This year, the winner in the poetry competition, for 4^th through 6^th grade was Cassidy Race of Talkeetna Elementary. Race is now in 7^th grade, but was a 6^th grader when she entered the contest in April.

Her winning poem, Thoughts, was part of KTNA’s special on the writing, reading and poetry lessons that Talkeetna resident Ed Craver taught last spring at Talkeetna Elementary.

Cassidy said her mother, Sarah, broke the news to her, “Cassidy, I have some wonderful news, she said, when I got home”  Race said,”…oh my gosh I won this!”

Cassidy says she didn’t think about how many she was competing against, but she was happy with her work and wanted to share.  She said,

“I wasn’t really thinking about how many were entering.  I had a great poem I want to share it with the world.”

She thinks she’d like to write more, but where does one go if one starts out on top? When asked if she’ll continue to write she seems a bit dubious, “I’d like to (keep writing) but I don’t know if I can do another poem as good as this one”

There were a number of categories in the contest -  fiction  and  non fiction, with 3 age levels, poetry with 4 age levels, as well as a story category for small children.  The grand prize winner this year was Cecilia Worth of Homer.

The creative writing and poetry contest is held annually each spring with winners announced in summer.

listen to the full story:

Download audio file (20110823PoetryWinner.mp3)

in tka. Im sd.

Download audio file (20110627PreSchoolGone.mp3)

Download audio file (AMNews-20110601.mp3)

Download audio file (20110525ProjectEarth.mp3)

Download audio file (20110524ClimbWall.mp3)

The Mat Su School District’s Board of Directors recently met in a work session to discuss the school bond proposal, which would include life safety measures, construction and facility upgrades.

Proposed projects include life safety features, such as fire alarms, replacing bleachers, pedestrian crosswalks and emergency generators.

The second part of the bond package is two new schools.  One school would be an elementary school in the west part of the lower Valley that would serve Knik Goosebay Road and also  a Junior and Senior High School near Knik Goose Bay.    Additional construction projects would be athletic fields and tracks at the larger lower Valley schools.

The third part of the package includes other upgrades. Facility upgrades would include improvements to energy efficiency, parking lot repairs, locker replacements and fixture replacements.

The Board will be voting May 11^th whether to forward the proposal to the Borough Assembly.  The Assembly then decides if they will  place the proposal on the ballot in the fall election

The project manager for the Trapper Creek repair is Jeff Walden and last fall, he had said he expected the money to be available in October. As with many projects, there are slight delays at times.

Now, Acting Borough manager, Elizabeth Gray, has announced that Triple 5 Construction from Big Lake has been selected as the contractor and they are scheduled to begin work on the roof in June after school is out. The work is scheduled for completion before the end of summer break.

There is not enough money for the school roof to be replaced entirely, but a proper transition between the roof and the flat roof extension will be installed.

At the same time those repairs are happening, manager Gray reports that a number of road repairs have been scheduled for the Trapper Creek area including the Mile 121 parking lot, Kula Road and Oilwell Extension as well as Trail Ridge and the completion of Moose Creek Bridge.

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Download audio file (Five-Poets-Final.mp3)

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The individual works of the five poets featured in the above story can be heard by pressing the play buttons below:

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Crimson Flames, by Cassidy Race

Download audio file (Crimson-Flames.mp3)

Winter Wonders, by Miguel Holman

Download audio file (Miguel-Hollman.mp3)

If I Were One Inch Tall, by Gabby Faurot

Download audio file (Gaby-Farout.mp3)

Midnight Rainbows, by Celeste Harrell

Download audio file (Celeste-Harrell.mp3)

Thoughts, by Cassidy Race

Download audio file (Thoughts-Cassidy-Race.mp3)

Seasons, by Taylor Barnard

Download audio file (Taylor-Barnard.mp3)

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Poetry Month in Talkeetna will conclude with a peotry slam at the Talkeetna Library tonight, Friday, April 29th at 6pm. All are welcome to spectate or perform. Press play below to hear Library aide Holly Papasodora elaborate on the whys, whats, and wheres of tonight’s slam.

