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By Mark Thiessen
See emails, Page A3
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Sunday, September 15, 2019 Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
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$1 newsstands daily/$1.50 Sunday
Educator strike planned for Tuesday By Victoria Petersen Peninsula Clarion
Educators and the school district are both preparing for a school shutdown, after executive committees with the Kenai Peninsula Education Association and the Kenai Peninsula Education Support Association voted on Friday to notify the Kenai
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE — An email from Alaska’s former first lady sheds new light on the actions that drove Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott from office, suggesting he may have invited a woman into his room, newly released emails shows. The revelation came in an email sent from former first lady Donna Walker to her husband, Gov. Bill Walker, just as he was about to announce Byron Mallott’s resignation Oct. 16. At the time, the governor said Mallott had made inappropriate comments. “Does he explain the incident?” Donna Walker emailed her husband at his official state email account. “I think that you describing it as ‘inappropriate comments’ is a huge understatement and you will be criticized for that,” Donna Walker wrote. “It was the conduct as well of inviting her to his room, and it sounds like there was some discrepancy as to how he greeted/touched her. I think you need to say inappropriate conduct.” The emails were released Friday to The Associated Press under an open records request. “I don’t have anything to add. I really don’t,” Bill Walker said when reached by cellphone Friday. “It was a very unfortunate situation all around.” Walker and other officials have been tightlipped about the incident that led Mallott to resign and, in part, helped doom Walker’s re-election bid. In his resignation letter to Walker, Mallott wrote: “It is a resignation compelled by inappropriate comments I made that placed a person whom I respect and revere in a position of vulnerability.” Walker has refused to go into any further detail beyond saying: “Byron recently made inappropriate comments that do not reflect the sterling level of behavior required in his role as Lieutenant Governor. … Byron has taken full responsibility for his
Soldotna, Kenai play homecoming contests
P E N I N S U L A
Vol. 49, Issue 283
Emails: Mallott invited woman to room
Football
Peninsula Borough School District of their intent to strike starting at 7 a.m. Tuesday. “The failure of the KPBSD to adequately address the Association’s primary concern of affordable healthcare premiums for public school employees continues to hinder an acceptable agreement,” the associations said in a release Friday.
David Brighton, president of the Kenai Peninsula Education Association, said Saturday that the associations had not heard from the district since Friday. ”It’s my earnest hope that the school board will come out of executive session ready to sign our contract, that way we can avoid a strike,” Brighton said.
Pegge Erkeneff, director of communications for the school district, said Saturday afternoon that the school board is meeting in closed executive session Monday, but the contents of that meeting are unknown. Erkeneff said the district has been working to prepare a counter offer, See strike, Page A3
‘Just about in heaven’
Harvest Moon Local Food Festival brings farmers, foragers to Soldotna Creek Park By Brian Mazurek Peninsula Clarion
September rains took a break on Saturday so that peninsula residents could buy and sell some fresh produce — and maybe get it pickled in the process. At the annual Harvest Moon Local Food Festival, Alaska growers, bakers and chefs got an opportunity to connect with the community while advocating for eating healthy and eating local. Organized by members of the Kenai Local Food Connection, the event took place at Soldotna Creek Park for the second year. Eliza Eller, a resident of Ionia and one of the organizers of the event, said that the goal of the Harvest Moon Festival is simple: buy local, eat local. Eller said that this year featured, among other things, homemade honey, sauerkraut, kombucha, sweets and medicinal salves, on top of plenty of fresh produce. Eller said that last year about 2,000 people attended the event. This year her volunteer counters had recorded well over 1,000 attendees by 1 p.m. Eller was happy to see a large number of families attend this year. With
Brian Mazurek / Peninsula Clarion
Eliza Eller with the Kenai Local Food Connection gives a class on making Kimchi at the Harvest Moon Local Food Festival at Soldotna Creek Park on Saturday.
the strong turnout and the sunny weather, Eller said she was “just about in heaven.” A key part of the festival is the fermentation station. After picking out a selection of fruits and vegetables to
take home, attendees had the opportunity to get their newly acquired produce pickled and preserved at no extra charge. Volunteers at the fermentation station also walked people through the process so that they
could walk away with the knowledge to preserve food for the winter. A new addition to the festival this year was the pie contest hosted by the local Farm Bureau and 4-H chapters. Eighteen different pies
were submitted by peninsula residents and judged by local food experts Kelsey Shields of Lucy’s Market, Joe Spady of Three Peaks Mercantile and Larry Marsh See harvest, Page A2
2020 Tustumena 200 sled dog race canceled By Joey Klecka Peninsula Clarion
The long-running Tustumena 200 sled dog race has been canceled for 2020, according to the T200 Sled Dog Race Association Board of Directors.
In a Facebook post Friday afternoon, the board of directors said it has canceled the 2020 race but with hopes of returning in 2021. T200 race director Tami Murray said she is stepping down from her position, noting that the board had been
discussing the future of the race for several months, but without a permanent collection of organizers that will handle fundraising efforts, the decision was made to put the race on a one-year hiatus. “The need for getting new blood involved was a big part
of it,” Murray said. “A lot of board members have a lot of obligations, and there’s not enough people to do the fundraising and work to put the race on. So we decided to take a year off, reach out and get new blood involved.” The closure of Freddie’s
Roadhouse, a popular winter hangout in the Caribou Hills for snowmachine drag races, also played a role in this winter’s T200 demise. Freddie’s Roadhouse served as the start and finish point of the See race, Page A3
education week
Perennial Challenge: Getting, keeping teachers By Victoria Petersen Peninsula Clarion
As summer was waning in Alaska’s largest city, Hoonah City schools Superintendent Ralph Watkins was among a dozen or so other school officials from around the state spending a precious sunny day recruiting teachers at a job fair in a hotel conference room. Fewer than 30 prospective teachers attended the fair, and the competition for their services was intense. Watkins was offering a $1,000 signing bonus to fill vacancies in his small district, which sits in a Tlingit village 500 miles away on the island of Chichagof on Alaska’s southeast panhandle. Other districts in the room offered signing bonuses of up to $3,000, a free laptop, free and subsidized housing, free airfare to
their remote village if hired, and more. “It’s tough,” said Watkins, who has lived in Hoonah for over four years. “I don’t want to be here right now— trying to hire. It’s hard and heartbreaking for me, but it is my job, and I’m going to make it work.” Recruiting and retaining good teachers is difficult in many communities across the United States— especially rural ones—but in rural Alaska and its Native Villages, it can be even tougher. That’s because schools rely heavily on out-ofstate teachers to staff classrooms, and many of the teachers the rural schools hire struggle to adapt to the harsh weather, isolation, high cost, and cultural differences that come with living in remote Alaska. See teachers, Page A9
Victoria Petersen / Peninsula Clarion
Graduates wait to walk across the stage May 5 at University of Alaska Anchorage’s spring 2019 commencement ceremony, including students from the university’s School of Education, which lost accreditation for all seven of its teacher-preparation programs in January.