What Ketchikan Collects Borough Assembly member and perennial campaigner Jack Shay studies political buttons from Richard Van Cleave's collection. "Where's my campaign button?" he quipped. - Read more & view photo gallery.... Front Page PhotoCourtesy Tongass Historical Museum    Ketchikan Charter Commission Information/Forum Survey Results & Comments SURVEY: The Ketchikan Charter Commission needs your assistance in naming the new combined government and the service area of the present City of Ketchikan. This questionnaire will close on May 31, 2004. click here Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Another Solution For The School Housing Crisis by Bobbie McCreary - Ketchikan - 05/27/04 Future of the MV Taku by Dave Kiffer - Ketchikan - 05/26/04 Collaborate for a win-win solution by Cecelia Johnson - Ketchikan - 05/26/04 Read More Viewpoints Publish A Letter May 2004 Click on the date to read the stories & to view photos published on that day... S M T W T F S 25  26  27 28   29  30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31            Today's Front Page Front Page Archives               Ketchikan - What Ketchikan Collects - The Tongass Historical Museum's summer exhibit, What Ketchikan Collects, opened Friday, May 7, with a public reception attended by more than 240 people. The new exhibit features samplings of the personal collections of 66 Ketchikan residents. Each collection is accompanied by a story or statement from the collector about its personal significance and special associations. - Read more... Thursday - May 27, 2004 Alaska: Research team heads back to Denali's shoulder - Japanese mountaineer Yoshitomi Okura will soon attempt to reach two lofty goals-the repair of a weather station high on Mt. McKinley and then a walk uphill to stand on its summit for the fifteenth consecutive year. Okura, 53, lives in Japan but travels to Alaska each summer to climb Mt. McKinley with a team of young climbers from Japan and a few Americans who assist with repair and maintenance of the weather station. The weather station, six aluminum poles bolted together to provide perches for weather instruments, sits above Denali Pass in perhaps one of the windiest places on Earth. "There's certainly bursts of 100 miles per hour plus winds that go through that pass," said Roger Robinson, chief mountaineering ranger for Denali National Park. The weather station recorded an unofficial wind speed of 188 miles per hour three days before it stopped working in January 2003. When Okura and a climbing team took the West Buttress route to the station in 2003, they found that a whip antenna was missing. Okura and a team climbed back up the mountain's West Buttress route with replacement equipment in June 2003, but the equipment stopped transmitting to a satellite a few minutes after its installation. Though Okura and another team member returned to the station to check cable connections, the station still failed to transmit. - Read more & view photo... Thursday - May 27, 2004

David Landis Announces Candidacy For Alaska State Senate Ketchikan: Landis Announces Candidacy For Alaska State Senate - Ketchikan resident David Landis announced Tuesday he will be a Democratic candidate for Alaska State Senate in District "A". Landis, currently Borough Vice Mayor and a member of the Assembly, said "I am running because I'm concerned about Senate decisions that may undermine the basic needs of Alaskans this next regular session or even in the recently-announced special session". Landis said he wants to make sure there is protection for the Permanent Fund Dividend. "I grew up with the PFD, and know how important it was when I was trying to make ends meet. I can categorically say that I will never vote for anything that will prevent my fellow Alaskans from getting their share of our State's resource wealth" - Read more... Thursday - May 27, 2004

Houghtaling Holds Annual Awards Ceremony Twins Bianca and Briana Smith happily share a Science Award... Photo by Karen Hollywood Ketchikan: Houghtaling Holds Annual Awards Ceremony - Friday, May 28th marks the last day of school for the remainder of Ketchikan's students (High School Seniors are already out!). Houghtaling Elementary held their Annual Awards Ceremonies on Wednesday, the 26th, with Principal Les McCormick presiding. Among awards given were certificates of recognition for perfect attendance (including Mark O'Brien - a teacher!), awards for fundraising, Band, and an exceptional amount for the Science Fair science projects that Houghtaling students participated in this year. - Read more & view photo gallery... Thursday - May 27, 2004 Alaska: Olson takes 17th Coast Guard District helm - Rear Adm. James C. Olson relieved Rear Adm. James W. Underwood as commander of the 17th Coast Guard District in a ceremony at Juneau's Centennial Hall Convention Center Wednesday morning. Ketchikan is one of the areas included in the 17th Coast Guard District. - Read more & view photo... Thursday - May 27, 2004

Southeast Alaska Glacier Photo courtesy Virginia Tech Alaska: Mountains have the scars to prove the conflict between tectonic plates and climate - Across the world, rivers wash mountains into the sea. In the beautiful and rugged mountains of southeast Alaska, glaciers grind mountains down as fast as the earth's colliding tectonic plates shove them up. - Read more... Thursday - May 27, 2004 Columnist Michael Reagan - Making Sausage - Nobody likes to watch sausage being made but we love it when it's finished. We cook it, we embrace it, and we eat it. And we forget the revolting process that produced it. Watching developments in the war on terrorism and the current Iraq situation as reported by the media is a lot like watching sausage being made. Thanks to the media we see everything that's going on, at least as it is seen through the media's essentially anti-war prism. It gives us 20/20 hindsight that informs us that everybody could do a better job of handing things than the Bush administration and the military are handling them. - Read more... Thursday - May 27, 2004

The June Allen Column is made possible in part by these sponsors. Cick on each name to visit each web site. June Allen Ketchikan's American Legionnaires; Here's to 'the boys' of Post #3 - At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - Nov. 11, 1918 - the Armistice was signed that ended the Great War in Europe. Almost two years earlier the United States had declared war against Germany and set sail to join the already-fighting British in France. American forces sailed off across the Atlantic to rousing choruses of George M. Cohen's latest Tin-Pan Alley hit, "Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word over there that the Yanks are comin'! the Yanks are comin'." Those Yanks were from Maine to California as well as from the remotest regions of the Territory of Alaska! Once arrived in Europe, they jolted across the French countryside in careening trucks and marched to the front lines to join in the bloody trench warfare against the German Kaiser. - Read the rest of this story by June Allen... Tuesday - May 11, 2004 Ketchikan's Cruise Ship Industry; A light-hearted look at its origins Ketchikan's First City Players; Did you hear that applause? A biography of Alaska's herring: A little fish of huge importance... Read more stories by June Allen...

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