Download audio file (Holly-Poetry-Slam-Final.mp3)

Click the link to browse the proposal. (its a 156 page pdf)

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An event that normally brings over 200 people into downtown Talkeetna is scheduled for this Saturday.  Earth Day in Talkeetna started over a decade ago and has continued under the direction of various people over the years. Colleen Love, who is coordinating her fourth Earth Day commemoration, spoke with Sue Deyoe about the event and what it offers residents of the Northern Susitna Valley:

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Download audio file (20110415EarthDayFinal.mp3)

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The theme for this year’s Earth Day is “Tap into Spring”. In addition to the featured One Tree Project presentations by Arthur and Karen Mannix, Kahiltna Birchworks, Talkeetna Grown CSA, the Upper Susitna Soil and Water Conservation District, Bear Necessities, Talkeetna Alternative Energy, and the Northern Susitna Institute will have booths at the event. Fair Trade will offer free coffee for those that bring a cup, and Aramark will collect recyclables. In addition, there will be a booth for master gardeners, and another for cloth diapers. Earth Day will be held early in the Northern Susitna Valley, this Saturday, April 16th, from 11 am to 3 pm at the Sheldon Community Arts Hangar.

Past President of the society, Rich Crain, said he was gladly handing over the reins and was off to ‘follow his bliss’ .

In February, several community members stepped in to keep the society together when it was discovered that there wasn’t a board of directors left to direct the society and that Rich Crain was the only one left to hire a new curator.  Announcements were made to get interested individuals on the board and ballots were mailed according to bylaws.

The new board of directors was seated by Crain Tuesday evening.  Kym Swift was elected as president.  Tom Waite is vice president, Sandra Loomis is Secretary and Melissa Bristow is Treasurer. Todd Basilone, Deborah Windham and Erica Valentine were also elected to the board.

The board has a lot to accomplish in a short time.  The doors to the museum officially open when the first tourist train arrives on May 18^th.  Between now and then, the directors need to hire a new curator and get files in order.

An executive planning session is scheduled to set goals and establish committees, and a hiring committee is meeting soon to review curator applications.  The board hopes to have a new curator in place close to May 1^st.

The board changed the monthly meeting date from the second Tuesday of the month to the third Tuesday of the month, hoping to avoid conflict with other local meetings.

The next regular meeting of the board is set for the third Tuesday in May.

James King, newly hired Borough Community Development Manager, says that replacing the entire building is on the Borough capital needs list, but it might be several years before the funding comes through to replace the entire building. Meanwhile, the library is in desperate need of repairs to the roof, windows, as well as needing an exterior coat of paint.

King says he has heard that mud and dust are contributing factors to the decline of the library’s interior.  Chip sealing the parking area will help keep the building from disrepair.

The project manager for the Borough is Jeff Walden. He says the painting, window replacement,  some insulation replacement in the roof and the chip sealing should all occur this summer.

Library customers and consumers should expect some disruption as repairs and chip sealing occur.  Residents can listen for announcements for possible closures when the repairs are scheduled.

Download audio file (20110407Title1Losspkg1.mp3)

Download audio file (20110329TrailRondy.mp3)

Download audio file (20110311FolkArt.mp3)

Reflecting on the time spent with the Denali Arts Council, Lindgren said that one of her goals has been to see the arts council flourish to its potential. She said that the community can be credited for growing the arts council’s programming. Lindgren said, “All I had to do was to keep up with the growth and offer the administrative structure to facilitate it.”

Under her leadership and the guidance of the board, the Denali Arts Council put policies and procedures into place to help day-to-day operations, developed and maintained a website and created a strategic plan.

Lindgren said she feels confident that the strategic plan would serve as a roadmap for her successor.

Lindgren also said that she would continue to serve on the board of directors of the Northern Susitna Institute. Lindgren helped found the educational program called “A Classroom with a View”, which was in 2010 folded into the Northern Susitna Institute as a program.

She added that she and her family loved being in Talkeetna for the past 15 years and that she especially appreciated the tight-knit community of people who rely on each other and respect each other in good times and bad.

The Denali Arts Council is accepting resumes until March 14 to fill the open, part time executive director position.

