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The Petersburg School District plans to restore several cut positions and provide a one-time staff bonus, thanks to higher-than-expected state funding and enrollment numbers for the 2024-25 school year. The district received around $1.1 million more in state funding than initially budgeted for, with $849,000 coming from the one-time increase of $680 per student above the base student allocation (BSA) surviving the governor's veto this year. The remainder stems from enrollment reaching 456.8 stud...
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Alliana Sipper and Harlan McKay perfect their puppy dog eyes during the Toto dance, choreographed by Alice Williams as part of the Mitkof Dance Troupe's Wizard of Oz winter recital....
Petersburg's high school drama program is heading to Scotland. The group has been accepted to perform in August 2026 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe -the world's largest performing arts festival. For PHS drama teacher Elsa Wintersteen, it's a dream come true – both for herself and her students. While she's never been to the Fringe Festival, she witnessed its impact through a high school friend who performed there years ago. "When she came back, I mean, all the pictures she had to show me, a...
While meeting in Ketchikan in late January and early February, members of the Alaska Board of Fisheries will hear 11 proposals that request changes to state regulations for the commercial dive harvest fisheries that primarily target sea cucumbers, geoduck clams and sea urchins across Southeast Alaska. All 11 proposals come from commercial dive fishermen, many of whom are concerned that the dive fisheries are faltering as sea otters are preying on species like geoduck and sea urchins. The state in 1965 released 412 sea otters on outer coast of...
December 26, 1924 – Petersburg is to celebrate the completion of the Hydro Electric project. A committee of which Harold Dawes is the chairman was named at the Commercial Club meeting Monday evening to arrange details. Secretary C. Clausen was instructed to write Governor Bone and invite him to attend or send a representative, if unable to attend, or at least to “officially switch on the juice at Juneau.” The Governor will be apprised later of the exact date and hour the new plant at Blind Slough will be hooked up to the town of Peter...
Late last year, when I went to sign up for my 2024 health insurance on the federal Obamacare marketplace, the options all seemed expensive — more expensive than what I paid in 2023. A perk of being an independent news publisher is that instead of just grousing about this to my family and friends, I also had a legitimate pretext to ask Alaska’s top insurance regulator: What’s going on? She responded 16 minutes later with exactly what I was looking for: a chart showing that, indeed, the plans offered by my insurer, Premera, rose an average of 16....
An advertiser-sponsored article in the Seattle Times gushed “Wild Alaska pollock’s fishing fleet is based right here in Seattle although all of the fish are caught in U.S. waters off of the coast of Alaska. This fishery benefits the economic growth of the entire region, including the North Pacific Fishing Fleet.” That includes 300 commercial fishing vessels of which 226 fish in Alaska. Many of the boats are huge catcher-processors — factory trawlers — that target pollock, cod, rockfish, flounders and other “groundfish” species. Alaska polloc...
December 18 – An officer provided lockout assistance on Howkan Street. An officer assisted a citizen. December 19 – An officer assisted the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) with a fall. The Petersburg Police Department received a report of a missing dog. An officer assisted an individual who had fallen on Ira II Street. December 20 – PPD received a report of a non-working power pole on South Nordic Drive. Petersburg Power and Light (PP&L) were notified and responded. PPD received a request for extra patrols of Hungerford Hill Road. An indiv...
The Petersburg High School had its yearly winter music concert on Tuesday, Dec. 17, in front of an energetic audience to help end 2024 and ring in the new year. The show highlighted all the hard work students and music director Chelsea Corrao have put into the music program. "We went into it saying we did the hard work, now it's time to make the art happen and I feel like that's exactly what we did," Corrao said. "The kids are feeling pretty confident and proud with themselves and that's all we...
Petersburg high school wrestling seniors Angus Olsen and Kaden Duke played their final high school wrestling matches at the ASAA DII Championships. While neither of them reached their ultimate goal of winning state in their respective weight classes, both wrestlers left it all out on the mat. "Both of them unfortunately did fall short but I am unbelievably proud of them for the four years that I've had with them and the amount of growth and the time and effort they put in and it's been great...
After starting the season with a loss, 51-39 against the Sitka Wolves, on Friday, Dec. 20, the Petersburg High School boys varsity team rebounded with a 43-36 win – improving to 1-1 in front of their home crowd. The Wolves scored 51 points the night earlier. This time, the Vikings made it a goal to not let the Wolves get comfortable. "Last night I felt [the Wolves] were in control from the beginning and we were always fighting from behind. We talked about defensively establishing ourselves a...
