or the ability to pass the parapro assessment is also required. This position does include a benefits package. The anticipated start...
The borough assembly has taken the first step toward seeking voter approval for borrowing up to $15 million to pay for long-needed repairs at the Public Safety Building and school buildings. The assembly last week voted to hold a special meeting Aug. 8 to introduce an ordinance placing the question on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot. A public hearing on the ordinance would be held Aug. 23. If approved by voters, work could start in 2024, after the bonds are sold, engineering plans put together, the jobs bid out and contractors selected....
One by one, facilities staff is checking off their to-do list in preparation for the first day of classes Aug. 25. Each building in the school district has items that need fixing, patching, painting and more before students and staff return for the 2022-23 school year. "A lot of what we do in the summertime is just get the school ready in general," said Josh Blatchley, facilities director for the district. "We've gone through and carpet cleaned and waxed all the classrooms. That's a process. The...
Aug. 3, 1922 The Wenonah, with A.M. Sobieralski commanding, was in port Saturday and Sunday. This is a Coast and Geodetic Survey vessel and has been in Southeast Alaska the past two months during which time a precise triangulation has been extended from the completed work in the vicinity of Zarembo Island south to Ship Island. The topography along the west shore of Ernest Sound has been extended to the entrance of Zimovia Strait, including Menefee Inlet, Southwest Cove, Canoe Passage and off-lying islands. Inshore hydrography on the south...
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving ahead with its review of the borough’s wetlands fill permit application to develop the former Wrangell Institute property for residential lots. The borough hopes to start ground-clearing work next year, Carol Rushmore, the borough’s planning and zoning director, said last week. Permit review work had been on hold while state and federal agencies and the borough coordinated an archaeological records and ground survey of the property that had been used as a Bureau of Indian Affairs Native boarding sch...
The borough will list Wrangell’s former hospital building on a nationwide surplus public property website, hoping for better results than efforts the past two months which resulted in not a single bid. “We’ve got to get rid of this,” Mayor Steve Prysunka said at the July 26 borough assembly meeting. The borough has been paying close to $100,000 a year to keep the building heated and insured, and protected against water damage. The borough ran an online auction in June to sell the property but received no bids. It then offered the buildin...
Candidates have until 4 p.m. Aug. 31 to file their declaration and signature petition at City Hall for a spot on the Oct. 4 municipal election ballot. The offices of mayor, two borough assembly seats, three school board seats and two spots on the port commission will be on the ballot. Mayor Steve Prysunka, who has served two terms (four years), said last week he is not seeking reelection. Before winning his first term as mayor in 2018, Prysunka served three years on the borough assembly. The mayor’s job is a two-year term. The terms also expire...
The process will stretch over the next couple of months, with a public hearing and a lot of public information, but it looks like the borough assembly will ask voters in the Oct. 4 municipal election to approve borrowing as much as $15 million for long-needed repairs to all of the school buildings and the Public Safety Building. Selling bonds to finance the work will mean promising to repay those bonds, which will mean higher property taxes until the debt is repaid. Anyone who has driven by and looked at any of the buildings can see they need a...
Each step was like planting my feet into water-soaked bath towels. Thirteen miles of nonstop sloshing in last Sunday’s BearFest half marathon could be viewed by some as not so fun. But for me, it was a chance to think about the past year. Most runners will tell you that the pastime is therapy, affording us plenty of time to ponder our path in life. Just under a year ago, I arrived in Wrangell, with a U-Haul full of my past life. My decision has been reaffirmed every day since. Here’s why: I came from a place where a population of 45,000 peo...
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it’s putting $29 million toward connecting just over 1,200 people, a school and 45 businesses in Craig and Klawock on Prince of Wales Island and also Hyder to high-speed internet. That funding is part of Alaska’s $116 million slice of $401 million in grants to improve internet access in 11 states. It’s part of an initial round of the more than $90 billion the federal government has committed to spending on bringing affordable, high-speed internet to communities across the count...
The Alaska Department of Law issued an opinion July 25 saying public money can be spent for homeschool students to attend one or two classes in a private school, but cannot be used for most of a student’s private school tuition. The 19-page opinion said it’s sometimes legal to use public funds for private school classes through the state program that pays for students to attend a correspondence school or homeschool. “But the more it looks like you’re just trying to send your kid to private school and get subsidized by the state, I think t...
The borough assembly is considering whether to seek voter approval to sell $10.5 million in bonds for the first phase of rehab work at the rot-damaged 35-year-old Public Safety Building, and $4.5 million in bonds to help pay for roof, siding and boiler work at school buildings that range in age from 35 to 53 years old. Repayment of the bonds would come from municipal revenues, particularly property taxes. The assembly was scheduled to meet in a work session Tuesday evening to discuss the proposal, followed by the regular meeting where members w...
Few would dispute that Wrangell needs affordable, dependable child care services. The lack of child care keeps parents away from filling the long list of job vacancies around town and, when their kids are sick, can keep them away from the jobs they already hold. People need to work and want to raise children, and the community needs more children in school and more people to take jobs — child care seems a reasonable approach toward meeting all those needs. And while there are some at-home providers in town, and certainly friends and r...
Bobby Bolen is trying to fill around 50 teaching positions at the North Slope Borough School District. “This is our focus 24 hours a day right now — to get classrooms staffed for students,” Bolen said. Bolen is the brand-new human resources director at the district, which has about 2,000 students in 12 schools, some of which start as soon as Aug. 8. He’s exploring options like long-term substitutes and the prospect of international teachers to round out the district’s usual teaching staff of about 170. “Our worst-case scenario would be distance...