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There are three not-so-new medical providers seeing patients at Petersburg Medical Center. Dr. Alice Hulebak is back, and her husband Erik Hulebak is now a Physician's Assistant (PA). Also, Angela Menish has completed her education and is now working as a nurse practitioner. Dr. Alice Hulebak has worked at Petersburg Medical Center before, from 2010-2013, but moved back to Albequerque, New Mexico for her husband to attend PA school. Most recently they worked in Kalispell, Montana but had been... Full story
Stedman Elementary School students got an education in fire safety last week from members of the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department who visited the school to give demonstrations and show instructional videos. The Learn Not to Burn program has been on hiatus for the last couple of years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students were able to visit the fire station for some instruction last year, but this was the first time since the pandemic that PVFD members have been back in the school as...
Saturday morning a group of concerned Petersburg residents met at the Wright Auditorium to participate in the second Childcare Community Café to address the childcare crisis affecting the local workforce, businesses, families, and economy. The meeting, hosted by the SHARE (Supporting Health Awareness, Resilience, and Education) Coalition, began with a viewing of a 23-minute video entitled "Voices for a Better Future: Community Impacts of Childcare in Petersburg," followed by a community... Full story
The five candidates running for the two seats on the Petersburg Borough Assembly participated in a candidate forum on Monday in the assembly chambers hosted by KFSK and the Petersburg Pilot. Assembly Member Jeigh Stanton Gregor, Assembly Member Chelsea Tremblay, Donna Marsh, Scott Newman, and Kurt Wohlhueter were presented with the same questions and were each given one minute to respond in a random order. The first part of the forum saw candidates answer questions asked by members of the media...
WRANGELL – Issues with lingering supply chain disruptions that started with the COVID-19 pandemic have put hunters and gun enthusiasts in a bind. Though there are signs that ammunition shortages are on the decline, stores in Southeast — and nationwide — are still having trouble getting stocked up, leading shooters to go on the hunt for ammo or to create their own. Last month, Mike White, manager of Sentry Hardware, was still waiting on a $75,000 ammo order he had placed in January. He said incoming stock is better than it was a year ago, yet o...
The Petersburg High School gym has been packed for the last two weeks with students eager to play volleyball this season. Though their practice shirts have already arrived, Coach Jaime Cabral said with 36 students on the team, including seven seniors, he now needs to order more, which is a great problem to have. “It’s an energetic group, a tight-knit group too but they work well together,” Cabral said. Currently the students are split up into two groups based on their skill level and knowledge of rotations but students will have the oppor...
Goodbyes are hard. I suppose that is evidenced by my need to write one more time after already signing off for the season. One thing COVID taught us all is that despite the best laid plans, life is uncertain. And the only constant is change. Yes we plan to be back next Spring. Last year we planned to see my brother-in-law again, but he was a healthy kayaker one day and three days later he was gone without goodbyes. That was COVID. So now although we plan to see the island again and check on all the good work we did this year to see how it...
Jeigh Stanton Gregor What is your age? 45 What experience do you have? I have 20 years of leadership experience. I was responsible for keeping groups of kids and adults safe year-round in the Montana wilderness. My leadership skills were also used to help strengthen program leadership teams. Currently, I've been on the assembly for 8.5 years, and we've addressed many issues during this time. Two recent issues come to mind that I'd like to highlight: I made an amendment to make community gym...
The Petersburg High School cross country team hosted over 150 students from 14 schools last Saturday for the Jack Eddy Invitational. The meet saw a return to the regular course near Sandy Beach after three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "It's always exciting to have that many come to Petersburg to enjoy the hospitality," Head Coach Tom Thompson said. The Petersburg men placed third as a team with 108 points behind Sitka with 17 and Thunder Mountain with 52. Sitka Junior Annan Weiland...
