Yukon resident and frequent performer in Haines Nicole Edwards couldn’t believe it when she received an email from the Chancellery of Honors informing her she’d won an award from the Governor General of Canada. Governor General David Johnston, who represents Queen Elizabeth in Canada presented Edwards with the Meritorious Service Medal for her work with the Bringing Youth Toward Equality organization. Edwards started the organization in 1998 after finding there were few services for youth in the area.
Cassie Miller, Josh Benassi, Thomas Hartmann and Angelica Sweet dominated a local volleyball tournament on Saturday. Five teams competed for a free day-pass to the 2017 Southeast Alaska State Fair. Gina Randles and Alixanne Goodman organized the tournament and plan to make it an annual fundraiser for the high school volleyball team.
Patty Brown recently attended a robotics tournament where she saw Koa Doddridge, who is on a team with Juneau Community Charter School, and former science teacher Teni Bentz, who coaches a team at Dzantiki’i Heeni Middle School. Learning from other clubs is helpful for Patty, who is looking at starting an afterschool Robotics Club in Haines with help from Rebecca Soza of Juneau Economic Development Council. JEDC provides support to coaches.
The Salvation Army’s food bank is a little fuller from the canned food drive at the Haines School. Students in grades K-12 competed. The overall winner was the junior class with 157 pounds. The eighth-graders topped the middle school with 114 pounds and second grade won in the elementary with 50 pounds.
George Figdor has returned from over two weeks in Micronesia visiting Saipan and Yap. He traveled there with daughter Alison Figdor and her husband John Broscious and their 2-year-old daughter, Lucy. They live in Burlington, Vt. George’s son Robin Figdor, who lives in Anchorage, also was able to join them as they visited the places where they lived in the 1980s when George and Bobbie Figdor taught in Saipan. The return flight included a stop in Tokyo to meet with Keiko Ohmae, a summer exchange student with the Figdor family in 1996.
Healy, Alaska, has a new online news source, The Denali Delver, created by journalist and former resident Eileen McIver. McIver reached out to James Alborough to help design the webpage and Karen Garcia offered a few ideas to help launch her new site. Eileen contributes stories to the Fairbanks Daily News Miner and is excited to have local news coming from Healy. Check it out at http://www.denalidelver.com.
Jane Pascoe lost her camera while traveling at Mono Lake, Calif., in October. She didn’t realize that she had also lost an extra SD card she was carrying, until it arrived in the mail a week ago. Kendrick Taylor, a research professor at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., found the tiny card in the mud near the lake’s South Tufa. Reviewing the photos on it, Taylor spotted a CVN office photo that included an envelope bearing the newspaper’s post office box number. He mailed the SD card to the address with a note saying “you might know someone who this belongs to.” Pascoe, the newspaper’s bookkeeper, opened the mail, reviewed the photos and recognized it as one of hers.
Jordan Stigen and Gary Stigen and Tom Brady of HughesNet Internet service returned from Orlando, Fla., after watching the launch of a satellite for HughesNet. They joined over 100 people at Cape Canaveral. Jordan said she was grateful for the experience, which she described as amazing. Jordan and Gary visited Universal Studios, Island of Adventures and Cocoa Beach after the launch.
Harriet Brouillette, Judy Davis, Mary Brouillette, Chris Masseth, Ted Hart and Meghan Elliott, and Ted and Meghan’s son Adze are back from a trip that included Washington and Nevada. In Tulalip, Wash., they visited aunt Andee Davis and uncles John and Walt Campbell, who are Charles Brouillette’s brothers. In Seattle, they enjoyed time with the Hart family, who live in Port Orchard. A highlight was a visit to the Washington Park Zoo where Adze had a stare down with a 1-year-old gorilla the same age as Adze. In Las Vegas, they met up with Meghan’s family, including stepmother Andrea DeLoony, grandparents Rex and June Hicks, and uncle Jamie Hicks, and enjoyed a tour in a limousine.
Oliver Nash was born Dec. 19 to Carl and Emma Nash in Springfield, Ore. Oliver weighed 9 pounds and joins 2-year-old brother Leo. Grandparents Dwight and Nancy Nash are planning a visit in March. Maternal grandfather Randy McDonald lives in Haines and maternal grandmother Marie McDonald resides in Eugene, Ore.