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Some new and some returning faces have joined the ranks of the Petersburg School District staff in preparation for the upcoming school year. Erin Hofacre will be starting her first year of teaching in one of Stedman Elementary School's two first grade classrooms. She earned her bachelor's degree at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington where she received endorsements for elementary, reading, and special education. "I was able to go to a great program with lots of practical work so I feel l...
The Petersburg School Board updated its COVID-19 mitigation plan for the upcoming school year during its meeting last week. The school district is required to update its plan by the Alaska Department of Education and under the American Rescue Plan funding. The new guidelines resemble those the district had at the end of the previous school year but with a couple of changes. Masking will remain optional for students, staff, and visitors and there will be no trigger for universal masking or...
August 18, 1922 An all-Alaskan products dinner at which the Territory of Alaska will entertain five hundred Washington state newspaper men and their friends is the event planned as the closing feature of the eleventh annual Journalism Week next year. It will be the third in a series of State Press Association social affairs. The first was the Northwest products dinner, the second was the Hawaiian banquet. Alaska proposes next year to outdo all previous efforts. All foods used in the preparation of the dinner will be sent directly from the...
Bear sightings are continuing to rise as they frequent the streets of Petersburg in search of garbage. In response, Petersburg Police Department Chief Jim Kerr spoke during Monday's Petersburg Borough Assembly meeting on the threat bears pose and actions the police department has taken to reduce their presence. "To try and get the bear issue to drop before school starts we started issuing citations enforcing the new garbage ordinance," Kerr said. The ordinance, which was approved by the...
Lust for a supersize Alaska Permanent Fund dividend and giving the government a larger role in dictating personal choices are about as miserable a pair of reasons for rewriting the state constitution as imaginable. Problem is, they are not imagined, they are real. Alaskans will vote in 12 weeks whether they want to convene a constitutional convention to embark on rewriting the state’s founding document. The constitution requires that voters get a chance every 10 years to decide if they want a do-over on the 1950s’ guiding principles of law...
Part of our mission is to make the Five-Finger Lighthouse accessible to the public and to share its historical importance. It’s somewhat like living in a museum. Originally four men were stationed here, so we have four bedrooms in the living quarters. In three of them we have arranged a total of nine dormitory style bunk beds. The fourth room is kept as a private space for the keepers. This is essential because the rest of the Lighthouse, including the living quarters, must be presentable to guests at all times with only a moment’s notice. So...
August 10 – An officer assisted a citizen on Fram Street. An officer attempted to find the source of a 911 call that initiated in the North Boat Harbor but hung up. A driver on South Nordic Drive was issued a warning for driving with an expired registration. A deer was struck and killed on Mitkof Highway. It was unsalvageable. An officer responded to a report of counterfeit cash at a local business but determined the cash was authentic. A runaway dog was returned to its owner on Kiseno Street. An officer responded to a report of a dog hanging o...
August 3, 2022 In the Superior Court at Petersburg, Superior Court Judge Katherine Lybrand presided over a status hearing in State of Alaska v. Jonathan Mazzella. The prosecution asked for court ordered 90 day treatment, stating that once the defendant completed inpatient treatment they would look at a change of plea. A status hearing was set for November 28. In the Superior Court at Petersburg, Superior Court Judge Amy Mead presided over a change of plea hearing in State of Alaska v. Chase Allen Martin. The defendant agreed to plea guilty to T...
The popular custom benches began years ago, when Karen Hofstad and Sue Paulson approached Josef Quitslund with the idea of creating something that could be at the center of Cannery Park. The women both had an interest in establishing the space to showcase the local history of the town and pay tribute to their loved ones that had a hand in that history, Quitslund says. "A memorial bench is a nice way to honor someone's memory," he says. "It's a place for the ones left behind to reflect and other...
Tens of thousands of Alaskans will lose access to expanded food stamp benefits in September after the state ended its public health emergency in July. The end of certain additional benefits under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program comes as food aid groups say need is reaching previous pandemic highs while prices are soaring. Plus, other pandemic-era benefits, like the child tax credit and rental assistance, are expiring too, said Cara Durr, director of public engagement at the Food Bank of Alaska. “We know families are s...
8,832 passengers and 2,515 vehicles boarded the ferry in Petersburg in 2011, and 9046 passengers and 2,434 vehicles arrived in town. In 2021, the ridership into Petersburg was 829 passengers, a decrease of about 90 percent from a decade before. Vehicles dropped 75 percent to 595, according to statistics provided by the Alaska Marine Highway System. And 2021's numbers are up from the pandemic-worst travel year. In 2020, just 409 passengers and 313 vehicles disembarked in Petersburg. But...
