Smoke and mirrors — School district partners in educational campaign to combat tobacco use

By Jenny Neyman

Photos courtesy of the Peninsula Smoke Free Partnership. New smokeless tobacco products are easier to use discreetly than cigarettes and chew, such as these "orbs," that dissolve and release nicotine.

Redoubt Reporter

Just as the tobacco industry is getting more inventive in developing marketing and new products to which youth could be susceptible, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is attempting a new strategy to combat tobacco use among its students.

Students caught with tobacco has been primarily a straightforward, offense-punishment affair. But come second semester at Skyview and Nikiski high schools, the school district will try some new strategies to snuff out tobacco use.

“We felt that instead of what we’ve relied on, which is straight, call the police and suspend, we decided to try to be a little bit more educational in our approach,” said Sean Dusek, KPBSD assistant superintendent of instructional support, during a work session of the KPBSD Board of Education on Monday afternoon. “Like we are with marijuana and alcohol violations, and following along with what (the Alaska School Activities Association) is doing with its new (tobacco, alcohol and drug policy), as well, where there’s an educational component to get kids back in play, give them an incentive to become back involved.”

The district doesn’t see a huge number of tobacco violations among its students, and few three-time-or-more offenders, Dusek said. But any amount of usage is too much, according to Jennifer Olendorff, program coordinator for the Peninsula Smoke Free Partnership. And just because the district isn’t catching kids with tobacco doesn’t mean they aren’t using it, especially because new forms are increasingly difficult to detect.

It isn’t just cigarettes and snuff anymore, with the telltale smoke, spitting and acrid odor. Nowadays there are candylike cigars in fruit flavors, and various forms of smokeless tobacco that can be chewed, sucked on and swallowed, or even applied topically to the skin.

Enrollment numbers continue decline — Capital projects list ranks roof, windows, track high

By Naomi Klouda

Homer Tribune

Overall, look for fewer students in Kenai Peninsula Borough School District classrooms as enrollment shrinks, continuing a trend based on shifts due to the predominance of an aging population.

A report compiled by KPBSD took data from birth, Head Start and kindergarten numbers to forecast five years down the road.

“We are looking at who we know is already in those lower grades. We know the population is maturing and there is movement out of the peninsula. We don’t know where they are going,” said Pegge Erkeneff, KPBSD communications specialist. “We do know in the central peninsula, some of the families are leaving for other oil fields.”

The formula for enrollment involves moving each grade forward and taking a three-year average of kindergarten-age students, she said. The district also works with each school principal about factors at work in the community to get a sense of what is happening in the population.

On the central peninsula, school officials noted the loss of students in the closing and scaling back of oil and gas plants. But as new economic opportunities arise to supply new jobs, the enrollment estimates could change.

The district saw 8,922 students this year, fewer than the 9,086 projected. Further reductions are reflected in the fiscal year 2013 enrollment projections.

“These aren’t big enrollment changes, but there are small drops across the district,” Erkeneff said.

Learn to set goals — School district updating educational priorities, philosophy

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

With all the specificity in the realm of education — attendance counts, classroom sizes, test scores, bell schedules, two plus two equals four — areas that aren’t as definite can be more nebulous to tackle.

Take, for instance, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s goals for student learning, outlining the district’s vision and priorities for education. The district’s administration and school board last updated the goals in 1996, but there is no set schedule determining when the policy should revisited. And since it’s more philosophical than functional, there also aren’t clear, demonstrative examples of the goals becoming outdated.

So how does the district know when it’s time to freshen up, much less what those revisions should be?

Here’s one indicator — when the term “21st century” meaning something cutting edge has become passé, it’s time for some updates.

“The thought was to make it more relevant to going forward with next-generation skills,” said Dr. Steve Atwater, KPBSD superintendent. “We used to call them 21st-century skills but now, for 2011, you can’t say that anymore, so the proper lingo is to say ‘next generation.’”

The district is in the process of updating the goals, with the administration creating a proposed revision, running it by the school board, sending it out for public comment, revising it again, then submitting it to the school board for approval or further changes. This just seemed like an appropriate time to take another look at the policy, Atwater said. The update won’t result in immediate, functional changes in the district — to curriculum, graduation requirements or the like. Rather, it’s more of a housecleaning measure — get this squared away in preparation for more changes to come.

