Lisa Phu

Sealaska Heritage Institute’s biennial Juried Art Show and Competition is raising the bar for Native artists in Southeast Alaska. This year’s juror David Robert Boxley says the competition creates an environment for artists to constantly keep striving.

David Robert Boxley says it was agonizing to pick the 10 winners of the seventh Juried Art Show and Competition from the roughly 30 pieces submitted.

“The winners were chosen in a way that I hope will show what’s possible,” he says.

Boxley is a Tsimshian artist from Metlakatla and the son of prominent carver David Boxley. His father just finished his 72nd totem pole.

David R. Boxley started carving when he was six, learning from his father.

He says Sealaska Heritage Institute’s competition pushes the standard of art being made in Southeast Alaska.

“Southeast Alaska is cut off from the rest of the coast and all the major galleries in Vancouver and Seattle and I don’t think as many artists are able to be exposed to what’s going on down there and Sealaska is trying to get rid of that gap,” Boxley says.

He says artists now are still trying to reach the level of work that was done in the past.

“There’s a whole period of time where our art – at the same time the culture – was outlawed, dropped in quality because the old masters weren’t able to pass things on,” Boxley says.

Striving to attain those standards and quality, he says, is part of what’s keeping Native culture alive and healthy in Southeast Alaska.

“The art isn’t safe necessarily. There are a lot of great artists but that doesn’t mean that if we don’t push the standard and maintain that, that it won’t slip away again,” Boxley says.

This is the first time Boxley has judged the Sealaska Heritage Juried Art Show. He says it’s stressful, but he knows being on the other end of the process is also angst ridden.

Artist Lily Hope can relate. Prior to the June 11 awards ceremony, Hope didn’t go to the show, which opened five days before.

“I was having all this anxiety and I was like, ‘I can’t go look. I can’t go look at everybody else’s because I don’t want to lose sleep over, like, who could be winning,'” Hope says. “And five or six days ago I woke up and I was like, ‘It’s cool. I got third place. I’m good.’ My dream said I won third place.”

Her dream was correct. Hope placed third in the Northwest Coast Customary-Inspired Art category for her child ensemble, Little Watchman.

“He’s kind of watching out for our kids, but also for the integrity of the art, how it develops over time and how we stay true to the spiritual life of our work,” Hope says.

During the awards ceremony, Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl said art is a major part of Native culture because of its ties to spirituality.

“But we’ve also grown it into the Western culture where we can appreciate it also for its aesthetics. And this is where I think having our younger artists learn both aspects of it is so important to us,” Worl said.

The Juried Art Show and Competition was founded in 2002 to support the artists. This year’s awards total more than $8,000. Sealaska Heritage also offers art workshops throughout Southeast and its Celebration festival features a Native Artist Market.

“It is our goal to make Juneau and Southeast Alaska the Northwest Coast art capital,” Worl said.

Sealaska Heritage broke ground on the Walter Soboleff Center last August. Part of the center’s purpose is to display Northwest Coast art and support artists through an artist-in-residence program, demonstration and research areas.

Worl says the Walter Soboleff Center will make Juneau the next hub of Northwest Coast art.

Related story:
Tlingit carver Wayne Price takes top honor at Celebration art show

Tlingit carver and artist Wayne Price of Haines took Best of Show in the Sealaska Heritage Institute’s seventh Juried Art Show and Competition.

Price’s ‘Dancing Raven Hat’ is a painted hat made of red cedar and otter fur. The piece also took third place in the Formline Art category. Price’s other works – ‘Quantum Raven’ Paddle and ‘Mother Whale’ Paddle took first and second places in Formline, the show’s newest category.

Here are the complete results:

Best of Show

• Wayne Price—Dancing Raven Hat 

Northwest Coast Customary Art

• 1^st Place—Pauline Duncan, Ravenstail Set
• 2^nd Place—Wayne Price, Quantum Raven
• 3^rd Place—Deborah Head-Aanutein, Echoing Traditions

Northwest Coast Customary-Inspired Art

• 1^st Place—Teri Rofkar, Caprini Tribal Regalia
• 2^nd Place—Della Cheney, Leadership and Change
• 3^rd Place—Lily Hope, Little Watchman

Formline Art

• 1^st Place—Wayne Price, Quantum Raven
• 2^nd Place— Wayne Price, Mother Whale
• 3^rd Place— Wayne Price, Dancing Raven Hat

Awards totaled more than $8,000.

Tsimshian carver and artist David R. Boxley was the show’s sole juror. He was responsible for selecting the 21 pieces featured in the show as well as the winners.

The Juried Art Show will be displayed at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center through June 30.

The volunteer search effort for missing Juneau hiker Sharon Buis starts again Wednesday after a few days off due to weather.

