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We felt loved and cared for To the Editor and this wonderful community: One year ago I came very close to dying. I got very, very sick with three upper respiratory viruses which allowed a strep infection to turn into pneumonia which caused sepsis or toxic shock syndrome. All in a matter of days. Luckily, I live here in Petersburg, the best place on earth. The doctors, nurses, and staff at Petersburg Medical Center were amazing and got me out on a medivac as quickly as possible. The outpouring of love, prayers, good vibes, cards, and gifts was...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted unanimously Monday to approve a resolution calling on state lawmakers to increase education funding and create a sustainable formula for Alaska's schools. Resolution #2025-07, which passed 6-0, urges the Alaska Legislature to "significantly increase the Base Student Allocation" and develop a long-term bipartisan solution for education funding beginning in fiscal year 2026. Assembly members cited the strain on local resources - the borough currently provides...
Education Funding To the Editor: Article VII of the Alaska Constitution requires the Legislature to “maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State.” Alaska Statute (Alaska Students’ Educational Bill of Rights (3)) states “A quality education for students of all ages is a concrete investment that vastly improves the future prosperity, welfare, productivity, and vitality of society.” The indisputable, mathematical fact is that at least for the last 10 years (years in which I served in the Alaska State House), the Legis...
The Petersburg School District and its support personnel union reached a tentative three-year contract agreement in less than a day of negotiations, school officials announced Tuesday. The agreement includes a $2.50 per hour wage increase across the board in the first year, followed by 1.5% increases in each of the following two years, according to Finance Director Shannon Baird. Support staff will also receive a $500 matching contribution to a 403(b) retirement plan. This matches a similar...
We Can Protect Each Other To the Editor: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” as James Baldwin reminds us. So let us look at what is happening to people like Fabian Schmidt, Camila Munoz, and Dr. Rasha Alawieh. All have been living in the United States legally. Schmidt has a green card, Munoz is in process of obtaining citizenship as the spouse of a U.S. citizen, and Alawieh has her H1B visa as a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University. Nevertheless, Schmidt and Mun...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voiced serious concerns that potential federal funding cuts could devastate essential services and potentially threaten the town's viability by approving a strongly worded letter to Alaska's congressional delegation during Monday’s assembly meeting. The letter, approved by all six assembly members present, details how the rural Southeast Alaska fishing community of approximately 3,000 residents could face an existential crisis if federal support is significantly reduced. “Indiscriminate and across the board red...
The first-of-its-kind event was an all-male pageant where dance dads of Mitkof Dance Troupe (MDT) students bravely entertained a sold out crowd at the Elks Ballroom. After several uproarious rounds of competition, high school teacher Dustin Crump was crowned Mr. MDT and celebrated his win with an encore rendition of "the Dougie." Thousands were raised to upgrade the dance studio's facilities....
Elementary students in Petersburg won’t get as much physical education next year. Rae C. Stedman Elementary Principal Heather Conn said it comes down to limited education funding. Renting Petersburg’s community pool and gym is expensive for the Petersburg School District. So is staffing physical education classes. Conn said the district’s tight budget this year means they will have to reduce hours. “We have been conservatively budgeting but at this time, even we are being affected,” she said. This isn’t the first year the district has had to...
Budgets are tight for some schools in Alaska again this year, but in Petersburg, the borough budget is also tight. Borough officials are saying it’s going to be tough to get the Petersburg School District the local funding school officials say they desperately need. Last year the Petersburg borough’s budget was nearly $400 thousand dollars in the hole. At an assembly work session with the school board on February 6, Borough Manager Steve Geisbrecht said there will likely be similar problems this year. “I try not to be a downer at every meeting...
Federal employees across Southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest received termination notices over Presidents Day weekend, part of what union leaders are calling an "intentionally dishonest" nationwide purge of civil service workers that has hit Alaska's rural communities particularly hard. In Petersburg, as of Sunday evening, at least nine Forest Service probationary employees were terminated, with seven more terminated in Wrangell. Most of those affected were early-career professionals... Full story
The Southeast island community of Petersburg held a town hall meeting on Feb. 10 to discuss the future of tourism in "Alaska's Little Norway." The borough is considering a potential partnership with a small cruise ship company and may see more tourists in coming years. While the conversation welcomed ideas related to tourism in general -like emergency services, trails and public restrooms- much of the discussion pertained to increasing tourism, especially from cruise ships, and what that means...
A proposal to establish a Petersburg police K9 unit was rejected by the borough assembly Monday in a 4-2 vote, with members citing budget uncertainties despite strong support for the program's anti-drug objectives. The Petersburg Police Department had requested approval for a dual-purpose police service dog that would be trained in both patrol work and narcotics detection. The department highlighted an urgent need, pointing to "multiple search warrants for illegal narcotics" executed over the...
Information about Petersburg students and school staff may have been compromised after hackers got into a software system on December 28. The company behind the system, PowerSchool, said the data breach was worldwide. Robyn Taylor is superintendent of the Petersburg School District. She said the system keeps school information organized. "If you think old school, pre-computers, we all had filing cabinets," she said. "And that's where we would store all the information about a student, about...
