Chilkat Valley Preschool students and siblings with pumpkins they carved during a get-together with parents.

Oct. 27, 1969

Folk songs will ring out from the Chilkat Center Saturday night when Evelyne and Bob Beers, nationally-known performers, bring their voices and instruments to Haines-Port Chilkoot in the second concert of the 1969-70 Alaska Music Trail.

The Beers family folk-odyssey goes back to the time of the American Revolutionary War when Bob’s great, great, great grandmother migrated to Boston from Northern Ireland. Moving westward in the great American westward expansion, the family passed songs and lore from one generation to another. Bob Beers learned much of his music directly from his mother and grandfather.

He began playing fiddle and psaltery at about age seven, learning by ear from his grandfather. His family later sent him to a conservatory where he learned to play the violin so well by note that by the time he reached secondary school he had become a member of the famous St. Louis Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.

Only after graduating from Northwestern University did he realize that his inherited knowledge of folklore was something special and that he was one of the world’s few psaltery players. He turned to folk music rather than the concert stage.

Oct. 27 1994

Next year’s Southeast Alaska Fair will again include a five-day Alaskan Bald Eagle Music Festival, the fair’s board of directors decided last weekend.

“Were going to have it,” said Marilyn Josephson, one of the fair board members who met last weekend for a four-hour “retreat” to decide the festival’s future.

“We just have to figure out a way to stop taking in less than we’re spending,” board member Becky Nash said Tuesday. “It can’t happen at the expense of losing other parts of the fair.”

The 1994 music festival took in a total of $16,189, but had $49,565 in expenses, requiring a $33,376 contribution from the fair budget, according to Hal Turner, festival entertainment coordinator.

Board member decided to continue with a five-day format for the music festival and have reserved the Chilkat Center Aug. 16-20. However, changes will be made in an attempt to stem the tide of red ink.

Oct. 29 2009

A cleanup of trash dumped along the Haines Highway and near popular fishing spots is tentatively set for 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7.

State trooper Josh Bentz is organizing the event. It comes on the heels of his efforts to get junked abandoned cars hauled from near the confluence of the Klehini and Chilkat Rivers, a prominent spot in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.

“It’s been a problem that’s gotten worse all summer,” Bentz said. “They’re starting to stack up in there.”

Bentz said he’s received about 10 calls on the junks. Besides cars, the area reached by primitive roads off 25 Mile Haines Highway has become a dump for old furniture, car parts, and garbage near the rivers and a chum salmon spawning channel.