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Bells rang in the capital city at 11 am today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

About 40 Juneau residents gathered at the Dimond Courthouse plaza in front of the state capitol. After a brief introduction by the president of Juneau’s Black Awareness Association Sherry Patterson, participants rang cow bells, bear bells, cell phones, Buddhist bells, keys, tambourines, and bike bells. Juneau Police Department added a police car siren.

Bell ringing events took place today all over the country, but when Lin Davis realized last week there was none planned in Alaska, she decided to organize one.

“It’s certainly wonderful to be part of a national bell ringing where we acknowledge the civil rights pioneers that have so changed our life and starting with all those marchers in 1963 and then all the brave acts that came forward from that. As a member of the LGBT community, we wouldn’t have had our role models and mentors without the civil rights movement,” Davis said.

After the bell ringing, the crowd joined hands in a circle and sang ‘We Shall Overcome.’

50th anniversary celebration events continue at 5 pm tonight at the Douglas Library.

Peter Nestler has unofficially broken the Guinness World Record for most bum skips in 30 seconds.

After reviewing the video of his third attempt on Friday in slow motion, Nestler thinks he completed 93 bum skips in the allotted time. The current official record is 82.

A bum skip is a way of jumping rope while seated. The rope is doubled over and spun in one hand beneath the jumper.

The Ketchikan-born, Juneau-raised professional rope jumper completed the feat during an assembly at Glacier Valley Elementary School.

That’s his second rope jumping world record this year. Nestler wants to break a total of 11 by 2014. He wants to check off two more in Juneau next week for fastest mile while hopping on one foot and jumping rope, and for the most rope skips while juggling a soccer ball in one minute.

A video and paperwork that includes signed witness statements must be vetted by the Guinness officials to become official.

Nestler lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Long time Juneau resident Michael John Kirk – always known as Mike — has died.

He passed away Thursday morning (Aug. 22) at Wildflower Court.

Kirk was a math teacher at Juneau-Douglas High School for many years, collected friends from all walks of life and loved his adopted town of Juneau. He even volunteered for KTOO radio – hosting a program in the 1970s about school news called “Gilbert Speaking.”

Kirk celebrated his 89th birthday earlier this month. Long-time friend Judy Crondahl said she knew he had many friends, but they sort of “came out of the woodwork” during his last few months.

“He spent several months in a nursing home in Seattle and then he spent about month here in Wildflower Court and both places said they had never had anybody who had had so many visitors consistently over time,” Crondahl said.

Mike Kirk was born in Germany in 1924 and his family moved to England. After World War II he went to the University of California at Berkeley. In the 1950s he came to Juneau to teach high school math.

That’s where Crondahl first met him in 1963, when she came to the Capital City to teach at JDHS.

“And when I got married a couple of years later he stood in place of my father and gave me away at the wedding,” Crondahl said. “My children have always called him Grandpa Mike, so it’s a real familial relationship we had.”

Crondahl’s children never took math from him; she said he tried to avoid teaching his friends’ kids.

Carl Brodersen’s father was a student in a Kirk math class at JDHS in the 1960s. They reconnected a couple decades later.

“I was a little kid and he was this wise old adult with this charming smile and he would always give me books on holidays. He was very intense that people would develop an appreciation for books and literature and writing, and he opened my mind to an awful lot of different ways of looking at the world and interesting things about it that I probably never would have encountered if not for him.” Brodersen said.

Former Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho graduated from JDHS in 1966. He calls Kirk an unconventional math teacher who commanded the classroom and had high expectations of his students. But Botelho said he related more to Kirk as his debate coach. He said his stress on preparation was most important.

“So that if there were some issue that was postulated that might be formulated in five different ways that you knew what each of those ways were and you would have a response to each of those ways. It wasn’t simply the brilliance of your impromptu responses, but your preparation,” Botelho said.

Botelho said Kirk was well-prepared and often critical of people of authority who he believed were lazy in their thinking.

Kirk once estimated that he’d taught at least 5,000 Juneau children over the years, according to Brodersen.  He had a particular reputation in the district:

“He was very proudly the Bain of the district’s administrators,” Brodersen said.

