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Silversmith Erin Kandoll has always considered herself an artist. When the Pilot visited Kandoll's studio, her ginger-color hair sat atop her head in a hair bun while she sorted out dozens of turquoise stones. Twisted Ginger, the name of Kandoll's silver-and-stone jewelry business, was born from a creative pastime. "Started from a state room on the Kestrel with my tackle box ... then to the garage ... to selling everything, to quitting, and then to this," Kandoll recalled. "Now, I'm just ... liv... Full story
May 23, 1924 – The first Fordson tractor for Farragut Bay for J.O. Wallace pioneer rancher there, arrived this week from the outside. Mr. Wallace took the first horse to Farragut Bay two years ago and the animal has grazed its own livelihood the past two winters. Farragut Bay is similar to many other bays and inlets in Southeastern Alaska, with marsh, meadow and tidelands at the head, consisting of rich soil and which will someday support a considerable farming population alone. Several ranchers have located there. The Forest Service has b...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly is considering an ordinance that may increase the local sales tax cap for the first time in over two decades. If passed, the ordinance would appear as a ballot proposition this fall, allowing borough voters to decide the hike. The proposed ordinance seeks to raise the maximum taxable transaction amount from $1,200 to $5,000 by amending code language. Under the current municipal code, any purchase exceeding $1,200 is only taxed on the first $1,200 - capping the...
The Petersburg School District is considering three scenarios to reduce the financial burden of student activities on the district's general fund. The three scenarios each involve different adjustments to activity fees, expenses, or a bit of both. The first proposed scenario is all price hikes for activity fees and no cuts to expenses; the third option does not change activity fees, but cuts expenses significantly. The second scenario tries to balance the other options and does a bit of both....
Rep. Rebecca Himschoot hopes the bill she successfully ushered through the 33rd Legislature will provide school districts with effective tools to recruit and retain experienced teachers. “Districts are struggling to staff schools,” said Himschoot, whose House District 2 includes Sitka, Petersburg and dozens of small Southeast communities. “We’re trying to add more tools for districts to fill positions with the best teachers they can get,” she said. House Bill 230, sponsored by Himschoot, is an education reform package that includes elements...
On May 7, negotiating teams for the Associated Teachers of Petersburg (ATP) and Petersburg School District met for a private discussion. The certified teacher contract negotiations have been in a stalemate for months. The situation is constrained by inadequate state education funding that has not adjusted for inflation since 2017. The lack of funding is causing trouble for the district budget to meet the union's expressed need for teacher salary increases. At the May 7 meeting, the district...
Petersburg High School's baseball team finished off their regular season games with a bang last weekend taking down Wasilla's Redington High School in a clean 3-0 series. This year's young roster of Vikings rounded out their monumental season with two blowout games, featuring highlight performances from the team's seniors who were honored during senior appreciation on Saturday, as well as all-around success on offense and defense from the team's rookies. "This has been a historic season. We got...
Rodney Lee Anderson was born on el Día de los Muertos, November 2, 1965, in Davenport, Iowa, to Ronald Gene and Victoria Lee (Dawson) Anderson. His lifelong best friend and brother, Ronnie, was 21 months old and with Rodney's birth the family was complete. As a little boy Rodney showed an affinity for all animals, but he especially loved birds. He was mesmerized by them. Perhaps all those quiet hours of observation were the genesis of Rodney's unique sense of time. He was never in a hurry and... Full story
Petersburg High School’s track team are off to the races this season as they prepare for their second meet in Juneau, with their first meet already under their belts. Many of the younger Viking athletes ran on a full track for the first time ever in Ketchikan on April 19 and 20, as the team competed in running, throwing, and jumping events across the two-day meet. “The athletes who have been around knew what to expect, but we have a fair amount of young athletes who haven’t really been around so they were a little bit nervous. Overall, I think...
Let’s keep Petersburg schools - and Alaska - great To the Editor: Through no one’s fault but my own, I got busy with work and forgot to run down and attend the #RedforEd march for education. So I wanted to thank the Pilot and KFSK for covering the event as well as local school board and statewide education issues. Public school is what we make it, and in the near decade I’ve lived here I’ve seen people pour their hearts into making our schools great. I don’t have kids in the district, but as a Borough taxpayer I believe strongly in funding o...
Letter to the Editor: Support teachers to keep Petersburg competitive Contract negotiations between the Petersburg School District and the Associated Teachers of Petersburg began in January. The current contract, which is set to expire at the end of this school year, allowed for a 1% increase across the certified salary schedule in each of the last three years. This was in line with similar increases in previous contracts. As we all know, the last three years have brought significantly steeper inflation - roughly 15% in Alaska. We have all...
There were more attendees than usual at the Petersburg School District Board meeting last week as over a dozen teachers observed discussion about critical issues surrounding district finances. A few attendees testified before the PSD School Board, expressing shared concerns related to the district's tight budget and ongoing certified teacher negotiations between PSD and the Associated Teachers of Petersburg (ATP) union, which have struggled to reach an agreement on a three-year contract amidst... Full story
The Petersburg School District Board unanimously agreed to join the Coalition for Education Equity of Alaska (CEE) at the board meeting Tuesday night. One reason the district board is joining the coalition is because of its "unique" ability to "use legal avenues to ensure the state and legislature carry out constitutional responsibilities regarding education." Founded in 1996, CEE is a statewide member-based nonprofit that champions access to quality, equitable and adequate public education in...
