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A Petersburg High School senior on Monday was given the highest honor in the Girl Scout youth organization. Julia Murph, a senior scout, was presented the Gold Award. She had to complete two projects to become eligible. The most recent was a brochure that mapped hiking trails near Petersburg. On the front is a photograph looking down on Petersburg taken by Murph when she was about 9 years old. Inside is a map of Petersburg with breakdowns of each hike and their difficulty. "Part of it was my mom...
The Petersburg Wrestling team took only five kids to the meet in Ketchikan last weekend, and its coach “didn’t even look” at the final score. “It was a tough weekend,” Coach Dan Swearingen said. “We left all of our upperclassmen and our physically stronger kids at home due to injuries, sickness or personal reasons.” As a result, rostered with two sophomores, two freshmen and one senior, Petersburg got “worked pretty well,” Swearingen said. During the matches, Petersburg had trouble staying on top and getting off bottom, Swearingen said....
About 35 elementary students in Petersburg submitted drawings to local police in a contest to select its Christmas card. Three volunteer judges were in the Petersburg Police Department's training room on Saturday to select the station's next Christmas card. Teri Toland, Jeigh Stanton Gregor and Carolyn Hurtt scanned the drawings that sprawled across the table. Some were northern-lights themed, others were fish-based, and a few were bears with Santa Claus hats on. The judges quickly made a...
Six choir members and one band member from Peterburg were selected to participate in the annual Southeast Honor Music Festival in Klawock last weekend. "It's an all-star band and an all-star choir," said Matt Lenhard, the Petersburg band director who traveled to Klawock with the group. "Klawock were great hosts." The students from Peterburg who were selected included Joseph Giesbrecht, the first chair clarinet and only band member. The other six were choir members: Alex Worhatch, sophomore;...
The Muskeg Maleriers are sponsoring the 41st Oktoberfest Art Share in Petersburg on Saturday, and a borough official said businesses have to charge a sales tax. The Oktoberfest craft fair Saturday at the community center is set to feature nearly 60 vendors including food booths with sushi, Thai food, frozen cookie dough and tamales, among others. Local artists will also be there, and nonprofit organizations will be selling memberships, said Sally Dwyer with the Maleriers. If a registered...
Karen Hofstad, an independent traveler from Petersburg, recently spent a month on a cruise that sailed through the Northwest Passage. Aboard the Crystal Serenity, Hofstad started a month-long expedition from Seward, Alaska, to New York. Being a history buff, Hofstad was less concerned with the landscapes -- majestic, as advertised by Crystal Cruises -- and more prepared to learn from the experts onboard and local villagers along the way. She was surprised by the Northwest Passage. It looked...
Pastors Lloyd and Yvonne Thynes were recognized for 30 years of partnership with the Faith Christian Fellowship church at a recent conference in Tucson, Arizona. Lloyd and Yvonne have pastored the Bethesda Fellowship in Petersburg since 1985. They became ordained in 1987, and for 30 years remained a partner with the Faith Christian Fellowship, one of the last in Alaska, Mr. Thynes said. "We were fortunate to be ordained through their church, but it wasn't that we came here to promote a...
The Petersburg Christmas Tree will be located outside the municipal building this year instead of next to the Scandia House hotel. The tree had for years been on Pete and Theresa Litsheims’ lot. The borough decided to change its location to the municipal building as to not inconvenience downtown parking. “We’ve relied upon the incredible generosity of Pete and Theresa Litsheim to stage the community tree,” said Karl Hagerman, the Borough Public Works Director. “The change is borne out of a desire to lessen the seasonal impact to their bus...
The Petersburg borough manager on Monday was cleared to start recruiting for an electrical superintendent, requiring that he find an applicant with knowledge of mechanical operations and a supervisor’s background. At a meeting Monday evening, there were four assembly members in favor and three against, enough to approve a job description for the Power & Light top position. The requirements include, among other qualifications, five to seven years of supervision experience, along with knowledge of hydro and utility power distribution systems. ...
Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht's request that the assembly give him a 5-year contract renewal along with a salary increase to $121,000 annually was granted Monday night. "His highest marks were in fiscal responsibility," said Assembly Member Jeigh Stanton Gregor, commenting on Giesbrecht's recent annual performance evaluation. "He's earned those marks because that's his top priority. We've given him a mandate: Save this community money and be efficient." In a memo to the Borough Assembly,...
The assembly on Monday approved a bid award to the Power & Light department for a project that would make restoring power during an outage quicker and safer. In a memo to the borough manager, Public Works Director Karl Hagerman requested about $48,000 for the Retaining Wall Project, which would add a switch to Circuit 63. This would make turning the power back on, or energizing, easier. Also it would isolate Icicle Seafoods and the Trading Union, which are among the borough’s biggest energy users. “Load separation allows the utility to bri...
Sally Dwyer was appointed on Tuesday to represent the Planning Commission on the historic committee in Petersburg, coming after the borough had advertised the seat for at least two years. In her first meeting as a board member on the commission, the 3rd generation Dwyer was asked to become a representative of the Historic Preservation Committee. She accepted the nomination and was appointed to a one-year term after a swift motion, ending years without a representative from the commission. Dwyer...
