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CLARION P E N I N S U L A
MARCH 1, 2015 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
Vol. 45, Issue 128
50 cents newsstands daily/$1.00 Sunday
Troopers hunt for man who fled after Kasilof stop By RASHAH MCCHESNEY Peninsula Clarion
Alaska State Troopers are cautioning motorists on the Seward Highway to avoid picking up hitchhikers as they search for a man who led them on a high speed chase before ditching his vehicle and running into the woods. Troopers are searching for Andre Morris Tanner, 32, after a Wildlife Trooper made contact with Tanner
while checking users near Centennial Lake area in Kasilof. The trooper said Tanner appeared to be under the influence and initially provided a false name before fleeing the parking lot, according to a Trooper report. Tanner sped down Tustumena Lake Road and the trooper attempted to pull him over but wasn’t able to due to high speed chase and road conditions, according to the report. However, additional troopers found
Tanner’s car speeding north on the Sterling Highway and again tried to pull him over; he eluded them and passed multiple vehicles through and north of Soldotna, according to the release.
Andre Tanner
Troopers stopped chasing him at that point but he was again seen by State Park Rangers near mile 62, still speeding and driving recklessly, according to the release. Troopers and Park Rangers again gave chase near mile 60 of the Seward Highway. They lost sight of the vehicle and again stopped pursuing, according to the release. Tanner was then seen again near mile 49 of the Seward Highway, where troopers laid spike-strips on the high-
way, deflating the tires on Tanner’s car, according to the release. He then fled into the woods on the northbound side of the highway, according to the release. Troopers, Park Rangers and law enforcement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service responded and began canvassing the woods for Tanner along with a K-9 unit and Alaska State Trooper Helicopter 3.
Local woman a Mrs. Alaska hopeful
Ski Patrol saves boy from drowning By KRIS CAPPS Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
In 2014, more than $300 million of Secure Rural School funds were distributed to communities across the country. Alaska received $14.24 million, of which $3.89 million was allocated to communities in the Chugach Forest region, and $10.35 million went to communities in Tongass region. Because Congress failed to reauthorize Secure Rural School payments for 2015, communities in Alaska will be given roughly $537,000 this year. That money is a result of the Payments to States 1908 Act, which provides rural communities a quarter of proceeds from timber receipts collected from national forests. In its 2016 fiscal year budget justification, the Forest Service hopes to reauthorize the Secure Rural Schools Act, but phase it out through 2019. The proposed fiscal year 2016 payment for Secure Rural Schools is $247
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) really does work. Just ask Tom Kurth, of Fairbanks, who saved the life of a little boy in Girdwood last week. Kurth is head of the fire and aviation program for the Division of Forestry in Fairbanks. He was at Alyeska Resort attending the spring operations meeting for his state job. He also was attending an annual seminar with the Ski Patrol, of which he is a member. After a day of meetings, Kurth and his ski patrol colleagues went night skiing from 7-9 p.m. Then Tom and Cole Carson decided to hit the pool. It was about 11 p.m. and Kurth wanted to swim laps. When he stood up at one end of the pool, he heard a mother start screaming. “Very close to me, right next to me, was a small boy, floating in the water,” he said. The boy was face-down in the water. He was not breathing. “I picked him up and I saw he was unconscious and unresponsive,” said Kurth. “I could hear the mother, she was hysterical, yelling his name.” She had three other children in tow, he said. Kurth picked him up and laid him on the side of the pool. “He was right at my height when I slid him on the side of the pool,” he said. Kurth used to teach CPR and also has worked as a medic, he said. “There was no time to think it through too much, you just react,” Kurth said. “I just started following my protocols. I established an airway. I pinched his nose. I gave him three breaths.” He was able to clearly see the boy’s chest rise and fall. In between each breath, he reassured the hysterical mother. Meanwhile, Carson ran to the pool office and yelled for the employee there to call 911. Then he hurried back to Kurth and the boy. “We train for this all the time at the ski patrol,” Carson said. “Every year, we do CPR certification. Usually, the standby guy is supposed to calm down the mom.” But Kurth was doing a fantastic job on his own, Carson said. “He would give breath to the little boy, then let him exhale and tell the mom, ‘He’s gonna be okay.’ Then he’d give a rescue breath and say to the mom, ‘Try and calm down,’” Carson said.
