December 11, 2013 Community Happenings

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Category: News

Created on Wednesday, 11 December 2013 11:46

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Annual Potluck
    For Grief Group
    Current and previous attendees of the Brave Heart Volunteers adult grief support groups are invited to the annual potluck 6 p.m. Dec. 16.
    The potluck will take place during the regularly scheduled bimonthly Living with Loss adult grief support group. All are invited to take a dish to share. Call 747-4600 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for details.

    Chinese New Year
    Planning on Tap
    Those wanting to help plan Chinese new year events are invited to meet 1:30 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Unitarian Hall.
    Dragon dancing practice is set 11 a.m. Dec. 14 at the Hames Center.
    A community Chinese new year celebration is being planned for Feb. 1. Events will include a parade wiht a 60-foot-long dragon, games, performances and crafts for children.
    Admission and sales, including Chinese food, will benefit brave Heart Volunteers. Chinese new year is a 15-day celebration with timing determined by the Chinese lunar calendar. It culminates with a lantern festival, which falls this year on Feb. 15. School classes, families and individuals are invited to participate.
    For more information contact Summer at 738-5092 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

    Volunteers Sought
    For Committee
    The Sitka School Board is forming a committee to provide additional input for the board to consider regarding the selection of the next district superintendent.
    The advisory committee will consist of 14 members whose task is not to form a collective recommendation based on consensus or majority vote but to provide the board with individual perspectives and recommendations.
    Selection of the committee members will be finalized in mid-January. It will meet Jan. 23, on the same day the board meets to review applications. Those chosen to become committee members must be available to meet that afternoon.    
    Persons wanting to serve on the committee can submit to the district office a single page narrative identifying who they are, which stakeholder group they wish to represent – two each of parents, business persons, administrators, teachers (current or retired), classified staff members, students and  Alaska Native representatives – and why they desire to be on the committee.
    Contact Laurie Seehafer at .966-1251 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Notification of interest is due to the district office by Jan. 10 and the committee members will be appointed by the Sitka School Board president on Jan. 13.

    CAP Members Lay
    Wreaths Dec. 14
    Cadets from the Sitka-based Civil Air Patrol Baranof Composite Squadron will hold a wreath-laying ceremony at Sitka National Cemetery noon Dec. 14.
    It is part of the Wreaths Across America event, held every December, which places nearly a half-million wreaths annually at Arlington Nation Cemetery and national cemeteries throughout the country.
    For questions contact CAP Major Andy Coykendall at 738-4796.     

    Story Time Set
    The preschool story time program at Kettleson Memorial Library will be 10:30 a.m. Dec. 19.
    “Santa Duck” by David Milgrim will be one of the readings. Songs and rhymes about the Christmas holidays and a craft project are part of the program.

    ‘Polar Express’
    Film at Library
    Families are invited to the movie ‘‘The Polar Express’’ 6 p.m. Dec. 21 at at Kettleson Memorial Library.
    The 100-minute movie by Robert Zemeckis is based on the children’s book written by Chris Van Allsburg.  The movie tells the story of a doubting boy who boards a magical train that’s headed to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. The film is rated PG.

    Movie to Show
    Kettleson Library will feature ‘‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’’ (1965) 10:30 a.m. Dec. 26. The movie is 25 minutes long and everybody is welcome.

    Christmas Dinner
    Set at ANB Hall
    Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 4 invites the public to the Community Christmas Dinner 1-3 p.m. Dec. 25 at the ANB Founders Hall.
    The traditional dinner is held to bring community together to celebrate the season.
    Volunteers are needed to sign up to set up, clean up, serve, work in the kitchen and other needed activities. Monetary donations are needed for food and toys, and can be mailed to: ANS Community Christmas Dinner, c/o K. Lucas, 224 Katlian, Sitka, AK 99835. Checks can be made out to ANS with ‘‘Christmas dinner’’ in the memo line.
    ‘‘Donations are being sought to feed an estimated 300 people who come together every year, people alone, families, homeless, student groups, to visit, commune, serve and be served,’’ organizers said.
    This year plans include Tlingit and traditional caroling, a children’s Christmas pageant – all children are welcome to participate, the Russian Orthodox Choir, and a surprise visit from Santa with gifts for the children.
    For further information call Katherine Howard, ANS sergeant-at-arms, 752-3420 or Karen Lucas, co-chair, 747-7803.

    After-School Arts
    Sets New Classes
    After-School Arts, presented by the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, will offer several new classes starting in January.
    Students can build their own pinhole camera, create bound and illustrated books, and explore nature journaling, musical engineering, Celtic dance and watercolors in the science center.
     A list of classes is available on line at fineartscamp.org. Sign up by calling the Fine Arts Camp at 747-3085, or stop by the office in the Rasmuson building on the SJ Campus.