That included seldom missing a school board meeting. Botelho said Kirk was never shy about speaking out on what he thought was flawed educational policy. He also took the former mayor to task sometimes.

“He had little hesitation chatting with me about government when he thought something was afoul,” Botelho said.

A memorial service will be held for Michael Kirk, but no date has been set.

(Editor’s note: This post has been updated to correct the spelling of Berkeley, California and add this photo.)

Peter Nestler has been hooked on jumping rope since second grade, when he saw an exhibition at Glacier Valley Elementary School.

In third grade, he joined the Juneau Jumpers. By the time he finished high school, he had helped his team win seven world championships.

Now 33 and living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Nestler has come full circle. He’ll perform his world class rope and unicycle skills for a new generation at Glacier Valley on Friday.

“It’s where I learned to jump rope,” he said. “I was on the team there, pretty much my entire learning curve was at Glacier Valley. So it’s kind of neat, and I was thinking about where to do these records. And I was like, you know, it would be kind of cool to have one where I actually started.”

During the show, the Ketchikan native hopes to set a new world record for most bum skips in 30 seconds.

That’s right, bum skips. Nestler explains:

“Basically, you’re seated with your feet out in front of you, and you’re jumping while you’re sitting down,” he said. “For this particular record … you hold both handles in one hand, so the rope’s basically cut in half. And then you spin the rope so it’s making kind of like a helicopter motion, but it’s going, it’s staying on the ground and you’re jumping over that with every jump.”

The current record is 82, according to the Guinness World Records press office.

He already holds the record for most rope skips on a unicycle in one minute: 237. Nestler hopes to set a total of 11 new world records this year, three of them in Juneau in the next six days.

Unicycle Skipping World Record from Peter Nestler on Vimeo.

And yes, this is his day job. He’s been professionally unicycling, jumping rope, and spreading a kid friendly motivational message around the world since 2002.

“A lot of people look at people like me that are professional or really good at something and they just think, ‘Oh, you know, he’s just born that way,'” Nestler said. “And I’m like, ‘Well, no.’ I’m definitely one of the people, I don’t pick stuff up quickly, but I work very, very hard, and the reason I’m good at stuff is I practice more than anybody else at something.”

Separately, he performs for churches and youth ministries with a faith-based message. He said his faith and relationship with God has helped him get where he is today.

He’ll perform next Wednesday at the Hub, an after school program at the Juneau Christian Center. There, he hopes to beat the record for the most rope skips while juggling a soccer ball in one minute. That’s 31.

He’ll also try to for the speed record for running a mile on one foot while jumping rope. The time to beat is 34 minutes, 1 second.

Constant conditioning and performing hundreds of shows a year inevitably leads to aches and pains. Add the grueling travel schedule, and he’s questioned his career.

“You definitely have those moments where you’re thinking, ‘Well, is this really the kind of job you want?'”

So far, the answer has been yes.

“But at the end, when you get out and you’re performing, you just kind of see the look on these kids’ faces,” he said. “They see me out there jumpin’, and you kind of see sometimes, those light bulbs kick off behind their heads. It’s like, you know, this really is what I like to do and I love the opportunity to do it,” he said.

Check back Friday for the latest on Peter Nestler’s world record attempt.

At least one set of potential buyers appear ready to purchase and restart a Douglas business that was seized by the Internal Revenue Service, but it’s unclear if anyone else is waiting for Wednesday morning’s auction.

PP’s Douglas Inn was seized by the IRS this spring because the former owner, Patrick Peterson, failed to pay nearly a million dollars in federal back taxes that he owed since 1999.

State corporation and business records indicate that a new limited liability company was created in mid-July called South of the Bridge. James Williams, Arbe Williams, and Abigail Trucano all hold nearly equal one-third ownership shares. The Williams may be best known as owners of North Pacific Erectors, a general contractor that has operated for over thirty years in the Juneau area. South of the Bridge and North Pacific Erectors even share the same Douglas post office box as a mailing address.

Shirley Coté, director of the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the agency that regulates the manufacture, possession, and sale of alcohol, said they have already received an application for transfer of a beverage dispensary license formally used by David Sanden at the Triple F Bar and Grill in the Mendenhall Mall. South of the Bridge LLC have applied to use the license at a business identified as Louie’s Douglas Inn.