See FORESTS, page A-2
See CPR, page A-2
By IAN FOLEY Peninsula Clarion
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For one Kenai Peninsula resident, life is more than a beauty pageant. On March 14, Krystal Autrey from Sterling, will participate in the 2015 Mrs. Alaska United States pageant held at Dimond High School in Anchorage. There, she will go up against 19 other married women from across Alaska for a chance to compete at the national competition. “I’m super excited,” Autrey said. “I’ve always been interested in stuff like this.” Autrey participated in her first pageant shortly after her daughter was born two years ago. Seven months ago Autrey welcomed a son, and she is now ready to give beauty pageants another shot. Autrey said the competition process includes an interview with a judge, and swimsuit and evening gown modeling displays. While the event showcases beauty, Autrey says the pageant is more than just about looks. “Our pageant is a pageant with a purpose,” she said. “We’re not going up there just to look pretty and to see show what we can look like in a dress.” See MRS. ALASKA, page A-2
Inside today Sunny 39/20 For complete weather, see page A-10
Opinion......................... A-4 Alaska........................... A-5 Nation........................... A-6 World............................ A-8 Sports........................... B-1 Community................... C-1 Weddings...................... C-1 Dear Abby..................... C-2 Crossword..................... C-2 Horoscope.................... C-2 Classifieds................... C-3 TV...................... Clarion TV Check us out online at www.peninsulaclarion.com To subscribe, call 283-3584.
See FLED, page A-2
Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion
Debbie Brown, of Soldotna, squats in her damp crawl space on Silverweed Street where she said water has been seeping underneath the plastic on Saturday in Soldotna.
Fighting back against the flood Residents work to solve problems on Kalifornsky Beach road By KELLY SULLIVAN Peninsula Clarion
The frozen pools cemented in Silverweed Street’s culverts are not natural. Some of the contaminated ice was pumped directly from the crawl space of various Kalifornsky Beach subdivisions’ residents, and will likely flood multiple properties as it melts. Debra Brown, who has
lived on the street for more than 30 years is sitting in her gray Subaru, black ear muffs covering her ears, chatting with Cindy Minkler who owns the property. It is the highest point on the street. Minkler has been trying to sell her home, and finally has control over the flooding that has plagued her basement on and off, for two years. The “for sale” sign is visible, erected at the end of her driveway.
The two are discussing the impending lagoons of standing water that will inevitably fill the basements of their neighbors, flood furnaces and septic systems, mold homes and permeate yards. “We have been fighting this on and off for two years,” Minkler said. After an unusually snowy and rainy year in 2012 and a four-month deluge of precipitation beginning in July 2013,
the wicked weather culminated in a rainstorm on Oct. 2728 that devastated Kalifornsky Beach properties. The water table has seen minimal reduction since. Brown pulled into Minkler’s driveway to remind her that members of the K-Beach High-Water Drainage Task Force will be attending the March 17 Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly meeting. See FLOOD, page A-2
Murkowski pressures Forest Service By IAN FOLEY Peninsula Clarion
Senator Lisa Murkowski said the United States Forest Service needs to commit to the future of Alaska’s forest management. Speaking on Thursday at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the U.S. Forest Service’s 2016 budget request, Murkowski was critical of the agency’s recent actions. She said she disapproved of how Alaska’s national forests have been managed, especially in the face of dwindling Secure Rural School funds. “I think the Forest Service has broken the federal government’s promise to actively manage our national forests,” Murkowski said in her opening statement. “And now, the failure to reauthorize Secure Rural Schools is revealing this stark reality to forested communities
File photo/Peninsula Clarion
In this Jan. 12, 2013 file photo Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, talks at the Sports Complex in Soldotna. Murkowski said she is pressuring the U.S. Forest Service to better manage the national forests and reinstate Secure Rural Schools funding.
across the West.” The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 has been used to provide vital funds for
schools, roads and projects in rural areas as they transition from the declining timber industry to other sources of revenue. C
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