Carey Case first arrived in Petersburg in 1998 as a 24-year-old seasonal Forest Service employee, and now, after 25 years of service in numerous roles within the district, she has been hired as the Petersburg District Ranger. "I started working for the Forest Service in college in Washington State, and really liked working outdoors and getting to take helicopters and working in remote places," Case recalls. Her journey to Petersburg began when "RD Parks hired me and moved me up here. He asked... Full story
Rural schools, mostly in Southeast Alaska, are facing a major funding shortfall this year after the U.S. House of Representatives failed to reauthorize a bill aimed at funding communities alongside national forests and lands. The bipartisan Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was first passed in 2000, and enacted to assist communities impacted by the declining timber industry. It provided funds for schools, as well as for roads, emergency services and wildfire prevention. The award varies each year depending on federal lan...
January 2024 A prized Mental Health Trust lot by Blind River Rapids, a popular recreation site for sport fishing, was sold at auction to a USCG family. Toler and Jessie Alexander are eager to return to Petersburg after retiring from the Coast Guard in a few years. The borough listed its top priority capital projects, and the Petersburg Medical Center replacement was first and second on the list – for the main hospital construction and the main hospital interior build out. Petersburg Indian A...
January 2, 2025 – It was said that as far as the contractors were concerned, they had completed the hydro-electric project for the Town of Petersburg and were ready to have the juice from the Blind Slough plant turned on and hooked up with the town transmission line. Some small electrical appliances are said to be needed, and it is said these are coming via mail. None of the city officials could definitively say as to when the power may be turned on, but thought it would be accomplished in another two or three days. January 6, 1950 – The U.S...
The Petersburg School District plans to restore several cut positions and provide a one-time staff bonus, thanks to higher-than-expected state funding and enrollment numbers for the 2024-25 school year. The district received around $1.1 million more in state funding than initially budgeted for, with $849,000 coming from the one-time increase of $680 per student above the base student allocation (BSA) surviving the governor's veto this year. The remainder stems from enrollment reaching 456.8 stud...
The Petersburg High School had its yearly winter music concert on Tuesday, Dec. 17, in front of an energetic audience to help end 2024 and ring in the new year. The show highlighted all the hard work students and music director Chelsea Corrao have put into the music program. "We went into it saying we did the hard work, now it's time to make the art happen and I feel like that's exactly what we did," Corrao said. "The kids are feeling pretty confident and proud with themselves and that's all we...
December 12, 1924 – Oscar Sather, of the Shields-Sather Lumber & Box Company, is figuring on plans for six cottages for rent or sale, which, if the plans materialize, will somewhat relieve the present famine in lack of houses. At the present time in Petersburg it is impossible to get either houses or apartments or any business location. The new business block being built by Andrew Wikan and John Hammer has the roof on and is nearing completion, and the entire space on both floors could have been rented a dozen times over, owing to demand. In fa...
Petersburg's student-run nonprofit movie theater, the Northern Nights Theater, has run out of reserves and will have to make some changes starting in January. The last few years have been very challenging and expensive for the organization. Sitting unused through the early stages of the pandemic led to major malfunctions with the movie projector, Theater Manager Cyndy Fry told the Pilot. "We basically had to buy the whole computer guts of the system, [and then] because of that change we had to...
Earlier this month, the Petersburg Borough Assembly passed an ordinance updating the sales tax chapter of municipal code to clarify exemptions and rules for businesses, modernize definitions and organize information for better transparency - borough officials emphasized that the ordinance does not introduce new taxes or exemptions, nor does it change how sales tax is applied locally. The amendment highlights existing information about sales tax into clear new sections and adds definitions that w...
On a Thursday morning in Petersburg High School's room 206, algebra II students sit around the edge of the classroom, forming a big U. Their teacher, Megan Smith, asks them if it's possible to take the square root of a negative fraction. "Noooooooo" they chorus, "No solution!" Together they work through a series of problems. Then, even though class is only halfway over, she tells them to get started on their homework. She turns to four students who had been ignoring the lesson, curled over...
Growing up in Petersburg, Heather Conn remembers holding weekend school sessions inside a little schoolhouse her father built along the side of their home on Tango Street, with her brothers and kids from the neighborhood in attendance. Conn wanted to be a school teacher her whole life and had even considered aiming for superintendent at some point. She achieved a dream in 2019 when Conn became the school principal at Petersburg's Rae C. Stedman Elementary school, after years in special and...
Petersburg School District has secured a total of $973,816 in grant awards this fiscal year, so far. The special revenue includes four new grants, and more funding is "definitely" anticipated in addition to the almost million dollars already awarded to the district. The district faces ongoing challenges due to inadequate state funding, including budget cuts for this academic year. PSD has had to get creative with pursuing grants, an undertaking that requires "a lot of extra work on our staff..."...
