Saturday
February 12, 2005
'Rainy
Day Quilters'
The 14th Annual Quilting in the Rain
Show: Feb. 12th- 13th
Upstairs Plaza Mall
- Ketchikan
Front Page Photo by Carl Thompson
 Alaska: Listen
to Governor Murkowski's Radio Message: This week's installment
includes the governor talking about the changing attitudes toward
opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to development. He
also talks about the prospects of opening ANWR this year.
Alaska: Education
Funding Bill Passes Out of First Committee; House Special Committee
Increases Basic Student Allocation - The Alaska House Special
Committee on Education passed out its first piece of legislation
earlier this week. HB 1, a bill to raise the foundation formula
for K-12 education by 7% moved out of the committee on Thursday.
HB 1 will raise the basic student
allocation to $4896, an increase over Governor Murkowski's request.
Representative Mark Neuman (R-Mat-Su) who chairs the Committee
was pleased with this result. "I am delighted that the first
bill to pass my committee be one that raises the foundation formula
in Alaska. As a legislator I believe I have no greater calling
than to provide for Alaska's future." - More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
Alaska: Alaska's
Commercial Salmon Fisheries to be Assessed for Recertification
- The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) announced
Friday that Scientific Certifications Systems (SCS) of Emeryville,
California has been awarded the contract to conduct the recertification
of the Alaska commercial salmon fishery. The fishery was
originally certified as sustainably managed by the Marine Stewardship
Council (MSC) in 2000, as the first fishery in North America
to be certified. Under MSC rules, all certified fisheries
must be fully re-assessed by an independent certification body
every five years.
"I look forward to the
successful recertification of Alaska's commercial salmon fisheries
by the Marine Stewardship Council," said ADF&G's Director
of Commercial Fisheries, Doug Mecum." Alaska's salmon
populations are healthy and vibrant and even better managed today
than they were when the fisheries were originally certified."
- More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
Alaska: North
Pacific Fishery Management Council Action to Protect Habitat
Praised - The Marine Conservation Alliance (MCA) priased
the action taken by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council
(Council) Thursday to protect fish habitat in the waters off
the coast of Alaska.
"We may not agree with
all the steps taken by the Council," said David Benton,
Executive Director of the MCA, "but we applaud the Council
for taking action to protect essential fish habitat in Alaska."
At its meeting in Seattle this
week, the Council adopted measures to close roughly 375,000 square
nautical miles to bottom trawling in federal waters off Alaska.
This includes 103,000 square nautical miles already closed by
the Council previously. The majority of the new closures were
established to protect coral habitats in the Aleutian Islands.
- More....
Saturday - February 12, 2005
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Elizabeth Peratrovich
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Ketchikan: Elizabeth
Peratrovich Day Celebration in Ketchikan - The local Elizabeth
Peratrovich Day Committee is hosting a three-day celebration
in honor of Alaska's civil rights leader, Elizabeth Peratrovich,
in Ketchikan, beginning Saturday, February 12, 2005.
Elizabeth Peratrovich made
history, along with the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska
Native Sisterhood and Alaska's Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening,
by successfully advocating for the Anti-Discrimination Act of
1945 in Alaska's Legislature. - More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
Alaska: Alaska
State Pension Investment Board Nominated For Top Public Pension
Plan in the U.S. - Institutional Investor announced in their
Money Management Letter that the Alaska State Pension
Investment Board is one of three nominees for top large public
(pension) plan in the United States for 2004. The other nominees
are the Pennsylvania State Employee Retirement System and the
State Universities Retirement System of Illinois.- More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
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Scientists work at
the Kikak-Tegoseak dinosaur bone quarry on Alaska's North Slope
in 2002. This site has yielded a large amount of horned dinosaur
bones and
bones from other dinosaurs, such
as hadrosaurs and theropods.
Photograph by Tony Fiorillo
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Alaska: Shedding
light on Arctic dinosaurs by Ned Rozell - Seventy million
years ago, northern Alaska was farther north than it is today.
How then, did the locals-northern dinosaurs-survive, and what
might they tell us about the future?
