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The Lady Vikings wrapped up the regular season with two victories against Wrangell before the Thanksgiving break. The teams played in Petersburg on Friday and faced off in Wrangell the next night. The weekend also marked senior appreciation for the two teams. Five seniors played during the weekend, and one missed the occasion because she was traveling. "Senior night was great, it was hard," said head coach Jaime Cabral. "Kind of emotional for me with this group leaving, but it was good." Cabral...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly passed a rezoning ordinance in its second reading Monday night. The ordinance is designed to rezone 919 Sandy Beach Road from public use to single-family residential in preparation to auction off the property early next year. The change in zoning will hopefully make the property more attractive for purchase. Funds from the auction process would go toward the municipal building renovation project. Assembly member Cindi Lagoudakis opposed the zoning change. “I looked again at this parcel. At the time that this w...
Motivational speaker Michael Patterson traveled to town last week to take part in the Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the Petersburg Indian Association. Patterson spoke to middle school students at the Wright Auditorium on Thursday, and then he took part in an event later in the day at PIA. Patterson started living on the streets at a young age, before he was 10, and he's open about the fact he could die from COPD any day because he smoked cigarettes for decades. A lot of Patterson's...
The high school gym was filled with locals of all ages last Friday as the school and its students honored Petersburg men and women who have served our country. Jim Engell told those in attendance a brief history of how the Veteran’s Day Assembly came about in the 1980s. “A lot of schools around the country take the day off, you can go to the malls and there’s big sales and all those things,” Engell said. “I love the fact that we actually have school, and here we are today honoring our veterans.” Some fifth graders carried flags during the...
The Petersburg Police Department is looking forward to moving into the newly renovated municipal building, but in the meantime the department is just looking to become fully staffed, according to Chief Kelly Swihart. “We are a little short staffed,” he says. “Right now we have 15 full-time equivalents assigned.” The department made budget cuts during the last budget cycle, under the direction of the borough manager, resulting in cross-training staff. The training focused on reducing gaps the department needed to cover, and having officers train...
NOAA has confirmed a new record low for precipitation last month. The official amount of rain for October collected by the Petersburg Co-op Station was the same as the airport reported with 3.07 inches falling the entire month, according to NOAA meteorologist Rick Fritsch. The previous record for low precipitation in Petersburg for October came in 2012 when 6.12 inches fell. Rain in Inches October 5 .12 October 13 .10 October 14 .17 October 15 .18 October 16 .05 October 17 .31 October 18 .58...
The first ever Rasmuson Art Show will be held this weekend at the Clausen Memorial Museum according to director Kathi Riemer. The event will showcase the three newest pieces the museum purchased with funds from the Rasmuson Foundation and will include a reception on Friday night. The museum put out a call for artists to submit artworks before they applied for funding. The artwork must fit the Clausen Museum's collection policy, basically anything to do with Southeast Alaska, and be the creation...
The entire PHS wrestling squad made the trip to Metlakatla last weekend and stayed aggressive earning multiple first place finishes on the first day of competition. Petersburg ended up gaining the most team points on day one, and the second most on day two. There were three rounds on day one and two rounds on day two. Petersburg faced multiple wrestlers from Ketchikan, a team looking to be a powerhouse, but some of their best wrestlers stayed home. Buddy Stelmach placed first at 126 pounds on...
Bill Neumann spent 20 years teaching shop in Petersburg and smoke houses built by his students can still be seen around town. Neumann's oldest students might be reaching retirement age, but they still remember him, even if he doesn't always remember them. "I'll go to the post office and some guy will come up and shake my hand and what I have to say is, 'The face is familiar but I can't put a name on it,'" he says. "But I love that, and I'm so thankful that I've stayed in Petersburg. So many...
The PHS volleyball team traveled to Skagway last weekend for the final seeding tournament of the season. The Lady Vikings will be the second seed when Regionals rolls around next month and the Craig Lady Panthers will be the number one seed. "We lost our game against Craig," head coach Jaime Cabral said. "We fought back a little, but our first contacts just were not in sync." The Lady Vikings ended up dropping the game to Craig 25-21 and 25-18. Cabral thinks the pressure of becoming the number o...
A Chicago-based casting company is looking for Norwegian-Americans interested in learning more about their ancestry. Norway's popular reality TV show Alt for Norge or The Great Norway Adventure, is now accepting applications. "It's not a typical reality show that we'd think of, it's not mean spirited," says Joan O'Connor of O'Connor Casting Company. "It features people who really want to get in touch with their Norwegian ancestry." If chosen they'd be part of a 12-person cast and be flown to...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly held a public hearing regarding the issue of taking over three docks from state control on Monday. The assembly voted to draft a response to the state and asked for $1.2 million for the maintenance, raising the state’s original offer by $500,000, for the Kupreanof and Papke’s Landing docks. The letter respectfully declined the transfer of ownership for the Entrance Island dock. The original offer from the state included that property in addition to Kupreanof and Papke’s with a total of $730,000 for maint...
The Petersburg High School has a new club called Rotary Interact, and it held its first meeting last month with around 20 interested kids. The club is open to any student in the eighth grade or above and the goal is for students to improve their community through regular service work. PHS teacher Ginger Evens says the group will meet once a month and complete a project once a month also. The project could be service oriented like partnering with the Salvation Army for a winter coat drive for tee...