“Ultimately, it’s more of a philosophy-type policy. It doesn’t have any immediate teeth but what it will do is guide conversation for graduation requirements and that kind of thing,” Atwater said. “It was more positioning ourselves so that we can make that overall, umbrella-type statement, ‘This is what we believe in for learning goals.’”

The goals, then, are the lens through which change is considered.

“The next steps would be to take a hard look at our graduation requirements, especially our secondary experience, and whether that’s really doing what it needs to do to help kids be prepared for next-generation skills,” Atwater said.

What have you learned lately?

By Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter

Have you stuffed a pea in your ear lately?

Maybe you should. All the cool kids are doing it. And they’re growing up to discover the quasicrystals structure, the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae, and the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity. Also the precise amount of wasabi needed to be released into the air to wake someone from sleeping.

Hey, we can’t all be rocket scientists. Or Nobel Prize winners, as the first three are. Discovery is still discovery. As biophysicist Aaron Klug said, “Human curiosity, the urge to know, is a powerful force and is perhaps the best secret weapon of all in the struggle to unravel the workings of the natural world.”

Klug won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1982 for his development of “crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes.”

Try saying that 10 times fast. Then try spelling it. Then go apply for a job in radio or print media, because if you can do that, you’ve got a bright career ahead of you.

While the fluid pronunciation, much less a complete understanding of Klug’s advancements in science, may be beyond most of us, we all share the impetus that got him there — the urge to know. That “best secret weapon” in the enterprise of learning.

Ready, Freddie — Landmark Caribou Hills establishment open in time for snow

By Joseph Robertia

Photos courtesy of Sheila Best. Lynn and Freddie Pollard bought and re-opened Rocky’s Straight-Inn Lodge off Oil Well Road in the Caribou Hills in Ninilchik, and named it Freddie’s Roadhouse.

Redoubt Reporter

From four-wheeler riders mudding in spring and summer, to hunters in fall, and to snowmachiners and dog mushers in winter, the Caribou Hills beckons temptingly to many who enjoy the outdoors.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a cabin there, though. For those who don’t, new ownership of a well-known establishment at Mile 16 of Oil Well Road will offer weary travelers some respite.

“People in the Caribou Hills needed a place and we wanted to give it to them,” said Lynn Pollard.

She and her husband, Freddie, have been working hard for the past year to renovate the structures and property of the old Rocky’s Straight-In Lodge, now called Freddie’s Roadhouse.

“My husband always liked the place when it was Rocky’s, and was sad when it closed,” Pollard said.

The establishment went on the real-estate market, and the Pollards made their move.

“The price was right,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll ever make money on it, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to give people a place to come and have fun, and that it’s more of a family establishment than a bar atmosphere.”

Science of the Seasons: Needling concern — Plant rust looks bad but rarely does serious damage to trees

By Dr. David Wartinbee for the Redoubt Reporter

Photos courtesy of Dr. David Wartinbee. An orange streak, caused by rust spores, is seen on the water of Upper Twin Lakes in Lake Clark National Park.

It appears that a common plant pathogen this summer, the spruce needle rust, may have been the cause of a national news event and a couple interesting sightings in Western Alaska.

This past summer I made several exciting trips to the Twin Lakes area of Lake Clark National Park. These visits were primarily to see Dick Proenneke’s cabin and to get to know the area nearby. Time was spent hiking different trails and berry-picking in places Proenneke wrote about in his book, “One Man’s Wilderness.”

At one point, as I picked berries in a boggy area, I noticed that a number of nearby spruce trees seemed to have yellowish colors on their limbs. On closer examination, it was only the tips of the branches — specifically, the newest needles — that seemed to be infected by some unknown disease.

I took a few pictures and returned to my exploration of the area. About a week later during another visit, I noticed that there was a yellowish-orange streak on the water surface of a cove on Upper Twin Lakes. Again, I took a few pictures and went on about exploring additional areas around the lake. When I returned home and looked at the pictures and thought about what I had seen over the past couple weeks, things started to click.

