Sitka Health Summit
Dear Editor: Many thanks, Sitka! The Sitka Health Summit steering committee recognizes all the great ideas and hard work you do to make Sitka a healthier place to live.
All this good work is being acknowledged by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This spring we submitted an application for the RWJ Foundation’s “Roadmaps to Health Prize.’’ The prize honors outstanding community partnerships which are helping people live healthier lives.
Of the 253 communities across the country which applied for this award, we are thrilled to be one of the 53 that made it to the next level.
Sitka is in the top 20 percent because of the hundreds of local people who have worked hard throughout the years to turn health summit goals into success stories worth sharing. The projects we wrote about in round one were; the bicycle friendly community project, the Fish To Schools program, the Choose Respect mural and the Farmers Market/St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm. Thanks to everyone who has supported these community-driven wellness initiatives.
Keep your fingers crossed that Sitka makes it to the next round of 12 communities. Next year six of these communities will be notified that they won the $25,000 no-strings-attached cash prize. If Sitka wins, this money will go to making the health summit activities and initiatives bigger and better.
Again, thanks to everyone who has helped to make our town a healthier place to live. Sitka has a lot of great things to write about and more importantly you are making this beautiful island an even better place to live.
Sitka Health Summit
Steering Committee:
Patrick Williams, Elisabeth Crane, Alyssa Sexton, Doug Osborne,
Ellen Daly and Penny Lehmann
P.S. The 7th Annual Health Summit activities are right around the corner.
The Sitka Community Health Fair on the Sheldon Jackson campus will be held Sept. 21. The Lunch and Learn, “Whistle While You Walk,” is at the library on Sept. 23. The big Come One Come All with Your Ideas Planning day is Sept. 27. Finally, we have some things planned for the year “Health Hearty Wholesome” Grind will be Oct. 5.
Hope to see you at these health summit events, more information coming soon at www.sitkahealthsummitak.org.
Music Festival Thanks
Dear Editor: The 43rd Sitka Summer Music Festival is all wrapped up and we’ve been reflecting on all the incredible community support received over these five weeks.
A couple of weeks ago, we sent you a letter to acknowledge the organizations that have been involved, but there are a few to add to that list. Many thanks to the Sitka Rotary, Sitka Emblem Club, Friends of Kettleson Library, Mountainside Family Health Care, SAFV, AmeriCorps volunteers and AC Lakeside, and the Greater Sitka Arts Council, plus Tracy Turner, Bridget Kauffmann, Marilyn Hanson, Allie Barnes, Francis Lawless, Lisa Teas and Connie LaPerriere for providing cookies and punch after the evening concerts for the audience and musicians to enjoy.
We’d also like to acknowledge the numerous individuals who gave invaluable support behind the scenes, starting with our Sitka board members: Stef Steffen, Cyndy Gibson, Dirk White, Jeff Budd, Kari Lundgren, Tiffany Pearson, Don Lehmann and Cindy Westergaard for hosting dinners and post-concert parties, staffing events, and maintaining an overall welcoming atmosphere for musicians and patrons alike.
The concerts could not have happened without our star staff: Ross Venneberg, Jasmine Shaw, and Susan Wingrove, plus stage volunteers Ed Ronco, Abigail Carney, Jim and Helen Dangle, Kathy Newman and Helen Fang. Deep gratitude to Larry Ross for volunteering to supervise the merchandise table all summer, plus the following greeters, ticket-takers and ushers: Allie Barnes, Melissa Berger, Toby Campbell, Charlotte Candelaria, Lynn Chassin, Christine Davenport, Lois Denherder, Marcy Drake, Jane Eidler, Spencer Erwin, Ray Friedlander, Kathi and Nick Goddard, Amy Gorn, Christine Harrington, Deborah Hearing, Joshua Houston, Heike Huettenkofer, Kate Johnson, Gale and Peg Kehres, Onagh MacKenzie, Dave Nicholls, Paul Norwood, Dorothy Orbison, Jude Reis, Brooke Schafer, Bonnie Whiting Smith, Henrietta Van Maanen and Liz Will. Tommy Joseph and Robert Rose each donated a fantastic item to our silent auction, for which we are most thankful. Also, special thanks to Dan Jones and Randy Hughey for lending their wisdom and expertise.
