Quinton Chandler, KTOO

In this newscast:

• Woman found dead in Juneau duplex
• Alaska dentist charged for extracting tooth while on hoverboard
• Weather for April 24.

Organizers estimate a few hundred people joined Juneau’s March for Science that started with a rally in front of the state Capitol on Earth Day.

“I’d say most people’s estimates were between 350 and 600 … 600 is high,” said Theresa Soley.

Soley is working toward a master’s degree in science communication and she also led the effort to hold the March for Science in Juneau. Soley thinks people came out to march because they’re frustrated with politics in Washington D.C.

“No climate scientist wants to hear from a president or an administration that doesn’t believe in climate science. We watch the glaciers melt. It’s no secret. So yeah I think that a lot of people with strong backgrounds in science are really quite concerned.”

But Soley said the march wasn’t only about climate change.

“Standing for science is supporting health care, it’s supporting education of the sciences, it’s supporting transparent data. It’s supporting science communication.”

The event began with speeches and progressed into a march to the Renewable Juneau Fair at Juneau-Douglas High School. On their way, march participants stopped at the federal building to mail postcards with special messages for lawmakers.

Soley said the postcards were intended to create a “beeline” from people at the march to politicians. She hopes that Saturday’s march convinces people that there is strength in numbers and they can use that strength to support science.

Saturday’s event was related to a larger March for Science held in Washington, D.C. According to the March for Science website, 610 satellite marches were held in cities around the world, including 11 communities in Alaska.

Editor’s Note: Theresa Soley is a former KTOO intern. 

Some Juneau middle school athletes are hoping that a recent change in policy will let them compete outside of Juneau.

The Juneau School District hasn’t allowed middle school athletes to leave Juneau for school-sponsored sports events over the last three years.

The school board changed that policy earlier this month, so now the district’s staff will decide whether its two middle schools can send athletes out of town.

But how do students feel about this decision? Three Floyd Dryden Middle School athletes told me they really want to travel.

“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to be involved in the Ketchikan tournament,” said seventh-grader Cael Brown.

Brown, who is going out for wrestling next year, said he’s been to that tournament in Ketchikan with his dad and it was a big deal.

“It’s such a big sport. It’s one of the biggest sports in Alaska, like basketball, football, wrestling,” Brown said. “Those are like the biggest sports in Alaska and that feeling of how everybody is, like, connected with the sport, that’s really cool.”

Brown said knowing he wouldn’t be able to travel for sports actually discouraged him from trying out in the past.

Blake Plummer is also in seventh grade and said she’s been playing soccer since she was about 4-years-old.

For her, it’s about the competitive edge. She thinks the prohibition on travel has weakened her game.

“When we play against the same teams over and over, we never learn anything,” Plummer said. “We never get new competition, and when we do travel, we see how other teams play and we feel more comfortable learning how they play and going against them.”

When Plummer heard about the decision to stop sports travel, she felt like she would miss out when she reached middle school and she wouldn’t be able to reach her full potential.

In Lemon Creek, a 10-minute drive southeast of Floyd Dryden, Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School’s track and field team is fighting through a timed mile.

Eighth-grader Sage Yeshua finished with a time of 6 minutes, 49 seconds. After catching his breath, he said he likes playing soccer, running cross country and cross-country skiing with the Juneau Ski Team.

Yeshua goes to the Juneau Community Charter School, so he doesn’t know how much traveling he would’ve done for sports even if there wasn’t a ban.

“I think, it would be interesting to do that. Like, to go up against people that I don’t normally see, but it’s been also, like, pretty good just racing with the people here. It’s pretty fun still,” Yeshua said.

He was kind of neutral. He was also the only student out of five who wasn’t against the ban. The consensus for the other four is it was bad.

District officials believe one reason the school board blocked travel was because some kids couldn’t afford to participate.

Seventh-grader Andrew Smith runs track and cross country. He and several other kids think that instead of banning travel three years ago, the board should’ve found a way to help everyone who wanted to travel.

“I think some kids really do want to travel and they should allow it, but since not everyone can afford it, they should make it so there’s some way … not exactly like a scholarship, but they should make it some way that they can,” Smith said.

But, Smith said there should be some conditions.