Was I seeing something similar to what had made national news earlier in Kivalena, when an orange substance was seen on the water this summer? That incident was described as a massive layer of light yellow-orange “stuff” floating on the surface of the inlet. The same material was also seen on the surface of water-filled buckets around town.

Old Duck Hunter: Get practical for outdoors enthusiasts on your list

By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter

“I just don’t know what to get — (pick a name) for Christmas.”

Haven’t we all heard that or said it ourselves a thousand, or maybe at least 20, times? It doesn’t have to be that way if the person you are thinking of is a hunter, fisher or trapper. There are myriad things out there that they can use, will appreciate and, more than likely, won’t regift to someone else.
In a somewhat random order I’ll give some hints for gift-givers who may not be in touch with what these sorts of folks might like.

• Knifes are a basic, essential piece of equipment for the out of doors. There are literally hundreds of models to choose from, but a good share of them are basically worthless. Except they might look real sexy.

There is a knife out there that every outdoorsperson can utilize very effectively and for a very reasonable price — the Havlon Piranha. This knife comes in a couple of sizes, both of which are very reasonable and useable as a pocket-type knife — the point being they are easy to carry and actually are available to use.

They are folding knifes and come in a couple of colors. Most of us have set a knife down during a skinning job and can’t find it when you go to pick it up again. The blaze orange version is a real help in actually being able to find the knife. And being a pocketknife, it isn’t like you have to worry about being glaringly offensive at a party or something.

Looks aside, the thing that is so useful in these knives is the changeable, surgical-steel blades. Yep, the knife gets dull, you pop the blade off and put on a new one and you’re back in business.

Almanac: Electrifying news you can use

By Clark Fair

Homer Electric Association’s first-ever Ruralite cover in 1971.

Redoubt Reporter

The subjects of local stories ranged from the museum run by Cohoe’s Charlie and Freda Lewis to the ribs barbecued by Sterling’s Cotton Moore, from the boardinghouse run by Kenai’s Louisa Miller to the greenhouse endeavors of Nikiski’s Lee Myrick, and from the painting artistry of Anchor Point’s Norman Lowell to the photographic artistry of Cooper Landing’s Cecil and Helen Rhode.

Besides features on peninsula personalities, there were stories on Kenai’s Parks and Recreation Department, Kenai Central High School teacher Jim Brewer’s carpentry class, the growth of heavy industry in Nikiski, the work being done by the Youth Conservation Corps on Swanson River Road, and the Totem Tracers’ efforts to create an exhaustively researched compendium of Kenai cemetery inscriptions and memorials.

Although old issues can be difficult to come by these days, for 20 years the Kenai Peninsula was served by a feature-

Louisa Miller was on the cover In April 1977.

oriented monthly magazine that arrived in the mailboxes of nearly all residents who powered their homes with electricity.

But it was only partly a magazine about life on the Kenai. It was also a periodical about local rural electrification issues. It was about features from other parts of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, and it was about country-style recipes, kids’ pages, classified ads, letters from readers and folksy good humor.

It was called the Alaska Ruralite, and it went out to all members of the Homer Electric Association. The 32-page magazine replaced a monthly HEA-printed newsletter called, unremarkably, “The Co-op Newsletter.”

The Ruralite’s Homer edition began officially with Volume 18, Issue 11, in November 1971 — and unofficially with Issue 8 in August of that year. In either case, the subject of the feature story in both issues was the same: Hazel Heath, who founded Alaska Wild Berry Products with her husband in Homer in 1946 and then went on to a string of successful Homer-based careers, including a stint as mayor.

Drinking on the Last Frontier: Brew up good Christmas gifts

By Bill Howell, for the Redoubt Reporter

Photo courtesy of Elaine Howell.

So we’ve all survived another Thanksgiving with only moderate damage to our waistlines. Now it’s time to get serious about Christmas shopping. What’s out there this year to purchase as a gift for the discerning beer aficionado?

Books

Books always make great Christmas gifts, and several new and interesting beer books have been released in the last few months. You could start with “Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World’s Craft Brewing Revolution” by Joshua M. Bernstein. It’s a breezy, eclectic look at the current state of play in the craft beer world, replete with cool illustrations and a dust jacket that folds out into a poster-sized beer map.