At issue was Marie Richter’s request on behalf of fifth and sixth grade Talkeetna Elementary School students for partial funding for their end-of-year science field trip called “Project Earth”. During the January council meeting, their proposal was tabled for the 2009 round of revenue share money, but the council asked Richter to come back to the February meeting with students to justify their request. In last night’s  meeting, eight students along with their teacher Bruce Hamler showed up and were questioned by council members about what other fundraising efforts they’ve done and what their project is all about.

Their field trip is to take place in mid-May. The project is a three-day field trip to the Matanuska and Bodenburg Butte area to study geology and glaciers.

Confusion arose when the council said that the money for the 2009 round of revenue share has been doled out already and that their project could only be considered for the next round of funding.

Councilman Scott Holcomb expressed his concern that the process has not fairly treated all applicants as no other group than the elementary school kids were asked to show up before the council and defend their request. He said that the council didn’t ask Terrence Shanigan to bring trail users to defend the trail grooming equipment request, and didn’t ask students interested in the Moose Club to show up and testify why the project is important to them.

The council agreed to hold a grant expenditure committee meeting within the next two weeks to open up the nomination process for the 2010 revenue share funds, totaling $20,200.

*** To make contributions for the fifth and sixth graders’ “Project Earth”, contact the Talkeetna Elementary School.

The Park Service and the Murie Science and Learning Center offer two research fellowships and applications have to be in by March 1.

The fellowships are aimed to bolster work of undergraduate and graduate students as well as college and university faculty, state and federal agency scientists and private-sector researchers. The park service encourages research proposals that would study critical resource issues and would help park managers make decisions.

The “Discover Denali” Research Fellowship is for research in or near Denali.

The Murie Science and Learning Center Fellowship is for research taking place in Denali or other arctic or subarctic Alaska national park.

Researchers can apply for funding requests up to $8,000, to be used over one or two years.

An information guide about the fellowships, which includes specifics on how to apply and other information helpful to the application process, may be downloaded from here.  For more information contact Denali’s Research Administrator Lucy Tyrrell at (907) 683-6352 or lucy_tyrrell [at] nps [dot] gov.

Download audio file (20110120-woodboiler.mp3)

At a December reception for JSCF supporters, they held a random drawing to allow one guest to choose a non-profit in the community to receive the mini-grant. Sharla Rose held the lucky drawing number and she picked the Friends of the Talkeetna Library to receive the funds.

The Friends of the Talkeetna Library contemplate putting the money towards a set of updated books for the children section and a movable display book case.

The Susitna Council awarded $8,750 to the Trail Grooming Committee to buy a snowmachine and grooming equipment. Five-thousand-five-hundred dollars went to the Moose Club, an initiative to teach school students moose butchering and clean harvest techniques on road-kill moose. The council awarded $4,500 to cover the council’s administrative costs and purchase of supplies. A Trooper on the Trail project received $1,450.

The council tabled decisions on allocating revenue share funds for a Sunshine Cemetery and Sunshine Creek improvements. The council did not allocate any money to help with transportation costs of the 5^th and 6^th grade student’s Project Earth trip, but encouraged the parent petitioning for the project to come back in February to apply for funds out of the 2010 revenue share pot. If selected, the funds could be available in time for the students’ trip in May. The council discussed the scope and merits of the Northern Susitna Institute and decided to not allocate any funds toward the project, but to encourage them to apply again for a piece of the 2010 revenue share funds and to come back with a more detailed proposal.

The man was last seen wearing his yellow jumpsuit, pink undershirt and gray pants.  He has noticeable tattoos on both his arms.  If anyone has any information or sees this man, they can call 911.

LEAVING TALKEETNA—  Dec. 17 was declared to be “Sue Drover Day” to honor Drover for her years of cheerful service at the Talkeetna Elementary School. Photo by Diana Haecker

TALKEETNA—  Friday marks a special day at the Talkeetna Elementary School as a longtime employee is honored and the community can come by and bid farewell to Sue Drover.

Download audio file (20101216-suedrover..mp3)

Download audio file (20101213LiteraryTrivia.mp3)