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Basketball is king in rural Alaska, and nowhere is that more evident than Juneau’s annual Gold Medal tournament now in its 65th year.

Organized by the Juneau Lions Club, the annual Spring Break competition brings together teams from all over Southeast – from Metlakatla in the south to Haines in the north. Over the years intense rivalries have formed between villages, as well as larger communities like Juneau and Sitka. But behind the rivalries, the players have genuine respect for each other.

Casey Kelly reports.

Ask a Gold Medal old timer who some of the best players in tournament history are, and you’re likely to get a rapid fire response.

“Guys like Scudero and Stigen, my brother Mike,” says Jim Jensen from Yakutat, who’s playing in his 41st Gold Medal tournament.

In case you missed it, the guys he mentioned were Jerry Scudero from Metlakatla, Greg Stigen from Haines, and Mike Jensen from Yakutat. All three have been inducted into the Gold Medal Hall of Fame. And for tournament fans, they might as well be Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

“The only time we get to see a lot of these guys is here at Gold Medal,” says Jensen. “It’s just a great tournament. Myself, I think it’s the best in Alaska.”

Years ago, State Senator Albert Kookesh from Angoon was quoted as saying “Muslims go to Mecca, Tlingits to Gold Medal.” A 1993 inductee into the Gold Medal Hall of Fame, Kookesh played in the tournament for 29 years. Bad knees forced him to give up basketball a few years ago – a result, he jokes, of too much dunking the ball when he was a kid. But he still tries to go as many Gold Medal games as he can.

“People yelling, ‘Hoonah, Hoonah, Hoonah,’ or you know ‘Angoon’ or ‘Kake.’ I mean there’s just enthusiasm,” says Kookesh. “I’ve gone to a lot of tournaments in my life, but you don’t see the enthusiasm in the hall where you’re almost rocking the gymnasium off of its foundation when people get excited.”

Kookesh says his favorite tournament was 1983, when Angoon beat Klukwan to win its first championship. At the time he says it was unusual for two village teams to make it to the championship game, which was usually dominated by larger communities like Juneau and Sitka.

“We just had a group of young guys from our village and everything just clicked,” says Kookesh. “And we shot good and we played good defense and everything just worked.”

He says what he enjoyed most about playing in the tournament – and misses most now – is the competition.

“The rivalry is intense,” he says. “You don’t want to get beat by Yakutat if you’re from Angoon, and you don’t want to get beat by Hoonah if you’re from Kake.”

Of course, all good sports rivalries need crazy fans.

“I’m just rooting with the crowd right now,” shouts Tracey Turnbull of Juneau. “Go Yakutat!”

Turnbull has been to more than a dozen Gold Medal Tournaments, and says it has the best sports atmosphere in Alaska.

“It brings people from all over Southeast Alaska and families from different communities and friends, you know people play basketball together high school, and they just continue to play with each other and against each other,” she says.

Championship games for this year’s tournament will be played over the weekend, and Yakutat’s Jim Jensen says it may very well be his last Gold Medal. He’s not getting any younger, and after 41 years it’s harder to get up and down the court. Then again…

“I threatened to quit last year, because it’s just too hard on my body,” Jensen says. “But they start practicing and I show up, you know?”

Twenty-one teams in three different brackets are playing in this year’s Gold Medal Tournament.

Proceeds from ticket and merchandise sales go to the Juneau Lions Club’s scholarship program, as well as local charities. Each team also gets a little travel money.

Championship games for this year’s Gold Medal Tournament start at 4 p.m. Saturday. First up is the “M” or Master’s bracket game, followed at 6 p.m. by the “C” bracket game, and the “B” bracket championship at 8 p.m. All games are played in the Juneau Douglas High School gym.

One-million dollars bail set for the Hoonah man accused of shooting and killing two police officers.

John Marvin, Jr., 45, appeared in Juneau District Court on Tuesday. He was escorted by a state trooper and a judicial services officer, and dressed in red prison pants and shirt, and slip-on shoes with his hands & feet cuffed and chained.

District Attorney Doug Gardner says he doesn’t routinely ask for such a high bail amount. He justified it by saying the shooting of Officers Tony Wallace and Matt Tokuoka was an “unprovoked slaying.” Both officers did not even contact Marvin Saturday night and were — instead – socializing with their own family members. Tokuoka was off-duty, and had his two children with him. Wallace’s mother, Debbie Greene, was doing a ride along with her son as he patrolled Hoonah’s streets.

Marvin also has a criminal record including a conviction for sexual abuse of a minor in 1993.

Magistrate John Sivertsen attempted to explain to Marvin his rights. but Marvin did not appear to be very responsive.

At least twice he blurted out “I’m John McMartin Royal.”

Then, after Magistrate Sivertsen read the charging documents, Marvin repeatedly asked “Who’s treating Officer Wallace?”

In what appeared to be a brief moment of partial frustration, Magistrate Sivertsen replied “I don’t know. I think he’s dead.”

