Letters – March 10

Students solve future problems
Chapman School’s Future Problem Solving team has passed the qualifying competitions and has been invited to compete in the State Bowl against five other teams from all over the state of Alaska.  Our four-member team of fifth and sixth graders has been working since the beginning of the school year on the topics of sensory overload, invasive species and orphaned children with diligence, maturity and amazing intellectual vitality considering their tender ages.
In the coming weeks our team will be researching the topic of food distribution.  At the State Bowl, our 10- and 11-year-olds will spend two hours closeted in a room while they develop an “action plan” to address a surprise, futuristic scenario with nothing but pencils, paper, a dictionary and each other.  I’m not sure that four young children from Anchor Point can solve the world’s hunger problem, but I know that these four want to try.
The opportunity to travel and compete with teams from across the state is often the reason children participate in extra-curricular activities.  Team travel, as any parent or coach knows, can be expensive.  The Chapman team is going to need approximately $700 hundred dollars in order to register for the competition, stay at the hotel with the other traveling teams and feed themselves during the two day event.  We are asking any who can help defray these costs to contact Chapman School at 235-8671.
Billeen Carlson,
coach

Book swap thank you
Once again, West Homer Elementary celebrated February, Love of Reading month, by offering a day long book swap to the students. Our annual Book Swap just keeps getting better and better!  Over 1,960 books were donated for students’ reading pleasure.  Wow, oodles of books to choose from.
The success of the book swap was a collaborative effort involving many folks. A special thank you to the student artists for their bookmark and poster designs.  The organizational skills of sorting of  all the books and the set up of the swap by Nancy Allen, Kristen Brown, Mary Edminster, Janet Mayforth, Steve Panarelli, Tracey Tillion and Debbie Kerns were greatly appreciated.  Kudos to Nancy Allen, Jeannie Deloach, Dana Snyder and Leanna Raymond for staffing the swap.
Karen Murdock, coordinator
Special Services teacher

Many sponsors helped
On behalf of the Southern Kenai Peninsula Communities Project, I would like to thank the many sponsors who made our health planning event on Feb. 25-26 at Islands and Oceans a success! The generosity in our community, to support this gathering of over 80 adults and 9 youth, is just more affirmation of our community’s ability to come together to create shared vision and tangible steps to improve the health of the community. From Ninilchik to across the bay villages, hundreds have participated in our planning, and this event brought many new and ongoing participants the chance to prioritize directions and create action steps. Stay tuned for details and  next steps on our website, www.skpcommunitiesproject.net. Thanks to these generous supporters: Wells Fargo Bank, SPH Service Area Board, The Center, SPH Foundation, SPH, Islands and Ocean, KBay Family Planning Clinic, Sustainable Homer, Kachemak Bay Campus of KPC and SVT Health Center. Private contributors were Anne Walker, Beckie Noble and PeggyEllen Kleinleder.
Sharon Whytal
Project Coordinator
Southern Kenai Peninsula Communities Project

Wolf sightings thrill
On visits to Denali National Park I was thrilled to see wild wolves.  For many, seeing a wolf in the wild is an exciting experience.
Alaska’s Board of Game just ended the buffer zone around part of the Park that helped protect Denali wolves from being killed outside Park boundaries.  Like McNeil River bears, these wolves have been viewed by thousands of visitors and are an economic asset for tourism.  Rather than taking a contentious and controversial stand against the buffer, the BOG should work with the Park Service because these wolves are so valuable in attracting visitors and in Park research.  This adversarial attitude against federal management is not productive for making decisions that best serve wildlife and the public interest.  In my mind, a decision that primarily benefits less than a handful of trappers over thousands of visitors to Denali National Park is misguided.
The BOG should reconsider this issue and act in the same fashion that it did for the McNeil River bears—reinstate the Park buffer to protect the wolves.
Nina  Faust

Rearden family expresses thanks
We would like to express our appreciation for the outpouring of love and concern. Letters and cards and offers came from many in Homer and elsewhere. When, on Jan. 3, Jim slipped and fell on ice, and damaged his spinal column, becoming partially paralyzed, it changed his entire world. After 54 days in Providence Hospital at Anchorage, Jim has learned to walk, but is still unable to use arms and hands. That ability is expected to return slowly. In the meantime, Jim is recovering at home with help from family and friends, and undergoing physical therapy locally. It will be a long and slow return to normal. Jim has received the finest of corrective surgery and physical therapy thanks to the efforts of Dr. Paul Eneboe and Dr. Paul Sayer. We are very grateful for all the help we have received, and the wonderful outpouring of concern.
Jim and Audrey Rearden

Memorial Scholarship established
The CACS staff would like to extend their gratitude to the community of Homer for all of the support that we have been shown over the last month as we have dealt with the untimely loss of our new Executive Director Terry Shepherd.
We were so honored to have known her for the short time that she was with us in Homer.  In honor of Terry and the work that she was beginning to accomplish at CACS, the board of directors has set up a Terry Shepherd Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Wells Fargo Bank.  Donations to this fund will be used to support a camper to attend one of our summer camps each year, so that more youth can continue to be connected to the nature of Kachemak Bay.
Beth Trowbridge
Acting executive director
Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies

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