Family members from overseas, Alaska and the Lower 48 will host a celebration of life for Ray Menaker 4:30 p.m. Saturday, April 30 at the Chilkat Center auditorium. A finger food potluck will follow. Everyone is invited to see a slide show and to share memories.
Christy Tengs Fowler and son Marty Fowler returned this week from an epic trip through Europe. The two started out in Geneva, Switzerland, where they met up with Helen Tengs’s 90-year-old first cousin and spent time with other relatives learning about family history. They then headed via train through Montreux and on to a gondola up to Verbier, where the finals of the Freeride World Tour were being held. Marty, a photographer, interned for Freeride and took photos during the competition. After it concluded, they went back to Montreux and eventually Geneva before heading to Greece, where Christy met up with an old friend from the Berklee College of Music. The Fowlers ended the trip in London where they visited museums, took river cruises and hung out with Christy’s childhood friend Omar Cordes.
Jen Reid is back in Haines after spending fall and winter on a series of adventures, the most notable being a 1,100-mile sailing journey from San Diego to the Sea of Cortez. Reid made the trip on a 37-foot sailboat with friends Shawn Shoultys and Mike Berkey. The group battled 50 mph winds and 12-foot seas, with the cockpit twice filling with 10 inches of water. Reid passed the time by swimming, kayaking and trolling for tuna, though the group didn’t catch a single fish on the entire trip.
Jesse Piper, Haines High School graduate class of 2010 and son of Gary Piper and Elizabeth Ripley, graduated from Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School and is now an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician. Technicians are trained to disarm improvised explosive devices, neutralize chemical threats and render safe nuclear weapons. Jessie will be stationed in San Diego, Calif., for a couple of years. He hopes to visit Haines this summer.
Seventh-graders Steven Galinski and Eli Williamson are heading to Washington, D.C., June 12-16 to compete in the National History Day contest. The duo won first place at the local competition and second place at state, qualifying them for the national contest. They are busy fundraising for their trip, and will be selling hotdogs and concessions at the home track meet May 13-14 and holding a dessert auction at the Grades 5-12 spring concert at the Chilkat Center on May 11. Galinski, Williamson and seventh-grader Haley Boron are the only students from Southeast to qualify for nationals, though Boron will not be attending due to a previously planned family trip.
Patty Brown’s sixth-grade “Skills for a Healthy Life” class had a Skype conversation Wednesday with Haines High School 2001 graduate Luke Hedrick. Hedrick, a project manager at Google in New York City, talked about the careers and job skills Google utilizes, his path to his current job and life in New York City. Hedrick emphasized creativity and communication skills as an asset, and students asked him about his work and Google’s recent innovations.
Inspired by former resident Victoria Moore’s participation in a roller derby league in Petersburg, Nicole Horton Holm is trying to organize a league in Haines. Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Holm is planning an informal meeting next month, with official training in the fall. Contact Nicole at 314-3176 to tell her if you’re interested in participating.
Donna Lambert visited daughter Grace Lambert and Grace’s boyfriend Steven Hotch in Hawaii recently, spending time in Kona and Hilo. Grace and Steven have been living in Hilo for four months. They went to beaches, saw turtles, swam in hot ponds and drove up to the summit of Mauna Kea. Donna said she was terrified when Grace jumped off a cliff at South Point, dropping 60 feet into the water below. At the Anchorage airport, Donna ran into David and Teresa Land, who were returning from visiting their daughter Karissa in Kona. Steven and Grace will be in Haines for about a month and then are heading to Fairbanks, where Steven recently secured a construction job.
The Haines Borough Public Library celebrated National Library Week April 10-16 with tech events, crafts and live music. John Hagen taught a class for “Mobile Monday” on how to use tablets and other devices to take photographs, and Lizzy Jurgeleit led a workshop to transform old hardcover books into journals. Eight people showed up for Thursday’s poetry reading, including Debi Knight Kennedy and Deborah Marshall. Thirteen people turned out for the Youth Coastal Clean Up on Saturday, where participants learned how to barbecue and build shelters to shield themselves from the elements.
Joanie Wagner took care of her three grandsons Cooper, Rowan and Satchel Sevigny in Anchorage for two weeks while their parents Katie and Craig Sevigny traveled to Hawaii for the Lavaman Waikoloa Triathlon. It was Katie’s fifth Lavaman and Craig’s first. Joanie spent the two weeks shuttling her grandchildren to basketball and play practice, and hiking Flattop Mountain with the trio.
Emily Keefer-Cowles and Greg Keefer celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary by buying a house in south Austin, Texas. A former development director for Takshanuk Watershed Council, Emily is a GIS technician working on maps applications for Apple. Greg, a former Chilkat Guide, is a storage engineer who works in the Cloud. Emily is working toward a master’s degree in biology. Her thesis is on prediction models for upstream migration of Chinook salmon in the Klamath River. Emily reported bumping into former Alaska Fish and Game biologist Randy Ericksen at a fisheries conference last summer in Portland, Ore.