Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 1919
Caleb Morrow is a journalism and communications student at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. This week he arrived in Petersburg to join the newsroom as the Pilot's summer reporting intern. Morrow's path to journalism started in fourth grade, when he picked "sports journalist" on career day. During high school, when COVID shut down in-person events, he joined his school's broadcasting club that put Morrow behind a microphone doing play-by-play for football games that fans...
A few weeks ago and during their first meet of the season, the Petersburg boys 4x100 relay team came within a few mere seconds of setting a new school record. After the meet, the team consisting of Brayden Tucker, Alex Homgrain, Noah Pawuk and Jakob Preisler planned to set a new school record. This past weekend, a new school record was born in the 4x100 and 4x200 relay. The 4x100 team ran an official time of 46 seconds (46.41) and the 4x200 team, consisting of Brayden Tucker, Nolan Lutomski,...
Susan Wanberg, 77, passed away peacefully on May 3, 2026 with her family by her side. Susan was born on November 3, 1948, in Petersburg, Alaska, to Thomas Wanberg and Genevieve (Murray) Wanberg. She was the middle of three siblings, with an older brother, Daniel "Danny" Wanberg, and a younger sister, Laurie Dunham. Susan spent her childhood in Petersburg and graduated from Petersburg High School. She received a scholarship to attend beauty school in Eugene, Oregon, before moving to Juneau,... Full story
The 68th year of Little Norway Festival opens Thursday, May 14, for four days of parades, smørbrød, live music, competitive herring-tossing and all manner of communal revelry that could only happen in this town. The celebration runs through Sunday, May 17. "I love that everybody comes to town," said Kelli Slaven, who coordinates the festival schedule for the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. "I love seeing all the people downtown - the kids running, familiar faces and new ones. It just kind of mak...
Congratulating our teachers To The Editor: The Petersburg Children’s Center administration, including the Executive Director and Board of Directors, would like to congratulate our lead teachers for completing their Child Development Associate (CDA) credentials. This is a nationally recognized certification and it provides peace of mind that our staff are qualified, caring and amazing. Help us congratulate them on this feat! We will be working on getting all of our staff credentialed in the near future. With thanks and pride, Sharlay Mamoe a...
This year's Little Norway Festival is bursting with music. Local acts take the festival's downtown main stage across Friday and Saturday this year, spanning jazz, classic rock, Appalachian folk and everything between. Evening shows at Kito's Kave and the Harbor Bar keep the live music rocking and the dance floor bumping into the middle of the night. And the weekend closes with a classical music piano concert at the Lutheran Church. "I absolutely love it," said Robyn Cardenas, who curated the...
The Little Norway Festival closes Sunday evening with a world class piano concert at Petersburg Lutheran Church. Corbin Beisner - a concert pianist who has performed at the Conservatoire Liceu in Barcelona, the Liszt Saal in Rome, and concert halls across Europe and the United States - arrived in Petersburg this week for a 7 p.m. recital Sunday at Petersburg Lutheran Church. The program includes the complete Moonlight Sonata, a full Grieg section, Christian Sinding's "Rustle of Spring" and...
Construction on a long-planned sewer line repair project at the Petersburg Community Aquatic Center will begin May 18, and the pool will close for at least the first month of work as contractors cut through concrete slab floors to access blocked and disconnected drain lines beneath the locker rooms. Parks and Recreation Director Stephanie Payne told the Petersburg Borough Assembly on Monday that the project, carried out by Ketchikan Mechanical Inc. and Rainforest Contracting, will run through...
18 – There are no issues in the archive until May 19, 1926. Thank you for your patience. May 4, 1951 – With both a full hold and a deck load, the Zarembo was the first of Petersburg’s big halibut boats to come in, arriving in port on the evening of the third day. When the boat docked here Thursday evening she had 30,000 pounds aboard. She had 15,000 on deck the first day of the season. Per Sather is the owner of the Zarembo and Eiler and Olaf Wikan, Chris Olson, Ragner Stokke and Skipper Sather make up the crew. At press time the price was n...
On a Friday afternoon in Jill Lenhard's class, the sound of crying babies filled the room – crying robot babies, that is. The babies were new, and the class, including Lenhard, was still figuring out how to use them. "I took one baby home to see how it all worked, and I took it home in a grocery sack because I didn't want to walk down the street carrying a baby," Lenhard told the class. "But then when I got home and I laid it on the counter my husband was like, 'What is this?!'" These robot b... Full story
A Silicon Valley company and a Petersburg-raised developer are teaming up to bring a small artificial intelligence data center to the former Ocean Beauty pier and cannery facility, a proposal that drew both cautious enthusiasm and skepticism from the public at last week's borough assembly meeting. Sam Anoka, founder and CEO of Greensparc, addressed the assembly April 20 via Zoom, outlining plans to deploy what he described as a micro-scale data center at the property owned by Andrew Mazzella,...
Petersburg High School track team blazed their way through their first meet of the season this past weekend in Ketchikan. The meet saw the Vikings set several personal bests and have near record-breaking performances. In the boys shot put, Petersburg's Cedar Helms threw a personal best, with a throw of 29 feet and 8 inches and Payton Dreisbach, threw with a best of 27 feet and 6 inches. Helms also threw a personal best in discus, throwing 76 feet, as well as Dreisbach, who threw 70 feet. David...