Mitkof Island is no longer without a pumpkin patch. Bennett McGrath was tired of buying pumpkins at a grocery store, so she orchestrated a patch, and it opened last weekend. Last year McGrath took her children along with some friends to Wrangell just to visit the pumpkin patch there. They made a vacation out of it – visited the bowling alley, got a hotel, explored more of downtown – but the premise was pumpkins. McGrath spent a few hundred dollars on boating and lodging just to get there. "I...
The Petersburg Swim and Dive team traveled to Sitka last weekend where Coach Andy Carlisle said most swimmers logged personal record times. The boys' relay team, which Carlisle thinks has a good chance to qualify for the state meet, placed in the top five on Friday and Saturday. "We are either first or second every time we get up there," Carlisle said on the boys' 200-yard relay performances. "They have been all year, so they're pretty stoked about that." The relay team, Britton Erickson, Ethan...
The Petersburg Volleyball team was bested narrowly in the finals at a one-and-done tournament in Juneau last weekend, but did jump ahead in conference play overall. The team attended the 23rd annual Juneau Invitational Volleyball Extravaganza on Friday and Saturday. In the Gold Bracket Single Elimination JIVE Tournament, Thunder Mountain from Juneau beat Petersburg in the championship. Juneau was the number five seed and Petersburg was three, losing by six points in the first match and two point...
The Petersburg roller derby team began its season on Saturday by winning in Sitka by more than 130, a runaway victory that the coach called a testament to preparation and conditioning. The Petersburg Ragnarök Rollers defeated the Sitka Sound Slayers, also known as Shee Devils, on Saturday evening 205 to 72. It was a rematch from last year, said Rebecca Anderson, the lady rollers' head coach. "We had anticipated that they would be coming at us, knowing our strengths and weaknesses and ready to...
To understand a tidewater glacier in Alaska – to picture its movement and how it sheds ice, or how it merges fresh water with salt water and shoots out the front – the first step is to remove it. "Picture a valley without any glacier," said Roman Motyka, a glaciologist and professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. "You have all these streams feeding into the main river that drain through the valley and into the ocean. The same thing is happening, except it's happening underneath the gla...
Officials in Petersburg were scrambling about two weeks ago when the borough recycling program almost shut down because the country recycling is sent to nearly refused to take it. The recycling in Petersburg is exported to China, and in a national effort to become more environmentally friendly, it announced that importation policies would become stringent, said Karl Hagerman, the Public Works director. The borough works with a recycling company called Republic Services that sends disposables to Seattle. From there, most is sent to China,...
There wasn't an oval to fill in or a write-in candidate to name, but voters helped make a decision for a man in the middle of one of the most talked-about issues in Petersburg. Karl Hagerman withdrew his name from consideration for the electric department's top position, dealing a blow to the borough manager's plan to restructure Power & Light. Since May, Manager Steve Giesbrecht planned to make Hagerman director of the electrical department. The reorganization would have reportedly saved the...
A cancer awareness organization in Petersburg is hosting a race this weekend and a poker tournament the next, both to raise funds for hospital equipment, travel costs, counseling and education to those affected by cancer. "People don't realize there is help available," said Michele Parker, the committee chair of Beat the Odds, which raised more than $31,000 from last year's run and the Circle of Life event in April. Beat the Odds will hold its 18th annual local race on Saturday, its first event...
The Petersburg School Board on Tuesday echoed a statement by the governor of Alaska that proclaimed October 2017 as the month to recognize school principals. Mara Lutomski, who was appointed to president of the school board in a meeting Wednesday, read from Gov. Bill Walker's proclamation to make this October as principals and assistant principals month. "We encourage all Alaskan's to recognize the invaluable contributions of Alaska's principals and assistant principals," Lutomski read, " ......
The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities started repainting white and yellow stripes Tuesday on Haugen Drive and Mitkof Highway. There is still wet paint on Haugen Drive where crews started the work, along with Mitkof Highway just past Papke’s Landing. Aurah Landau with the department said the paint in use is not drying as fast as it was intended to. An investigation into the paint is underway, and in the meantime, drivers are asked to follow the signage on the paint trucks and notice the markings along the impacted roads. ...
The Petersburg Cross Country team was recognized at the high school on Tuesday for its performance at the regional and state meets. The boys and girls both qualified for the ASAA Division II, 1A, 2A and 3A State Championship meet in Anchorage two weeks ago. That's the second time in four years both teams made it and the third time in about two decades, said Tommy Thompson, the head coach. Of the 14 teams in division two, the boys' team placed ninth. The girls' team finished in fourth place among...
State troopers arrested a Kake man last week after he sat in a Chevrolet pickup truck and allegedly sprayed semi-automatic gunfire into a construction site trailer with eight people inside, leaving no one hospitalized or shot. Jacob Hallingstad, 46, was arrested on Thursday in connection to the shooting in Kake. Nine charges were doled to him at a felony first hearing in Petersburg over the weekend, to which he teleconferenced from the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau. Sgt. Nicholas Zito with the Alaska State Troopers filed a report...
The summer months in Petersburg were cool and packed with nearly 30 inches of rain, leading into a winter season that forecasters are hard-pressed to calculate. Petersburg felt the third rainiest summer on record, placed behind 2014 and 2015, according to the National Weather Service in Juneau. The average temperatures ranked toward the middle, with cooler highs and warmer lows – a perfect recipe for about 28 inches of rainfall from June through August. As for winter, and predicting its weather, forecasters say it could be warm, cold, snowy o...
