Macky Cassidy, Jake Bell and Rune Lou Bell welcomed Rayna Lynn Bell into their lives at 5:42 a.m. on Feb. 15 at Bartlett Hospital in Juneau. She was 8 pounds, 4 ounces and 21 ½ inches long when she was born. Also in attendance were nurse midwife Kayla McMaster, nurse midwife and grandmother Mary Lou Kelsey, as well as nurse Shelly Crowe. Cassidy said, so far, Rayna’s pastimes include drinking milk, keeping her eyes closed and listening to her brother play with his Transformers.
Avery Williamson ran for the University of Alaska Anchorage at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Indoor Championships, finishing 11th out of 17th in the 5000-meter run on Feb. 20 in Spokane. Williamson is a 2022 graduate of Haines High School.
The Haines Borough Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, an advisory committee to the borough assembly, held its first meeting on Thursday, Feb. 22. Thom Ely and Kathleen Menke were elected as co-chairs of the committee which plans to meet on the third Thursday of every month. The group welcomes community input from groups and individuals and will be working to form partnerships with groups including non-profits, agencies, tribes, and individuals to serve members of the community including kids, families, adults and seniors.
Bryne Power, a former Haines resident, is returning to Haines on March 9 to pack what he describes as a 12,000-pound library of books, music and movies into a container and ship it across two oceans and 12 time zones to Tbilisi, Georgia. Power has had a lot of help financing this – he said he raised most of the $18,000 he needs for the trip via YouTube and GoFundMe. Power said the shipment leaves on the 15th and on the 16th he’ll have a garage sale of the things he cannot take with him.
The Glacier Nights Snow Festival, a music and arts event in Haines Junction, will be held on March 1 and 2 at the St. Elias Convention Center. The event includes snow sculptures and a workshop on how to make them, a costume contest as well as music from Whitehorse metal band Cows Go Moo, electronic music from Katabatik, and Snaxx.
The Outer Coast School in Sitka is hosting a free Tlingit language Massive Open Online Course March 10-14 from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. via Zoom. Yeidikookʼáa (Dionne Brady-Howard), Yeiltʼoochʼ Tláa (Collyne Bunn), and Skeiwdusá (Matthew Spellberg) will host four nights of Lingít songs, activities, and exercises. All levels are welcome, especially beginners and families. Signups are available on the Outer Coast website and questions can be directed to [email protected].
Haines middle school athletes recently attended the Southeast regional wrestling tournament in Ketchikan and Hannah Mason said they were a powerhouse. Of the 14 youths who traveled, nine placed in the top four for their weight class. Luke Bell, Finn Crowe, Calvin Bell, Violet Crowe, Sophia Hedden, Makayla Henry and Brylea Swaner all made it to the finals. The crew’s last tournament of the season is the Tanana Invitational Tournament in Fairbanks on March 1-2. It’s the largest tournament in the state and coach Jake Mason is taking 11 wrestlers – six boys and five girls.
Travis and Rachel Kukull recently traveled through Mexico. Travis said he was in charge of driving, while Rachel took on the job of navigating. The journey included being shaken down by local police outside of Cancun, a stop to watch spider monkeys in Punta Laguna, the ancient city of Coba, a meal of octopus with mashed squash and pickled onions in Valladolid, and a few places where they ate cochinita pibil, a pig roasted underground with sour oranges and served with tortillas or sopa de lima, which is a lime consommé with tortillas and chicken – a favorite of Rachel’s. The couple also spent time visiting some of the Yucatan’s thousands of cenotes (pronounced say-no-tays) – which are leftovers from a meteorite strike around 66 million years ago.
Haines Borough fire department staffers Sean Reed and Sean Silk recently passed their EMT II courses and state tests.
The Glacier Bears boys basketball got blown out by the second-ranked conference team on the first day of a recent trip to Petersburg, 62-31, but bounced back for a nailbiter one-point loss on Friday, Feb. 23. Coach James Hart said the performance ahead of the Region V championships, which begin March 6 in Sitka, was encouraging. “To know we could take the number two team — It tells you we could be in any game in the conference,” said Hart. The Glacier Bears girls notched two wins on their Petersburg trip. “The top of our zone was really creating stress for Petersburg’s ball handlers, and we were able to capitalize on turnovers,” said coach Coleman Stanford. He said the team was already looking forward to the regional tournament. “It’s hard to take 10 days off and keep focus and enthusiasm. The mentality right now is ‘let’s get this show on the road,’” he said.