Students on the Petersburg High School swim team are spending their afternoons training in the aquatic center for the fast approaching fall season. The team is in the midst of its third week of training and though not everyone has returned from the summer fishing season, the students that are back have been putting in the work. “We’re still gaining fitness, we’re just starting to ramp it up this week a little bit so we’ll put the hurt on them starting today really,” Coach Andy Carlisle said Tuesday. “The kids that come late just have to jum...
The state will receive about $36 million less in federal funding than expected for this year’s Alaska Marine Highway System operating budget, requiring the use of state dollars to cover the gap. No reduction in service is expected because of the budget shuffle, state officials said. But it could mean that legislators next year will need to approve additional state funds to fully make up for the loss of federal aid, exposing the ferries to another vote in the political process. The governor had looked to federal infrastructure money to r...
Applications are due by Oct. 31 for more than $39 million in the second round of federal relief funds for those in Alaska’s fishing industry who incurred a greater than 35% income loss in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state was involved in deciding the allocation of the federal aid between different fishing interests in Alaska. The money is Alaska’s share of $255 million in grants being distributed nationwide to help the fishing industry recover from income losses suffered during the worst of the pandemic. The first rou...
For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., source of more than half of Alaska’s general-purpose state revenue, posted negative investment returns for an entire fiscal year. As of June 30, the last day of the just-ended fiscal year 2022, the fund reported having earned minus-1.32% over the preceding 12 months. The decline will not have an immediate effect on state finances, but continued losses over multiple years would reduce the amount of money available each year for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend. B... Full story
David and Tanya Somerville, the parents of Cole Michael Somerville, are happy to announce the marriage of Cole Somerville to Hatsumi Sekiguchi. Cole and Hatsumi met while Cole was traveling in Japan in the beginning of 2020. We were able to meet, and came to love, Hatsumi during her visit to Petersburg in the fall of 2020 through the beginning of 2021. While many marriages have been put on hold due to Covid restrictions, instead of delaying, Cole and Hatsumi decided to be married without a...
Leif Wikan was born in Petersburg, Alaska on March 9, 1931 to Olaf and Mette Wikan. His parents immigrated to the U.S. from Norway in the 1920s. His father was a commercial fisherman. Leif passed away peacefully on August 8, 2022. In the Fall 1949, Leif entered Washington State University where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. He returned to Petersburg every summer to work as a commercial fisherman to pay for his education and graduated in 1954 with a degree in Hotel... Full story
Democratic candidate Mary Peltola left election day leading Alaska's special election for U.S. House, but the state's new ranked choice voting system may leave Republican candidate and former governor Sarah Palin the ultimate winner. As of Wednesday afternoon, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, Peltola had earned 38.03% of first-choice vote in a race that will determine who fills Alaska's lone U.S. House seat until January, completing the term left unfinished by the death of Congressman Don... Full story
Special General Election: In Petersburg 725, or 24.22%, of the precinct’s 2,993 registered voters turned out. The preliminary numbers for Petersburg show Sarah Palin in the lead by a single vote. Sarah Palin: 256 Mary Peltola: 255 Nick Begich: 192 Absentee ballots postmarked by election day will still be counted until August 31st, at which time the ranked choice tabulations will determine the winner of the US House seat. Primary Election results in Petersburg U.S. Senate Lisa Murkowski: 312 votes (44.44%) Kelly Tshibaka: 258 (36.75%) U.S. H...
Nestled beneath the gray clouds is Gina Esposito's art project-a garden filled with color which has blossomed into her favorite space. Gina knew she wanted to garden when she first moved into the house on Lake Street where she now lives with her husband Paul Olsen and their two children. The garden has had many incarnations, but work began on it in 2009 starting with dirt and tarps before putting in raised beds and a fence around 10 years ago. Since then she has gone on to add raspberry beds, ba...
"We were back and forth and back and forth about the wisdom of building," says Sharon Hunter. "It takes a while...it's like childbirth. One must forget what goes into the endeavor." Brad and Sharon Hunter built their first house back in 1990. A fine house where they raised their family. That house, up on Vesta Street, is now owned by their daughter Margaret and her husband Jesse Agner. And when their children had graduated into adulthood and Brad and Sharon reached retirement age, their...