After winning back-to-back regional titles, the Petersburg High School cheer squad enters the 2024-25 season aiming to do it again and bring home another regional title. This season comes with some change as former assistant and now head coach Becky Turland will be leading the squad in 24-25. The cheer squad has already hit the ground running. "I'm pretty familiar with most of the kids and the ones that showed up [to preseason] were returning cheerleaders but we did have a couple of new ones...
The modern Christmas card industry began in 1915 when a small printing company in Kansas, the Hall Brothers Company, published its first holiday greeting card. When the company changed its name to Hallmark in 1925 a new format was adopted, becoming the standard – four by six inches, folded in the middle, and with an accompanying envelope. This Christmas greeting card, made in the U.S.A., features a fashionable woman carrying a wreath and a gift as she walks a small dog. It was discovered in the...
This northern pygmy owl was recently seen perched in a tree along Frederick Point Drive. Native to the Northwest these compact, charismatic raptors are known to nest and forage in near streams in dense forests. They are mostly active at dawn and dusk and prey on small mammals, birds and large insects....
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Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced a state budget proposal on Thursday that would draw down roughly half the amount remaining in the state's budget reserve fund. "We're going to follow the laws and we have the savings," the governor said at a news conference announcing the spending plan. "That's why you have the budget designed as it is." The $16.8 billion draft budget for the 12 months beginning in July is $344 million more than the amount the state plans to spend in the current budget. The in... Full story
Sons of Norway Hall was warm with cheer on Wednesday, Dec. 11, seafood's tastiest night of the year in Petersburg - the annual pickled herring contest. For fifty flavorful years, Petersburg's finest fish smokers and picklers have come together on a December evening to submit their specialties for judgement by the year's designated taste testers. Winners claim possession of the trophies and bragging rights for the year. But it could be said that the real winners are the scores of food lovers who...
A proposal coming before the Board of Fish in January, if adopted, would make it almost impossible under the current management plan to ever reopen the Southeast Alaska commercial red king crab fishery. Proposal 242 - put forward by Territorial Sportsmen, Inc of Juneau - seeks to allocate 100% of the red king crab available for harvest in Section 11-A to the personal use fishery. Section 11-A accounts for around a quarter of all the mature red king crab biomass available in Southeast Alaska acco...
Next season's Tanner crab biomass numbers in Southeast Alaska are down, but the area's golden king crab numbers continue to climb. The two commercial fisheries open on the same day – Monday, Feb. 17, 2025 – and that is by design. "Tanner seems to fluctuate across the region ... on any given year," Adam Messmer, Regional Shellfish Biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game explained the Pilot. "Permit holders with dual permits GKC/Tanner will focus on one species while it is up and provide...
Proposal 243 — which was developed over several BOF cycles through collaboration between ADF&G and permit holders — asks for major changes to the Southeast Alaska Red King Crab Management Plan. The 200,000-pound GHL threshold currently required before the commercial red crab fishery can be opened is an economic threshold, ADF&G Regional Shellfish Biologist Adam Messmer told the Pilot. “Processors said they couldn’t make any money if we fished under that amount,” said Messmer, and the level “was set years ago when red king crab was not worth a...
December 12, 1924 – Following a hunting trip near Cape Strait, Lindenberg Peninsula, last Saturday, Hans Lee froze to death from exposure after being capsized from a boat. The party, which Mr. Lee accompanied, left Petersburg early Saturday morning on the halibut powerboat Star. The party also consisted of Martin Enge, Berger Waswick and Knut Thompson, part owner of the Star with Louis Martin. They arrived at their destination about 8 a.m. and left the boat at anchor while the four went into the woods. The weather was calm and there was no h...
How are Mystery Drones and UFOs Related? To the Editor: I am not writing to tell you that they both contain little green men. The general public does not have enough information to arrive at that conclusion. But this suggests one thing they have in common: official government releases on both of these topics (as of the time of writing) are big, fat nothing-burgers. Either that, or lies — cloaked in diverting half-truths, and smelling suspiciously of disinformation. The Great Holiday Mystery Drone Wave of 2024 is just the latest episode in the 8...