The Mitkof Mummers will be holding a casting call on Tuesday as they mount a return to the stage after over two years without a show. In most years the Mummers would hold a fall show and a spring show during Mayfest, but they have been unable to do so since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though there were some ideas of what could be done during the pandemic including radio plays, it was just too hard to put together, said Irene Littleton, the Mummer's director. But now that they are able...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously to pass Ordinance #2022-11 in its third and final reading during Tuesday’s meeting, allowing for increases to the purchasing authorization limits of borough officials. The ordinance now gives the borough manager the authority to set the spending limits for individual department heads. It also increases the borough manager’s purchasing authorization limit, allowing the borough manager to authorize purchases costing more than a department head’s limit but less than $75,000. Previously depar...
WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Thursday signed off on the approval from the agency’s independent vaccine advisers that recommended an updated coronavirus vaccine booster this fall. The CDC recommended boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for those who are 12 years old and older and from Moderna for those who are 18 and older. These are known as “bivalent” vaccines because they are formulated to protect against the original coronavirus strain as well as the omicron variant, which is highly contagious. “Updated COVID-19...
WRANGELL - Twenty years ago, the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes asked the Portland Art Museum to return nine objects that were taken from the Naanya.aayí clan in Wrangell almost 100 years ago. Among them are a mudshark hat and shirt, killer whale stranded on a rock robe, killer whale hat, killer whale with a hole wooden fin, killer whale flotilla Chilkat robe, two mudshark shirts, and a headdress the clan says was captured from the Tsimshian during a battle near the mouth of...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly hosted a work session Monday evening to get a better understanding of the challenges faced when developing or purchasing homes in Petersburg and to help give direction to the newly formed Housing Task Force. The work session saw assembly members meet with representatives with varying experience of the local housing issue. Attendees included WAVE Executive Director Annette Bennett, local contractor Kevin Hagan, local builders Gary Aulbach and Joshua Adams, PIA...
WRANGELL – Beginning Sept. 7, the annual Sharing Our Knowledge conference of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes and clans will be held in Wrangell for the first time. This five-day event will take place at the Nolan Center and will feature a film festival, a panel discussion and a wide variety of research presentations on subjects ranging from Indigenous history to art. Organizers expect an estimated 200 people to arrive in town for the event. Because the anticipated attendance exceeds the capacity of Wrangell’s hotels and bed and bre...
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he will cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant borrowers and up to $10,000 for all other borrowers with an income of less than $125,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a household. Biden also announced his administration is extending a pause on student loan repayments until Dec. 31. The decision comes one week before the expiration of a pause of student loan repayments put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. “Here’s the deal, the cost... Full story
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 5-0 to approve a list ranking its top capital projects for FY24 during Monday’s meeting. Mayor Mark Jensen and Assembly Member Thomas Fine-Walsh were excused. The priority list was organized by Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht who presented it to the assembly to amend and approve it. It originally featured the 15 highest priority capital projects for FY24 but was decreased to 13 projects after the assembly removed the Blind Slough hydroelectric refurbishment and the South Harbor dredging projects, which a...
The Petersburg Medical Center has reported two positive cases of COVID-19 among Long Term Care residents over the past week. The first case was reported on July 8 and an additional case was identified on Tuesday after a second round of testing. According to PMC, both positive residents have mild symptoms and are being isolated. The hospital reported that it has been in contact with State of Alaska Epidemiology and is currently checking residents for symptoms twice a day and testing residents and staff twice a week. Residents and staff are also...
Hunting guide Logan Canton has been working all over the state since 2008, including conducting black bear hunts in Southeast. He says, one of the biggest changes he's seen locally is an increase in nonresident hunters coming here to hunt bear, and the 2021-2022 season that just wrapped up on June 30 was no exception. For years, good genetics on Prince of Wales Island produced a reputation for black bears with big skulls. That, combined with the infrastructure, road system and an array of...
After leading the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department for 14 years, Fire/EMS Director Sandy Dixson celebrated her retirement at an event last week in the fire station. Current and former PVFD volunteers, Petersburg Borough Assembly members, borough staff, and other community members gathered to mark the occasion and present Dixson with a plaque to recognize her time with the department. Dixson gave her final address to the assembly during its June 20 meeting where she shared her story and...