If you’re looking for something a little more scholarly, try “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” by Daniel Okrent. This excellent book was actually published last year, but a PBS documentary by Ken Burns based on it was only just released in October. Prohibition was a fascinating aberration in American history, and its aftershocks are still being felt to this day. Buy your favorite beer drinker the book or a DVD of the documentary or, better yet, both.

Finally, for the truly serious beer geek on your list, there’s “The Oxford Companion to Beer,” edited by Garret Oliver. This is a hefty tome, almost 1,000 pages of hardcore information on beer and brewing. This book isn’t for casual reading; it’s a serious reference work, and is priced accordingly, but if you’re shopping for a real connoisseur, this could be just the ticket.

Art Seen: Layered look — Multifaceted content adds meaning to art

By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter

Artwork by Theresa Napolitano is on display during December at the Kaladi Brothers on Kobuk Street in Soldotna. This piece is “Fire.”

Theresa Napolitano has some work up at the old Kaladi Brothers Coffee Shop on Kobuk Street in Soldotna, and the month will go quickly so I recommend a drop by, at least to view this complex and rich set of images.

I went to college with Theresa at State University of New York Oswego, and her work to me has always been earthy and appealing. She is what I consider a natural artist. She has had formal training, like many of us, but her sensibilities are her own and her work seems to emerge from her core.

I am a sucker for layers, and even her simplest pieces seem to invoke them, whether conceptually, technically or emotionally. Some of her pieces inhabit space that moves beyond the two-dimensional, and some of them are layered transparencies. In every case, she has used basic aspects of art creation — line, form, texture, intensity, etc. — and placed them into engaging juxtapositions with a careful eye.

Whether the material is wood, bone, glass or ink, nothing seems arbitrarily handled, yet everything manages to follow an organic reasoning rather than appearing overly manipulated.

Night Lights: December highlights include lunar eclipse

By Andy Veh, for the Redoubt Reporter

Rising in the east and gaining altitude throughout the next two months are the great winter constellations Orion with seven bright stars — among them red Betelgeuse and blue Rigel — and its stellar nursery, the Orion nebula. Also on the rise are Taurus with red Aldebaran and its prominent star cluster, the Pleiades; Auriga with yellow Capella; Gemini with the twin stars Castor and Pollux; the head of Canis Major with the brightest star (aside from the sun) that we can see from Earth, Sirius; Procyon in tiny Canis Minor; and very late in the evening, Regulus in Leo.

Because this region of the sky hosts seven of the 20 brightest stars as seen from Earth, and because it contains quite a few easily recognizable constellations, it is my favorite region of the sky.

High in the south is the Great Square of Pegasus in the shape of a diamond. Above it, close to the zenith, is Cassiopeia. Getting close to the western horizon — but never completely setting in Alaska — are the three stars that make up the summer triangle, Deneb in Cygnus, Vega in Lyra and Altair in Aquila (that one actually does set — just barely for a few hours).

In the north are Ursa Major’s Big Dipper and Ursa Minor’s Little Dipper, the latter always really close to 60 degrees, our latitude on the Kenai.

Plugged In: Shutterbug on your list? Take note

By Joseph Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter

Digital cameras will likely be a very popular gift this year, judging by the many reader inquiries we’ve recently received.

Just over two weeks remain until Christmas, so it’s time for our final 2011 Christmas digital camera recommendations. As always, we try to recommend cameras with the best overall balance between general usefulness, image quality, solid construction and price in each category, rather than loftily priced professional gear.

You’ll likely need to order these cameras on the Internet because few, if any, are readily available in Alaska, even if you’re willing to pay list price. We have had very good experiences purchasing digital photo equipment from http://www.amazon.com and http://www.bhphotovideo.com. Both offer good prices, an excellent selection of immediately available models, and prompt, fair service. Listed prices were current at Amazon as of the weekend before publication and include the basic kit lens.

If a particular item that you really want runs out pre-Christmas, it makes sense to wait until after the first of the year, when availability improves and prices drop. It’s likely that we’ll see new 2012 models announced in January and February around the time of the big Consumer Electronics trade show. Prices for superseded models usually drop by another 15 percent to 20 percent.