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Zesty
Goal!
Farmer’s market finds spice up meals
Greece, Uruguay advance in Brazil
Food/B-1
Sports/A-10
CLARION
Showers 63/48 More weather on Page A-2
P E N I N S U L A
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2014 Soldotna-Kenai, Alaska
Vol. 44, Issue 228
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
Taking care of needs at KPC
Question Do you buy Alaska Grown produce? n Yes, that’s a selling point for me. n I do if it’s the best price or best quality available. n It’s not a priority for me.
Scholarship program aids veterans
To place your vote and comment, visit our Web site at www. peninsulaclarion. com. Results and selected comments will be posted each Tuesday in the Clarion, and a new question will be asked. Suggested questions may be submitted online or e-mailed to news@peninsulaclarion.com.
By KELLY SULLIVAN Peninsula Clarion
In the news High court clears way for Bristol Bay initiative C
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JUNEAU (AP) — The Alaska Supreme Court has cleared the way for an initiative that would require legislative approval for major mining operations in the Bristol Bay watershed, like the proposed Pebble Mine. The court issued a brief order Monday, after hearing arguments June 11. It plans a more expansive order, explaining its reasoning, later. In January 2013, a lawsuit was filed over certification of the “Bristol Bay Forever” initiative. The measure would require legislative approval for metallic sulfide mining operations within the Bristol Bay Fisheries Reserve that disturb at least 640 acres of land. The court found the measure didn’t violate constitutional provisions. The initiative is scheduled for the November ballot. An attorney for the plaintiffs say his clients are disappointed and will likely return to court if the initiative is enacted.
Inside ‘This doesn’t pass the straight-face test.’ ... See page A-6
Index Opinion.................. A-4 Court reports......... A-5 Nation.................... A-6 World..................... A-8 Sports...................A-10 Food...................... B-1 Classifieds............. B-3 Comics................... B-8
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Search continues
Left: Matt Schilf, of Kenai, points to a spot on a large map of a portion of Kenai near the home of a missing family Tuesday. Schilf and 14 others spent the bulk of the day searching in the woods for signs of the family. Above: Volunteers discuss locations on a map where a community search has been started for a missing Kenai family.
Citizens take up effort to find missing family By DAN BALMER Peninsula Clarion
A month has passed since Brandon Jividen, Rebecca Adams and her two daughters, Michelle Hundley and Jaracca Hundley, vanished from their home in Kenai. While the Kenai Police Department has devoted all the resources at its disposal toward finding the family, to this point, the search efforts have not revealed their whereabouts. Lead investigator Lt. David Ross said without any leads to point police to a particular area, the department couldn’t continue to coordinate searches. That did not stop Ninilchik resident Katherine Covey and Lanell Adams, sister of Rebecca Adams,
Photos by Rashah McChesney/ Peninsula Clarion
See SEARCH, page A-12
Kenai Peninsula College’s Veterans Affairs Program is implementing a unique scholarship to help ensure veteran students have access to sources of financial aid. Within his first year as Veteran Services Coordinator, John Pollock noticed a population of veteran students who are no longer eligible to receive benefits in the form of financial assistance through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In response, this spring Pollock developed the KPC Veterans Talent Grant Scholarship. Every fall and spring semester students who meet the specified requirements of the program will be eligible to apply for tuition waivers of up to 15 credit hours each, and 73 in total are available for the next school year, Pollock said. The two students receiving the very first scholarships for this fall semester are on the Dean’s List, Pollock said. “Both are very deserving,” he said. The idea struck him after having a conversation with a 70-year-old student, who was wounded during combat in the Vietnam War. For heroic actions, the veteran was awarded with a purple heart, Pollock said. However, decades later he had no access to supplementary funding for school. Pollock’s first idea was to reinvest an administration fee that See AID, page A-12
Mixed start for kings runs around state By MOLLY DISCHNER Morris News Service-Alaska/ Alaska Journal of Commerce
In downtown Anchorage, fishers at Ship Creek are enjoying one of the state’s stronger king returns. June 17, anglers participating in the Slam’n Salm’n Derby — a fundraiser for the Downtown Soup Kitchen — recorded 21 kings by late afternoon, with Randall Yost landing a 33-pounder at about 12:50 p.m.