A team of scientists from Texas
and Fairbanks will try to answer those questions this summer
on Alaska's North Slope, the treeless plain north of the Brooks
Range. There, protruding from banks of the Colville River, are
some of the richest fossils beds of northern dinosaurs.
Paul McCarthy will be one of
the scientists heading north. McCarthy, a geologist and assistant
professor at the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute
and College of Natural Sciences and Math, studies ancient soils
to see what the climate might have been like in the time of the
dinosaurs. - More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
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Scotch Cap lighthouse
after tsunami
The Scotch Cap lighthouse on Alaska's Unimak Island was destroyed
by a tsunami in 1946.
Photo Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard & NOAA - National Geophysical
Data Center
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Alaska: Tsunami
Mystery - Scientists know that a massive undersea earthquake
spawned the cataclysmic tsunami that devastated south Asia and
killed more than 200,000 people just as last year came to a close.
But some 60 years ago, one
of the 20th Century's worst tsunamis swept from Alaska through
the Pacific, killing more than 150 people. Scientists today still
can't agree on just what caused it. Was it an earthquake, an
undersea landslide, or both? The answer may change how scientists
study tsunamis and how people prepare for them.
University of Hawaii researcher
Gerard Fryer says he knows exactly how the 1946 tsunami occurred.
He's absolutely convinced that an earthquake triggered a gargantuan
undersea landslide in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Like a boulder
dropped into a bathtub, Fryer says the landslide sent a tsunami
racing at jetliner speeds across the Pacific Ocean. - More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
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Rogelio Calderon
Photo courtesy KGH
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Ketchikan: Calderon
Named KGH Employee of the Month - Rogelio Calderon, Environmental
Services Technician, has been named Employee of the Month at
Ketchikan General Hospital (KGH) by a committee of his peers.
Calderon began working for
KGH in 1996 and worked for seven years in the Laundry/Linen Services
Department. His current position is in Environmental Services,
where among other areas, he has primary responsibility for housekeeping
within the Emergency Department. - More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
Ketchikan: UAS
Ketchikan Campus Gets Grant To Fund Training For Welding Students
- The Ketchikan Campus of the University of Alaska Southeast
has been awarded a State Training and Employment Program (STEP)
grant to fund welding students. Qualified applicants will be
enrolled in the 600 hour American Welding Society Entry Level
Welder class. Successful completion can lead to an elevated level
in apprenticeship programs with the Piledrivers and Divers Union.
- More...
Saturday - February 12, 2005
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The June Allen Column
is made possible in part by these sponsors. Cick on each name
to visit each web site.
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June Allen Column
 Sitka's
Pioneer Home Statue; Whose face is cast in bronze? By June
Allen - The little town of Sitka, the capital of Russian Alaska
until the U.S. Purchase in 1867, is home to the first of Alaska's
modern Pioneer Homes. Built in 1934, it is situated on the old
Russian parade grounds. The earlier and comparatively ramshackle
"pioneer homes" quarters in the gentler climate of
Sitka were founded especially for down-on-their-luck Gold Rush
veterans who decided to remain in Alaska after the glory days
were over. They were largely a tough and grizzled lot, tobacco-chewing
and fond of a good stiff drink or two. - Read
the rest of this feature story by June Allen...
Thursday - February 10, 2005
 L.
Ron Hubbard's Alaska Adventure; His long winter in Ketchikan
ACS
Bids for KPU Telecom: ACS a longtime presence
Betty
King the Dog Lady; Ketchikan's one-woman humane society
Ketchikan,
Alaska - Let There Be Light! -- Citizens Light & Power and
then KPU
The
State Capitol and Its Marble and keeping the capital in Juneau
A
Legendary Mountain of Jade; Just one of Alaska's Arctic Wonders
John
Koel, Baker to Banker; An eccentric philanthropist
Harold
Gillam: A Tragic Final Flight; Ketchikan remembers the search
Ketchikan's
'Fish House Tessie'; She was proud of the nickname
Fairbanks:
Golden Heart City; A story of its founding
Remembering
'Swede' Risland (1915-1991);The town's most memorable logger
Read more feature stories by June Allen...
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'Our Troops'
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