Nine volunteers, including three skiers, and a Coastal Helicopter searched Granite Creek Basin and Icy Gulch on the east side of Gold Ridge last Friday, but came up with no leads.

Volunteer search coordinator Luke Holton says two teams will be sent out Wednesday.

“We’ll have one team searching in the Ebner Falls area. Due to the terrain around Ebner Falls, they’re just going to be staying below it and approaching from the basin,” he says. “Then we also have another team that’s going into the Icy Gulch area once again on foot rather than on skis. We’re going to be looking along the east side, which wasn’t thoroughly searched by our skiers.”

Help from the community is still needed.

“We’re looking for volunteers that are technically proficient with mountaineering since the areas we’ve looked for the past week are lower areas for the volunteer hikers who aren’t familiar with the terrain, but those areas have been pretty well searched,” Holton says.

He’s in daily contact with Buis’s family updating them on the search.

Holton says the organized volunteer search effort will likely end this week due to dwindling volunteer numbers, but he knows individuals, like himself, will continue to look.

“Until she’s finally found, there’s still going to be positive hope, but otherwise it’s still an effort to try to return a loved one to a family. It’s heartbreaking to call off the search officially in the first place and then it’s even more heartbreaking to call off the volunteer search even though it’s proven that Juneau has a strong community base. It’s hard on everyone,” Holton says.

Community members interested in volunteering should contact Luke Holton on Facebook.

Previous Coverage:
Search underway for missing hiker
Scent of missing hiker found on trail but no cell phone trace
Update: U.S. Coast Guard takes another look for missing hiker
Update: Troopers call off search for missing Juneau hiker
Search ends for missing hiker
Volunteers still searching for missing Juneau hiker

Juneau School Board members call school administrator Mark Miller of California exceptional, engaging and the finalist with the most comprehensive skills.

The board named Miller as the next superintendent of the Juneau School District on Monday night after two rounds of interviews and deliberation.

Juneau School Board member Sean O’Brien says all three candidates were strong and had qualities the board is looking for. After the finalist interviews on Monday, the board deliberated for about five hours before announcing their choice.

“There was a lot of conversation and a lot of consideration. Each had the potential to bring a lot to the table and a lot of value to the superintendent role,” O’Brien says.

O’Brien says Miller came across as having a comprehensive knowledge base of how schools are run “and proven sophistication and success in his background with running schools and academic success and student success and helping teachers and helping the whole system move forward in a way that was measurable and accountable and complex.”

O’Brien says the other candidates – Hoonah City Schools Superintendent Angie Lunda and school administrator Rick Williams of Texas – possess these qualities to some extent. But Miller’s track record is exceptional.

O’Brien cites Miller’s experience as principal at Emery Secondary School in California where he increased academic performance within three years.

“Being able to show substantial, measurable progress from walking into a system that was really challenged with significant performance issues and dropout issues and academic issues was really impressive,” O’Brien says.

Miller says he’ll bring these skills to Juneau to help continue raising graduation rates.

“Kids who aren’t graduating are typically the students who struggle for whatever reason and figuring out why they’re struggling and connecting to what they know and what they learn and how their culture integrates with education is key. So making sure we hook into that and teach a curriculum that’s relevant to kids and build on that to move it through, I think, will really help,” Miller says.

Miller is currently Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources at Hayward Unified School District in California, a large urban district with 21,000 students. Juneau has about 5,000 students.

Leading the Juneau School District will be Miller’s first superintendent position, and he says he’s ready.

“It’s a great opportunity, I think, for both myself to advance my career and I’m in a place where I feel like I can contribute to Juneau and the city and the school district,” Miller says. “I think I learned some things over the time that I can really apply to make a difference and continue moving the district forward in a positive direction.”

School Board President Sally Saddler says she’s impressed with Miller’s recent experience helping to lead a large district with a $225 million budget. The budget for Juneau schools is typically about $90 million.

“I think Mark as an incoming superintendent will be able to work with the board in helping to continue to develop the professional capacity of all of our employees, to improve the teaching. You know, we already have good teaching and learning that’s going on in the classroom, but I think he can help us sustain the work that we’ve been doing,” Saddler says.

Miller’s contract is in the early stages of negotiation. The advertised salary was $162,000.

The Juneau School Board has chosen a school administrator from California to be the next leader of the district.

In an announcement made late Monday night, the board selected Mark Miller for superintendent.

Miller is assistant superintendent of human resources at Hayward Unified School District in California. He described it as a large urban school district with 21,000 students in 32 schools.

Miller said he has experience negotiating contracts and handling tough personnel issues. He’s also been a high school principal and science teacher. He has a Doctorate of Education from the University of La Verne in California.

This will be Miller’s first superintendent position.