“You should have to do some kind of tryout or tournament to go in, so the school district could support everybody going, but they wouldn’t have to spend money for everybody to go,” he said.

Whether anyone will get to go is still uncertain.

The district’s administration will have the final say on rules that could allow travel, or continue an effective ban.

A downtown fire on Saturday night shut down part of Seward Street and smoked out a building that houses multiple stores. Water and foam ran down the street and pooled at the feet of onlookers who watched firefighters search for the fire’s source.

Assistant Fire Chief Ed Quinto said firefighters were able to respond quickly and clear the building, and there were no injuries. He said construction underway in the building could have facilitated the fire’s spread, but firefighters quickly contained it.

Capital City Fire/Rescue Chief Rich Etheridge said the fire started in Art Sutch Photography and Digital Imaging.

“The building is balloon framed construction and the fire is in the walls at this point so they’re trying to determine if the fire started up high and fell down and kept burning up or if it actually started down on the ground floor,” Etheridge said.

Etheridge estimated about 30 firefighters responded. He said fire marshals would investigate the cause after the heart of the fire was found and extinguished. The chief believes the damage was limited to the building housing the photoshop.

Suzzane Hudson’s antique shop Nana’s Attic is several storefronts down from the photoshop. Hudson rushed to the scene when she heard about the fire.

“I went in to see what has been done. I have no electricity and smoke damage,” Hudson said.

She said she has insurance and is waiting to hear how bad the damage is.

“I’m going to stick it out. I stuck out a robbery, I can stick this out,” she said.

The emergency vehicles cleared out a little after 9 p.m., but Art Sutch was in for a long night. The smell of smoke hung in the air.

From under scaffolding on the sidewalk, a neighbor handed Sutch some plastic bins.

Wearing a headlamp in his dark store, Sutch said, “There’s not much to say other than this sucks.”

Friday was the last day law enforcement would not ticket drivers with studs in Kodiak, the Aleutians and Southeast Alaska, according to an Alaska State Trooper dispatch,

If you are pulled over with studded tires in those areas, troopers could fine you $50 and fines from other law enforcement may be even higher.

Alaska law forbids drivers’ use of studded tires and tires with chains outside of winter months in most of the state. Metal studs and chains could damage paved roads if there is no ice for them to dig into.

Alaskans across the rest of the state have until May 1 to remove their studded tires and tires with chains.

The Juneau School Board on Tuesday decided to reverse a 2013 decision forbidding middle school athletes to travel to sporting events outside Juneau.

Dan DeBartolo is one of the six board members who voted to lift the ban. He didn’t like that sports travel was singled out.

“It could be one thing to say, ‘You know, we’re not going to allow middle school travel for music and arts and activities,’” DeBartolo said. “But to have such a fine line for this one particular thing seemed to me inappropriate.”

Andi Story was the only board member who voted against the reversal. Story and Sean O’Brien are the only current board members who also served on the 2013 board that voted to put the original ban in place.

Story said there are still unanswered questions that she wants resolved. She wants to know how often students will travel and how students who don’t travel will be affected when their teacher leaves class to go on trips. She’s also worried that if travel is restored, not every student will have the same opportunity to go.

“Our policy says the activities athletic travel should be for as many students as possible at the least amount of resources as possible,” Story argued. “So, how do we have a plan to making sure when you’re 11, 12, 13, that, if we’re going to allow travel, that a wide variety of students are doing that and not just the same students doing it for the next three years and then four years in high school?”

The board’s vote Tuesday night does not guarantee middle school students will get to travel for sports. It means the board has effectively given the district administration the authority to decide.

“It is true,” DeBartolo said. “If we’re in a situation where funding or academic considerations would have to limit or prevent travel for a short period of time, we’re going to rely on the administration to look at that, but it’s no longer going to be, what I call this iron gate, this barrier that just said, ‘We’re going to ban it completely.’ And I think that with responsible regulations, you’ll find that some travel will happen. It might not be a lot, but I think some will.”

Andi Story said sports travel will cost more money and the board hasn’t changed the budget to allow for an increase, so she believes they are giving Superintendent Mark Miller and other district staff an unfunded mandate.

Two members of the public testified in favor of lifting the ban Tuesday. No one testified against the change.