The National Ocean Science Bowl Team traveled to Sitka last weekend for a scrimmage, including trivia and presentations about whales, past, present and future. It was the 20th anniversary of Sitka's Whalefest and four students made the trip. "The presentations were quite interesting," said junior Joey Giesbrecht. "The skirmishes were interesting, even though they were first years." PHS competed against inexperienced Ketchikan and Sitka squads, and Petersburg won every match. Anders Christensen...
Over a thousand Petersburg voters made their voices heard regarding national and local politics in the 2016 election that wrapped up Tuesday night. Petersburg Borough voters supported the president-elect Donald Trump who will be the 45th President of the United States of America. The Republican candidate received over 575 votes, amounting to about 55 percent of local voters. Democrat Hillary Clinton earned just over 30 percent on Petersburg and Kupreanof ballots at almost 335 votes. Local...
PHS took six wrestlers to the Anchorage Christian Schools Invitational or ACS last weekend which is a highlight of the season for many athletes statewide. The Vikings at the tournament were aggressive on the mats, making coach Dan van Swearingen smile. “They wrestled well, we were pretty good on our feet,” he says. “We were tough and we were physical.” Buddy Stelmach is at the top of his weight class when it comes to performing, and van Swearingen says the difference between the third best wrestler at 126-pounds and the first is very small....
PHS sent three swimmers to state in Juneau last weekend, and head coach Andy Carlisle said the team had a really good trip. Izabelle Ith qualified for finals in both her events. “It was awesome,” Ith said. “I had a really, really good time.” Ith earned seventh in the 50 yard freestyle and sixth place in the 100 yard freestyle. Carlisle said Ith was a little disappointed with the results of 100, because she went into the event seeded fourth after a good performance in prelims. It was the fourth trip to state for Ith, and she achieved her goal of...
The borough assembly had over 20 people attend its Monday meeting this week. Many of the people in attendance were there to talk about the dock issue, and it seemed like the other half were there for the controversial proposal for the borough to sell Lot 10 in the 900 block of Sandy Beach Road. The borough would have to vacate a portion of a public easement to sell the land in question, 919 Sandy Beach Road. Vacation of the easement would mean adjacent property owner Kris Norosz would be unable...
The local airport is one of two locations collecting rainfall and other forecast information on Mitkof Island. The airport readings are unofficial, but figures for October look to be record setting with only 3.07 inches of precipitation, according to NOAA meteorologist Pete Boyd. “This October was an incredibly dry month due to the setup of high pressure systems that were mostly over the Yukon and western Canada,” he says. “Which kept us with the offshore flow, thus keeping the sunny weather throughout the entire timeframe.” The officia...
Fifteen PHS students qualified to participate in the SE Honor Music Festival in Haines last month. There were eight band members and seven choir members and music teacher Matt Lenhard says that is probably the most musicians Petersburg has ever sent to the festival. “It was a wonderful, wonderful festival,” he says. “We were really contributing to the quality of the festival, especially with the kids on first chair.” Lenhard says seeing four first chairs in the honor band was by far one of his best days with PHS. In the last 18 years, he’s on...
The Petersburg High School wrestling team headed south for the 2016 Bill Weiss Invitational last weekend and finished in the middle of 15 teams. The Vikings ran into some quality competition and a couple wrestlers managed to place but no one took a championship. “It was a tough tournament and we didn’t take a full team,” said Coach Dan van Swearingen. “We were a little bit rusty on our feet.” Wrestlers made small mistakes allowing their opponents to capitalize and swing matches in their favor. Coach van Swearingen said Brandon Ware lost a co...
The high school swim team performed well at regions last weekend qualifying three swimmers for the state meet in Juneau this weekend. A couple swimmers barely missed out on making the trip to Juneau, but everyone gave it their best, according to head coach Andy Carlisle. Ben Higgins and Izabelle Ith will return to state for the second consecutive year. Higgins earned third place in the 200 yard freestyle and second place in the 500 yard freestyle. His time in the 200 was a best time and the 500 time was right at his best time. Ith won the 100...
Petersburg played host to over 10 teams last weekend for the All Comers Tournament. Head coach Jaime Cabral and the coaching staff were busy taking turns coaching three PHS squads that saw a lot of action over the weekend. Psg 3, the youngest PHS team, finished first in their pool and headed to the silver bracket. The team played against competitors like Ketchikan and Sitka, and Cabral called their performance “awesome.” Nina McCay did great in her role of outside hitter and Miranda Nilsen was busy patrolling the net all weekend. Cabral say...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly unanimously voted to authorize borough manager Stephen Giesbrecht to enter into a cost share agreement for a dredging study of South Harbor at its meeting Monday night. The harbor is becoming increasingly difficult for some larger vessels to access. The agreement allows the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to gather information on the project to determine the feasibility of a long-term partnership with the borough. The federal agency will pay the initial $100,000 for... Full story
In 1971, there was a record setting stretch of 17 days without rain during September and October. In 2012, there was a 13-day stretch during the same period with dry weather, according to NOAA meteorologist David Levin based in Juneau. Levin says the lowest total on record for precipitation for October came in 2012. And it steadily increased with 13.76 inches the next year, 15.97 inches in 2014, and 19.27 inches falling last year. He says there’s a chance the total rainfall for October this year could challenge the 2012 amount of 6.12 inches, o... Full story