Viking Swim Club capped off a successful season with a strong finale this past weekend at the 2026 Alaska State Swimming Championships, in Anchorage. Out of 22 teams present, VSC finished seventh overall. VSC brought 14 swimmers to the event and all 14 finished in the top eight of their respective events. Cyrus Hulebak won third place high point for his age group and Trygve Marohl won second place high point in his age group. Because of these placements, amongst other accomplishments, the team...
18 – There are no issues in the archive until May 19, 1926. Thank you for your patience. April 20, 1951 – One of the most disastrous fires to hit Petersburg in many years occurred early Wednesday when the interior of Ted Reynolds’ Harbor Bar and Liquor Store and of Winnie’s Cafe were gutted by fire. Heavy smoke damage was suffered by Helen’s Shop and there was slight smoke damage to the city office. The alarm was turned in at 5:25 a.m. by Mrs. J.L. MacKechnie who saw smoke drifting by her window in the Coliseum apartments, adjacent to and ov...
As of 2024 and according to Fox 10 Phoenix, the fastest growing high school sport in this country is girls wrestling. The number of participants surpassed 74,000 in 2024-25, according to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations. This was a 15% increase with roughly 1,000 schools adding programs, a huge jump compared to only 11,498 girls a decade ago, according to NFHS. One of the biggest reasons for this recent growth is states sanctioning girls wrestling, allowing...
The community got to see the hard work and training of Mitkof Middle and Petersburg High School Native Youth Olympics athletes on display during the NYO Showcase this past Friday and Saturday. Middle school has been practicing since the second week of February and high school since mid-January in preparation for the two-day event which included 11 total events such as Dene Stick Pull, Alaskan High Kick, One Foot High Kick and more, as well as 18 athletes between middle and high school. While it...
The Petersburg High School Baseball team began their season at Sitka, in a preseason tournament this past weekend. Results weren’t the main priority during this tournament as much as experimenting and putting what they’ve been working on in practice out on the field against another opponent. The team had a lot of success stealing bases with at least one person on the team stealing a base. In the Vikings game against the Kodiak Bears, the team had five stolen bases and Petersburg junior pitcher Tanner Caulum had three himself. “It’s all about t...
Merlita "Merle" Raposas Honma, 82, passed away on December 4, 2025, in Petersburg, Alaska. Her loss is felt deeply not only by those who loved her most, but by the entire Petersburg community she graced with her kindness, generosity, and unwavering faith. Born on September 1, 1943, in Sinait, Ilocos Sur, Philippines, to Rosalina and Cirilo Raposas, Merle was raised with values rooted in family and the simple joys of life. She immigrated with her family to Kauai, Hawaii, at just three months old... Full story
The Holy Cross House of the Petersburg Lutheran Church was full to capacity on Saturday afternoon for the 11th annual Spring Tea hosted by the Pioneers of Alaska The event is a fundraiser and all proceeds from ticket sales benefit the Pioneers' scholarship for graduating Petersburg High School students heading to trade school or college. Participants - many of the young ones dressed as butterflies and princesses - socialized at tables they decorated themselves, enjoyed a selection of dozen teas...
Molly Taiber recently returned from Juneau, where she spent several days this legislative session doing what she has done every year for the past six years: sitting across from state legislators making the case that Alaska’s public employees are heading toward a retirement they will not be able to live on. For most of Alaska’s history as a state, a career in public service came with one of the better retirement packages in the country — a guaranteed pension that rewarded workers for building careers in Alaska. That system was dismantled in 20...
Stephanie Pfundt has spent the better part of a decade building a career in classical music far from Petersburg - graduate school in Boston, performing across the East Coast, a produced opera in Massachusetts, a growing network of colleagues at some of the country's top music institutions. And now the award-winning Petersburg-born soprano is bringing a long-dreamed-of project to life and bringing chamber music home to Alaska. "This has been a project I've dreamt of for six years," Pfundt said....
My wife was in a meeting with a few lobbyists talking about attending a legislative fly-in in Juneau, and someone mentioned sneaking off to Eaglecrest while they were there. "Eaglecrest is the ski resort in Juneau, right?" someone else asked. A few others laughed, and said, "Ski resort? No. Eaglecrest is a ski area." And that about sums it up. Eaglecrest is the ski hill for a southeast Alaskan's soul. Lots of people wearing xtratufs around the lodge. No spa. No condos. No trouble finding a...
In last week’s story “Petersburg High School poets recite on KTOO,” the English teacher for the students Freya Tucker and Mette Miller was incorrectly identified as Tim Shumway. Jill Lenhard is actually their teacher this year in AP Language & Composition where they did the initial assignment in class and received extra credit for performing in the school-wide competition. The Pilot apologizes for that inaccuracy.... Full story
With spring (officially) underway, the Petersburg High School Track and Field team have hit the ground running with fierce and intense competition. Due to the extended winter Petersburg has seen, the team has mostly been focusing on conditioning and physically preparing themselves for the fast season. While the team has only been practicing for a little bit, head coach Casey Gates already has an idea of the potential strengths of this year's squad. "I think our strengths are going to be in...