that took the lead. But while there are other bright spots in the state’s king runs — the Deshka and Nushagak are strong so far — it isn’t indicative of a statewide trend. The kings returning to Ship Creek are mostly two-ocean fish stocked by the Jack Hernandez Sport Hatchery, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Farther north, wild kings are returning to the Deshka River, where sport fishing was liberal-
ized June 14 in response to the perceived run strength. There, ADFG is now allowing bait and multiple hooks. Through June 17, 13,151 kings were counted at the Deshka weir. The escapement goal there is a range of 13,00028,000 kings. In Bristol Bay, the Nushagak River has the strongest king run so far, with 27,767 counted through June 17 according to ADFG, more than the 3,600 to 8,400 kings counted by the
same date in recent past. That’s the strongest of the Bristol Bay runs so far. ADFG reported poor king fishing so far in the Alagnak and Naknek drainages, and returns elsewhere in the state remain slow. The early-run king return on the Kenai River was 3,533 through June 16, ahead of the 2013 return, which came in at an all-time low, but still behind 2011 and 2012, according to ADFG. Other Cook Inlet runs are
also slow, with king counts on the Anchor River, on the southern Kenai Peninsula, and the Little Susitna, farther north in the Matanuska-Susitna region, behind the 2013 numbers. Likewise, the Karluk River and Ayakulik River king numbers, both on Kodiak Island, are behind the 2013 counts. On the Gulkana River, 264 kings were counted through June 17, a much earlier run than 2012 and 2013 when zero See KINGS, page A-12
Killer’s bargain angers mother of dead man NOME (AP) — The mother of a man murdered 15 years ago in Anchorage, possibly by convicted killer Joshua Wade, said she wants justice for her son and closure for his death. But for now, it remains a waiting game for Arlene Soxie as police investigate claims made by a confessed killer that her son was another of his victims. She also said the man who claimed to be her son’s murderer has been rewarded by authorities by receiving a prison transfer out of Alaska.
“One of the detectives was talking to Joshua Wade,” Soxie told KNOM of the notification she received last February. “And he confessed that he was the one that killed my son.” “And it was like he ... like he died all over again,” Soxie said of her son, Henry Ongtowasruk, 30. In Anchorage, state and federal authorities announced Friday that Wade agreed to dismiss a case seeking post-conviction relief and agreed to tell investigators about three additional
murders he committed, for a total of five. Wade was sentenced to life in prison in February 2010 in the 2007 death of Mindy Schloss, a neighbor who worked as a nurse practitioner. At the time, he also confessed to killing Della Brown in a shed in Anchorage in 2000. A jury acquitted him of murder in that case, but it convicted him of tampering with evidence. Soxie told the Nome radio station that after detectives informed her of Wade’s conC
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fession, the news made her hopeful there would be justice. But that dissipated when she learned Wade bargained the information to get a transfer out of Alaska. He’s now serving his sentence at a maximum-security prison in Indiana. “It angered me,” Soxie said. “My son can’t speak for himself. And to know that people in the governing system, or the law, allow things like that, it’s ... it’s not right either.” Alaska Assistant Attorney General John Novak told The
Associated Press that by allowing Wade to transfer to the federal prison, the dismissal of his post-conviction relief case means Wade will never get out of jail. “In my evaluation, that’s an important benefit to the people, to make sure that conviction stays in effect,” he said. Novak noted that juries are unpredictable, and he pointed to Wade’s acquittal in the Brown murder case. The other benefit is that Wade said he would talk to investigators about other crimes, See WADE, page A-12