We are so grateful to Doug and Olga Borland for opening their home for our special brunch event, plus Eliot Bruhl, Matthew Turner, and our board for preparing such delicious food. Also, thanks to Thad and Sandy Poulson, Dave and Cheryl Vastola, the Sitka Sound Science Center, and the Maksoutoff Street neighborhood for hosting post-concert dinners.
Cleo Brylinsky, Carmen Bartelds, Bridget Kauffmann, Janine Holzman, Sandy Burd, Marcel and Connie LaPerriere, Jerry Fleming, John Little, and various mystery elves, provided generous hospitality by making repairs to Stevenson Hall and keeping it tidy and welcoming, or by supplying baked goods, dinners and other nourishment for the guest musicians. Thanks also to Galen Paine and Don Surgeon for providing additional housing.
We’re also thankful for Roger Schmidt, Paul Cox, Will Burck and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp for another year of dedicated partnership.
It takes a whole community to put on a five-week festival like this, and Sitkans are the most incredible hosts. Our deepest apologies if we’ve overlooked some of our contributors. We sincerely can’t do this without YOU.
Zuill Bailey, Artistic Director
Kayla Boettcher, Executive Director
Sitka Summer Music Festival
Emergency in Sitka
Dear Editor: On Tuesday, June 25, my wife and I had the chance to experience the high-quality care, professionalism and concern for both patient and family at Sitka Community Hospital and the neighborliness to strangers exhibited by the residents of the Sitka.
I came to the emergency room after feeling chest pains and shortness of breath while riding a bike back to town from Heart Lake. My wife and I were visiting Sitka as a port call on our Alaskan cruise. Renting a bicycle from a local shop and going for a ride was my shore tour for the day.
When I arrived at the Sitka Community Hospital, I was promptly evaluated, diagnosed and given immediate stabilizing care. Dr. Golub contacted a hospital in Seattle and arranged for me to see a specialist in Seattle. My transfer to Seattle by air was made later that night and I arrived in Seattle by Wednesday morning. I underwent a procedure to place a stent in my heart on Thursday and was discharged on Friday in time to make our originally scheduled end-of-cruise commercial flight home to Colorado. A full recovery is in progress.
Many residents of Sitka made this prompt treatment and recovery possible. My wife and I regret that we don’t have the names of all of the people who helped us. However, those people include: the man who gave me a ride to the hospital in his pickup truck when I flagged you down on the Sitka Highway near Chirikov Drive (you also returned my rented bicycle to Yellow Jersey Cycle Shop for me); the woman who was loading the shuttle bus to take passengers back to the Regatta and who, when approached by my wife for help to find a taxi to the hospital, called her friend on her cell phone to come and assist my wife, that friend who indeed came and drove my wife to the hospital; Skye, the port agent for Oceana Cruise Lines; Liz, who checked me in when I arrived at the hospital, Brenda and Susan on the nursing staff at the hospital; Dr. Golub; the ground and air ambulance crews that transported us to the airfield and then on to Seattle (I recall that one member of the EMT crew is a volunteer who teaches math and science at the high school and one of the gentleman on the plane spends part of his time in Colorado); and the Yellow Jersey Cycle Shop who mailed me items I had left at the bike shop at the start of the ride.
We are sorry that we never got or can’t recall all the names of everyone who aided us, including those behind the scenes that we never met.
Everyone we encountered in Sitka helped us in every way they could. You have our deepest thanks and admiration.
Brian and Janet Jeffries,
4027 Milano Lane,
Longmont, Colo. 80503