Coté said a temporary liquor license could be issued after the City and Borough of Juneau considers the potential transfer.

They would have sixty days to protest. And then the board would make the final decision at a board meeting. And, quite possibly as soon as October 2nd which is the next scheduled meeting.”

Messages left for the Williams were not returned. So, it’s unclear when they hope to reopen the bar if they successfully purchase it at auction, or if they plan on any renovations or changes to the business.

Peterson, who also failed to file or pay CBJ sales taxes and make his required state unemployment insurance contributions while he operated the bar, indicated in an interview with KTOO in early July that he might try to get his business back.

The property, including the structure and the land, was recently assessed by the City and Borough of Juneau at $242,000 in value.

But any purchase of the property would not include the liquor license. Coté said Peterson already surrendered his liquor license in June. It would’ve come up for a biennial renewal this December.

Coté said the sale of liquor licenses are transactions that are usually separate from the sale of a bar or restaurant.

The property doesn’t necessarily go with the license. The license doesn’t necessarily go with the property”

Generally speaking, Coté said a beverage dispensary license could go as high as $250,000.

Licensees aren’t required to share with us what their sales price is.”

Such a high price for some licenses is because of the limited number that is issued based on municipality’s population. Juneau, for example, with a listed total population of 32,290 people, is issued a maximum of twenty-two licenses for restaurants or eating places to sell beer and wine on the premises.

And then there are eleven, authorized non-restaurant/eating place licenses of each kind.

It’s not eleven total. It’s eleven of each of the twenty-some licenses that they could apply for.”

They include a license for a club, pub, recreational site, common carrier, package or liquor store, and a beverage dispensary license for a bar to sell all types of alcohol.

The auction is planned for 11 a.m. Wednesday, August 21st at the Dimond Courthouse. Bidders need to register an hour ahead of time.

According to ground rules set by the IRS, the winning bidder must pay 20-percent of the price at auction, preferably with cash, certified check, cashier’s check, or money order. The balance is due by September 10th.

At least eleven liens totaling $997,188.16 dollars were filed against Peterson and his business. Most of that is for unpaid quarterly federal employer taxes, but roughly a quarter is for a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty, or an attempt to recover employees’ Medicare and Social Security taxes that the employer did not pass on to the federal government.

Professor Scott Schumacher, director of the Graduate Program in Taxation at the University of Washington School of Law, said it’s unlikely that the IRS will recover the full million dollars at auction.

Just get the best that they could. The IRS is acting like any reasonable creditor would and so they going to try to maximize their value on that.”

Schumacher is familiar with the process after working as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice Tax Division and later as a private attorney defending clients on tax issues.

After the auction, Schumacher said the IRS will still have up to ten years to recover the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty. Those liens were not filed against the business, but specifically against Peterson as an individual.

They would do that analysis to look at who is a responsible person, and they would start going after assets like bank accounts. It’s not something that they’d normally do (which is) go after vehicles and houses. But it’s usually bank accounts, salaries, things like that. Then they would attempt to get paid as much as they can.”

Schumacher said it’s also possible that Peterson’s attempt to sign over the property to a friend down south earlier this year could prompt either a criminal charge or a civil suit by the federal government for a fraudulent transfer to evade taxes.

This morning Business Insider published the results from a series of questions on how Americans think of other states. More than 1,600 respondents were asked to answer each question with a state that wasn’t their own.

Results were displayed in a color scale so it’s a little tricky determining just how many votes Alaska got for each question. The percentage was only displayed for the winning state in each category.

So how did we do?

Alaska was named the most underrated state in a close race with Oregon and Maine. However, Alaska was voted as having the worst food.

Alaska picked up votes in other categories including having the best scenery, being the nicest,  being ugly and having the worst sports fans. Alaska was also three shades of grey away from being voted the drunkest state. (Louisiana won that vote.)

On the other hand California was voted the craziest state and Texas was voted as the least favorite state and the state most people would like to see kicked out of America.

See the full set of maps displaying the results.

(h/t Kelsey Proud)