By Karen Garcia
Haines Borough Mayor Jan Hill recently honored water/sewer operator Scott Bradford for receiving the Small Wastewater System Operator of the Year Award from the Alaska Water Wastewater Management Association. The statewide award was voted on by Bradford’s peers and professional associates. Bradford also won the AWWMA’s Small Water System Operator of the Year Award in 1998.
Layla Rochelle Baltzell was born May 10 at Bartlett Regional Hospital to parents Dillon and Hannah Baltzell. Layla weighed 6 lbs and 14 oz, and measured 21 inches long. Layla has an older brother, 2-year-old Bentley Thomas Baltzell. Grandparents are Michelle and Gary Stigen and Elissa and Kent Dobbins, both of Haines.
Rachelle and Tony Galinski celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary by taking a weeklong trip to Birmingham, Ala., and watching a NASCAR race in Talladega. Rachelle said the couple enjoyed Southern hospitality at their hotel, including complimentary made-to-order breakfast and free cocktails every evening. Even though favorite driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed early in the race, Rachelle and Tony were able to go down to pit road and had tickets to the driver introductions. Rachelle will head south again in a few weeks to chaperone son Steven Galinksi and Eli Williamson to the National History Day competition in Washington, D.C.
Byrne Power is back from a three-month jaunt through Europe. For more than two months, he made his way through France, England, Belgium and the Czech Republic, where he continued research and filming for his puppetry documentary “Gravity from Above.” Highlights included speaking with Stephen and Timothy Quay in London, visiting the Toone Marionette Theatre in Brussels and interviewing Guinolists (specialists in a certain kind of puppetry) in Lyons. Power spent the latter part of his journey in Tbilisi, Georgia, where he started pursuing a second documentary on Georgian music and dance. He met with Mariam Elieshvili, an 18-year-old who hosts a national television program on folk music, documentarian Tinatin Gurchiani, and Nina Ananiashvili, a world-renowned ballerina who has danced for the Bolshoi Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.
Jess Giddings is in India for three weeks with George Fox University’s Juniors Abroad program. She is volunteering with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity group and working with orphanages. For Mother’s Day, Jess sent Lori Giddings a photo of herself with an elephant whose trunk had been painted with chalk. After India, Jess will spend the summer semester studying in South Korea.
Eight students graduated from the American Bald Eagle Foundation’s Youth Raptor Volunteer Program last weekend. Stella Ordonez, Jayda Beck, Tyler Smith, Matilda Rogers, Sally Chapell, Ellie Diggins, Sierra Clark and Payson Clark graduated from the three-month program, which was led by raptor handler Chloe Goodson. Goodson recently revamped the program’s curriculum to focus on general bird knowledge instead of raptor handling. If the graduates want to start volunteering, they will gradually work up to socializing and handling the birds, Goodson said.
Math in Focus trainer Jayne Poole of Longview, Wash., was in town last week to work with teachers and parents on “Singapore math,” a teaching method that uses a three-step process to learn mathematical concepts. Poole was consulting with teachers in the library when school librarian Leigh Horner recognized her as a high school classmate. They had graduated together from Tigard High School in Oregon.
Niall Hackett is back in town after spending the winter in Queen Creek, Ariz., running The Links Golf Club at Queen Creek golf course. Hackett is the head professional at the Valley of the Eagles Golf Links in Haines.
C.J. Jones recently returned from serving as interim director for the Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska for the second time since January. Jones went to Unalaska in January, served as interim director through March, returned to Haines for job obligations, and then returned to Unalaska at the end of March. For part of her time there, she lived in an efficiency apartment in the town’s clinic. She will return to Unalaska again to help with the transition once the museum hires a permanent director.
Lori and Mike Carter enjoyed a week with family traveling through the Southwest. The couple flew in to Sacramento, Calif., and drove to Yosemite National Park, where they met up with Lori’s parents Bob and Joyce Webster, brothers Andrew and Caleb Webster, cousins Dane Overman, Drew Overman and Travis Geren, and aunt Jayne Overman. They continued on to Zion National Park, where they hiked Angels Landing. In Page, Ariz., they also hiked Lower Antelope Canyon. They capped the trip with two nights in Las Vegas, Nev., where they watched city lights from the Stratosphere.

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