Parking for Holiday Brass Concert

Parking will be limited at the Sitka Performing Arts Center for the Holiday Brass Concert on December 20th. Concertgoers should plan to carpool or park elsewhere and walk. The doors will open at 6:15 pm for seating. The concert will begin at 7pm. Tickets are still available at Old Harbor Books. $25 adults/$20 students and seniors. For more information, or to reserve wheelchair seating, please call 747-3085.

    Fine Arts Camp Sets
    Dance Workshops
    The Sitka Fine Arts Camp will present three dance workshops from teacher choreographer and performer Frances Donohoe.
    Partner dance, contact dance and dance improvisation for advanced dancers are all being offered throughout the month. Detailed class descriptions are available on line at fineartscamp.org. Sign up is available by calling the Fine Arts Camp at 747-3085, or stopping by the office in the Rasmuson building on the SJ campus.

    Cancer Support
    Group to Meet
    Sitka Cancer Support Group will meet 1 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Brave Heart Volunteer/Manager’s Building of the  Pioneers Home located behind  Mt. Edgecumbe Preschool on Seward Street.
    Those in cancer treatment and cancer survivors are invited to spend time with others who understand what they are going through. The support group is sponsored by Sitka Cancer Survivors Society. Call or email Mary Beth with questions or transportation, at 623-0842, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

    Meth Information
    Given at Talk
    The Hames Center will offer a free talk in the classroom with Eileen Gallagher, MA, CDCII, CDP, 3-4:30 p.m. Dec. 15.
    Gallagher will spend an hour covering the neuro/behavioral effects of methamphetamine, the behaviors that affect the brain, resulting behaviors, and suggested treatment approaches.    A 30-minute question/answer time will follow. For more information call 747-5080 or email hamescenter.com.



John Daniel

    Community
    Reading Set

    For the past couple of months, Oregon poet and essayist John Daniel has been living a writer’s dream. He’s been tucked away in a cozy house on the water with no obligations except one to himself: to finish work on his first novel.
    Daniel is in Sitka at the invitation of Carolyn Servid and Dorik Mechau of the Island Institute. He and Servid will share the podium at a community reading 5 p.m. Dec. 15 in the Del Shirley Room in Allen Hall on the SJ Campus. An Island Institute benefit, the event will include hors d’oeuvres, wine and cider and a yuletide mystery gift sale. Admission is $15,
    Daniel spent his early years on the east coast, but has lived in the west since 1966. After attending and dropping out of Reed College in Portland, Ore., he worked as a logger, railroad inspector, rock climbing instructor, hod carrier, and poet-in-the-schools. He began to write poetry and prose in the 1970s while living on a ranch in south-central Oregon. His talent won him a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford where he earned a master of arts in creative writing and taught for five years.
    Daniel’s newest book is his poetry collection ‘‘Of Earth: New and Selected Poems,’’ 1978-2011. It has poems from his earlier collections ‘‘Common Ground’’ and ‘‘All Things Touched by Wind’’ as well as new work. His latest nonfiction, the personal essay collection ‘‘The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life and Literature’’ won the Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction.
    His other nonfiction works are ‘‘Looking After: A Son’s Memoir,’’ about caring for his mother in the last years of her life as she declined with Alzheimer’s, and ‘‘Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone,’’ a blend of narratives about an experiment in solitude, his father’s life and career in the labor movement, and his own growing up in the 1960s. During his current sojourn here, Daniel has completed a draft of his first novel, tentatively titled ‘‘Gifted.’’
    Daniel is no stranger to Sitka. He served three times on the faculty of the Island Institute’s Sitka Symposium. His first visit in 1998 began his friendship with Sitka writer Carolyn Servid. She is the author of the personal essay collection ‘‘Of Landscape and Longing’’ and editor of three anthologies, including ‘‘From the Island’s Edge: A Sitka Reader.’’ She also collaborated with photographer Dan Evans on the book ‘‘Sitka: A Home in the Wild.’’ The event on Dec. 15 will be the first time Daniels and Servid have read their work together. All are welcome.
    For more information, contact the Island Institute at 747-3794.

    Polar Dip Set
    For Dec. 28
    The Baranof Chapter of the National Honor Society will sponsor the annual Polar Dip noon Dec. 28 at the UAS boat launch.
    All are invited to attend. Call president Emma Bruhl at 738-4680 for information.

    Sitkan Retires
    From Board
    Stef Steffen, Raven Radio founder and 31-plus-year board member, is retiring from the board.
    All are invited to the Cable House at 2B Lincoln Street, second floor, 7 p.m.  Friday to wish Stef the best, Raven Radio said.

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