Petersburg High School's musical ensembles traveled to Stika last weekend for 2024's Southeast Alaska Music Fest where their hard work was commended by audiences and judges alike. Over the course of the three-day event, PHS's choir, concert band, and jazz band performed in solo and group ensembles, viewed performances from schools across Southeast, and attended music clinics with other students, soaking in as much of the experience as possible after preparing their setlists for months. "Last yea...
Who better to talk about education in Alaska than students. They could continue leaving it to school administrators, elected officials, their parents and teachers to speak for them, but that would be the easy way out. It’s also been unsuccessful. Looking to break that losing streak with the governor and state legislators unwilling to adequately fund education, hundreds of high schoolers around the state last week showed they are frustrated at the outcome. From Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Juneau, in Anchorage, Eagle River, Homer, Bethel and U...
The Alaska Marine Highway System’s ongoing crew shortage has eased up for entry-level steward positions but remains a significant problem in the wheelhouse and for engineers, likely keeping the Kennicott out of service again this summer. As of March 8, the state ferry system was short almost 50 crew of what it would need to put its full operational fleet to sea this summer, which means keeping the Kennicott tied to the dock, Craig Tornga, the system’s marine director, reported to a state Senate budget subcommittee on March 19. That is abo...
The Petersburg Vikings took down the number one seed Hooper Bay to win the state at the 2A boys state basketball championships in Anchorage last weekend. The team beat both Ninilchik and Cordova in close matches leading up to the championship match, where they took control after some adjustments in the second half and maintained a strong hold on the game throughout. "To win a state title is extremely challenging, it's hard, it's difficult... I'm very happy," said head coach Rick Brock. "We talke...
March 14, 1924 – The people of Petersburg got up a last minute dance Saturday evening for the townspeople and the passengers on the Admiral Evans. They were ably assisted by Miss Mary Allen, who played the piano and Dick Hanson, who played the drums. The dance was attended by a good crowd, better than was expected on so short a notice. It was not known until rather late whether the Evans would be in port very long, but owing to the large amount of freight the Evans was in longer than expected. The passengers on the Evans that went up to the d...
Alaskan actor L'xeis' Diane Benson plays Bee, an Inupiaq cleaning woman, in the HBO series True Detective. The season finale aired last month, which meant the embargo was lifted and Benson was free to talk about the experience of performing in the show. Benson lives in Petersburg now, but she has lived all over the state. And she's done all sorts of things. She was a professor of Alaska Native Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, an activist politician and Democratic candidate for stat...
February 29, 1924 – Capsized twice from a row boat in the swift waters of Wrangell Narrows – the last time clinging to the bottom of the boat while it was propelled ashore by her husband swimming with heavy rubber boots on and the painter in his mouth – is the experience of Mrs. J.C. Allen who left here Monday on the McKee gas boat Jessie for the Green Rocks fox farm. Arriving near the farm, Mrs. Allen was met by her husband in a row boat. On stepping aboard the small boat it was capsized by Mrs. Allen slipping and Mr. Allen trying to catch...
The recent dictate that our Governor sent to our legislature as well as the residents of Southeastern Alaska was clearly the wrong message. The Governor proposed replacing the Alaska Marie Highway System (AMHS) board with members of solely his own selective choosing. His action lacks a certain sensitivity that is clearly contrary to the advantage of having local community participation in advisory groups. It has been said that true leadership is not done by the one who proposes to do great things, but rather by one who motivates the people to...
Petersburg became the 19th organized borough in Alaska on Jan. 3, 2013 after the town’s borough vote was certified. In the early 2000s, the City of Petersburg tried to annex all of Mitkof Island after receiving public pushback on forming a borough. This caused an upset outside of city limits for residents who did not want to pay the same taxes as residents inside the city limits. Eventually, after years of mediation and piles of paperwork, a compromise was made and the Petersburg Borough, which encompasses 3,829 square miles of land and w...
The Associated Teachers of Petersburg (ATP) and Petersburg School District are negotiating the next labor agreement that will take effect in the fall of 2024 and span three school years through spring 2027. Past negotiations between the teachers union and the district, which occur every three years, have largely focused on updating the contract language. This year, however, ATP and PSD are focusing more on when, where and how to allocate what limited money the district has to work with. ATP is...
February 22, 1924 – Salmon may migrate distances of 1,000 miles or more, it was proved in an experiment conducted by the United States Bureau of Fisheries and recently reported to Dean John N. Cobb of the College of Fisheries. A number of salmon, each identified by a tag, were planted during the year of 1922 in waters near Alaska by Dr. C.H. Gilbert, professor of zoology at Stanford University. A Siberian fisherman reported that one of the salmon had been caught in the Pankara river on the coast of Siberia, more than 1,000 miles from the c...
Jean Elizabeth MacDonald was born July 15, 1929 in Petersburg, Alaska, to Georgiana and Gordon MacDonald. She loved her childhood in Petersburg and maintained a strong emotional attachment to her hometown, attending Petersburg picnics in Seattle whenever possible. Always a freespirit, Jean created a bit of a scandal the summer between her junior and senior year when she donned a dress she'd made from parachute silk and married Airforce Captain Marvin Rice while they flew over Petersburg. Though... Full story