Marvin was appointed a public defender who did not immediately oppose the high bail amount.  Assuming that Marvin can come up with the million dollars, he will also likely have a third-party custodian appointed.

Sivertson advised Marvin that, if convicted, he would face a minimum of 99-years in prison for each charge of murder of a police officer.

Tuesday’s court hearing was also attended by sullen members of the District Attorney’s office – a few of whom were visible upset —  plus half-a-dozen Juneau police officers, state troopers from the Juneau post, and other courthouse staff.

Marvin’s next court appearance in Juneau District Court is September 8^th unless a grand jury returns with a bill of indictment. Then, Marvin will be arraigned in Juneau Superior Court.

In what may be a ironic twist of fate, an apparent act of conciliation by Officers Wallace and Tokuoka may have been repaid with the loss of their life.

District Attorney Doug Gardner explained in court Tuesday that Marvin last had a run-in with the very same officers as they responded to a call of an intruder in August of last year. Marvin was charged with criminal trespass, resisting arrest, and two courts of assault on a police officer. Those charges were later dismissed –Gardnersays – at the request of Wallace and Tokuoka. Marvin had already spent four months in jail waiting for his case to move forward and the officers felt it was time to “move on.”

Marvin’s criminal history goes back nearly 20-years. He was ticketed for set of traffic offenses last January in Hoonah, including driving a vehicle without an operator’s license and failing to license and register his vehicle. He pled no contest to those violations.

Court records indicate that he also pled no contest to furnishing alcohol to a minor in Hoonah in July of 2006.

Marvin also had a dust-up with Juneau Police in July of 1991. He pled no contest to a domestic violence assault charge for dragging his then-separated wife by the hair across the street at Front andFranklin. Then, he tried to pull a responding officer to the ground by grabbing his arm. For that, Marvin pled no contest to an additional charge of disorderly conduct.

Perhaps the most significant is the conviction for sexual abuse of a minor in 1993. Marvin was convicted of abusing his stepdaughter over the course of four years. She was 9 years old when it finally stopped. Marvin was sentenced to 10-years in prison with 4-years suspended. His probation was to last 5-years. Part of Marvin’s sentence included sex offender treatment at the Hiland Mountain-Meadow Creek facility in Eagle River. But court records indicate that he stopped going two months after his entered the program. Years later, just before Marvin was scheduled to be paroled, prosecutors apparently discovered that he had not been following through on his sentence, and moved to revoke his probation. That motion was dismissed the following year after prosecutors were apparently convinced that he returned to treatment and had followed through.

Marvin is not listed in the state’s sex offender registry database since his conviction was before Alaska’s law was enacted in August of 1994.

Gardner said in court Tuesday that he could not be specific, but both short and long guns were reported found by investigators in Marvin’s residence.

The latest local, state, and regional news is compiled from reports from the KTOO newsroom, CoastAlaska stations, wire services, the Alaska Public Radio Network, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and can be heard as often as six times each morning during Morning Edition.

This newscast includes an update of the shootings of the police officers in Hoonah.

Two Hoonah police officers died after being shot Saturday night. The alleged shooter remains in his house, surrounded by law-enforcement officers.

The officers have been identified as 32-year-old Sergeant Anthony Wallace and 39-year-old patrol officer Matt Tokuoka. Both died of wounds inflicted by a single gunman. The suspect is identified as John Marvin Jr., a 45-year-old local resident. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

Interim city administrator Bob Prunella calls the shooting an “ambush.” He says Juneau Police and Alaska State Troopers are on the scene.

“We called in the SWAT team and about 10 officers from Juneau came in by boat,” said Prunella. “It’s ongoing and they’re trying to resolve the situation with the guy, trying to get him to come out.”

He says the shootings took place between 10:30 and 11 p.m. Saturday.

Prunella says it’s a difficult situation for the whole community.

Hoonah police were not releasing any further information about the shootings. Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters would only say they are dealing with a barricaded suspect.

Hoonah, a city of about 800 residents, is 40 miles west of Juneau on northern Chichagof Island. Before the shootings, it had two active police officers and a third in training, in addition to a police chief.

We’ll have further details as they develop

What if you could trace your family to a single man who lived over ten millenia ago? It’s a mind-boggling concept that Southeast Alaskan Natives may one day have a chance to contemplate. Scientists recently took advantage of one of the largest gatherings of Southeast Natives to collect DNA samples from volunteers. They want to learn more about how Southeast Alaska Natives relate to other Native Americans and maybe establish a link to one of the oldest remains ever found in Alaska. Matt Miller has the story.

Prosecutors continued revealing their case Thursday in the Jason Coday murder trial in Juneau, presenting the last of eyewitnesses and moving to physical evidence.

Coday is accused of murder and misconduct involving weapons for using sawed-off rifle to fatally shoot a construction worker at the back of Juneau’s Fred Meyer store last August. 26-year old Simone Kim, a painter from Anchorage, was talking to a pair of tree trimmers when he was killed.