Miller was one of three finalists to interview for the job Monday. The other candidates were Angie Lunda, superintendent of the Hoonah School District, and Rick Williams, director of administrative services of Region 10 Education Service Center in Texas.

The school board contracted Iowa-based search firm Ray and Associates, Inc. to conduct the superintendent search. The advertised salary was $162,000. Sixty-five people applied.

Current superintendent Glenn Gelbrich is leaving the district at the end of this month. Miller will start in July.

The Juneau School District is another step closer to finding a superintendent. Of 65 total applicants for the position, the school board interviewed three semi-finalists Saturday. Around 60 members of the public attended. All three were advanced to the final phase of the selection process. They are school administrators in California, Texas and Hoonah.

The public got to interact with the three candidates during a community meet and greet Sunday afternoon at Savikko Park. Parents, teachers, school administrators, board members, community members and a few students all waited their turn to have a few minutes of one-on-one time with the finalists. A steady rotation of people filled the Savikko Park shelter for two hours.

Angie Lunda

Angie Lunda is finishing her third year as superintendent of the Hoonah School District and says she’s ready to come home to Juneau. Lunda was born and raised in Juneau and spent 22 years in the school district as a teacher at Floyd Dryden Middle School and principal at Gastineau Elementary School.

She says her years as a teacher is one of the biggest strengths she would bring to the superintendent position.

“I still think of myself as a teacher. I think of the hard work that teachers do. They’re on the front lines. They’re the ones doing the hard work. I think administrators need to remember what it is to be a teacher and I have that,” Lunda says.

Hoonah School District has 104 students. Juneau has about 4,800. Lunda knows there will be challenges running a bigger school district but says running a smaller one with a limited staff gives her a unique perspective.

“I wear most of the hats of most of the roles in central office – special education director, director of curriculum and assessment, federal programs director – so I really have had the opportunity to do all of those jobs in the district,” Lunda says. “While in Juneau, there are other people doing those jobs, by having done them myself, I truly understand them to a depth that I don’t think anybody else could just stepping in.”

Mark Miller

For finalist Mark Miller, Juneau School District is smaller than what he’s used to. Miller is Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources in Hayward Unified School District in California. He describes it as a large urban school district with 21,000 students in 32 schools.

He’s held various positions in education and says his broad range of experiences is his biggest strength.

“I’ve done human resources for the last decade, so a lot of negotiation, a lot of contract language, some of the legal stuff that’s involved with that, as well as handling the tough personnel issues, which unfortunately come up from time to time. I also know what it’s like to run a high school. I know what it’s like to be an assistant principal. And then my first love will always be teaching. I spent 11 years in the classroom teaching kids chemistry and physics,” Miller says.

This would be Miller’s first superintendent position.

“I think the job of the superintendent is to make sure that the mission and vision of the school board is in line with the needs of the community. That’s the job. That’s the liaison. That’s the relationship that needs to occur,” he says.

Miller has three grown children and, if he got the job, would be moving to Juneau by himself. This is his first time in Alaska and he says he feels honored to be a superintendent finalist.

Rick Williams

Candidate Rick Williams first visited Juneau five years ago with his wife. They live in McKinney, Texas, and Williams is Director of Administrative Services in Region 10 Education Service Center. His division provides training and support for administrators in 80 different school districts.

He highlights his previous experience as a principal and superintendent.

“I have a lot of experience in strategic planning, a lot of teamwork activities, camaraderie, which all ends up elevating student achievement. Texas has a system just like Alaska where your schools are actually rated based on your test scores. We were able to significantly increase scores not only at the high school level as a high school principal but as a superintendent as well,” Williams says.

He favors small classrooms, but says it’s determined by how much money a district has to spend.

“Even though you might be in favor of small classrooms, if you don’t have enough money to hire enough teachers, that’s going to dictate the number of teachers you can hire. You do what you can with the amount of money that you have allocated,” Williams says.

If hired, Williams plans to move to Juneau with his wife and two children who would join the school district.

A tough decision

School board member Barbara Thurston was one of several board members at the meet and greet. She says choosing a superintendent from the pool of three will be a tough decision. One thing the board is looking for is someone who can build trust in the community.

“Somebody that people can say, ‘Boy, I don’t like this decision, but I think this person has the best interest of our children at heart and they’re doing the best they can and I’ll just live with it.’ It’s not trivial to build that,” Thurston says.

Thurston says she’s trying to keep an open mind for the remainder of the selection process, and, of the three candidates, doesn’t have a favorite yet.

Superintendent finalist interviews start at 1 p.m. Monday at Thunder Mountain High School library. The public is invited to attend and submit written comments to the school board. The board plans to make a final decision Monday afternoon or Tuesday.