Community

Juneau’s Head Start program will be delayed 20 days this fall, due to federal budget cuts.

The so-called sequestration that went into effect last spring is affecting Head Start throughout the state.

Tlingit & Haida operates the pre-school programs in Juneau.  The budget is taking about a 5 percent hit.

Instead of early September, classes will now begin September 23^rd.

Kids Corp Alaska Director Dirk Shumaker said the cut to Head Start programs in Alaska is $1.5 million dollars.

“There are 15 Head Start grantees in Alaska, nine of those also provide early Head Start services in 100 communities in the state,”  he said. “And all of those programs will be affected by sequestration in all those communities in one way or another.”

In a news release, Tlingit and Haida says the impact on families of children in Head Start will be great, including access to health, dental and  developmental screenings usually provided.

Due to the budget cuts, Head Start employees also will  go back to work three weeks late.

This is a developing story.  Please check back for updates.

Perseverance Theatre’s STAR Program is hosting the summer’s final performances. Plays include Shakespeare’s King Lear, the British comedy Cinderella, and a new production of Guys and Dolls. The summer tradition has been going on since approximately 1982.

On a sunny Juneau day, 50 kids sit in the audience at Perseverance Theatre. A prop has gone missing and Program Coordinator Shona Strauser is at the front of the stage seeking information.

So that means someone was playing with the swords. From now on, without a doubt they will get locked up. Or else I will sword you. -Strauser

The students are part of the Summer Theatre Arts Rendezvous Program and they’ve been working for five weeks to produce their plays. The group is comprised of ten to 18-year-olds, some with no previous acting experience. During daily exercises the actors practice pronunciation, projection and movement – led by Strauser. Strauser is the Perseverance Director of Education and has been involved with the program for a decade.

So a lot of theatre camps focus on workshops or just presenting what they’ve learned but this one is in full production mode. This program’s pretty awesome because we’ve got shows running in reps, so one night you could see King Lear, one night you see Cinderella, and one night you see Guys and Dolls. -Strauser

The students perform on the theatre’s main stage, with a set and costumes created by the same technical designers used for Perseverance Theatre’s regular season.

These are all professional people working on children’s theatre and making a huge commitment to young people. -Strauser

Director of King Lear, Donnie Gott, joined the program last year.

 I asked Shona if I could be part of the program because I really wanted to torture some children with Shakespeare.This year she asked me what I wanted to do and I said ‘is King Lear a little crazy’ and she said yes, so I said ‘let’s do it.’ – Gott

Chris Talley,16, and Rebecca Hassler, 14, play the villains of the production. Hassler is a both a seasoned veteran of  STAR, but Talley says his mom forced him to be part of the program.

 I was kind of scared because I had never played a bad guy before. It was nerve-racking to figure out I was going to play someone evil. -Chris Talley

Both are planning to try out for their high school productions at Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas High Schools.

 I’m going to audition for all the plays at my high school. And I want to come back and do more Shakespeare next year, because I love Shakespeare. -Rebecca Hassler

See Cinderella on Friday, King Lear and Guys and Dolls Jr. on Saturday at Perseverance Theatre.  Tickets at the JACC, Hearthside Books and online at  perseverancetheatre.org

Last night police cars and fire trucks fanned out across neighborhoods in Juneau in a coordinated effort. No, there wasn’t a major crime spree. Last night was Juneau’s annual National Night Out celebration.

It’s Juneau’s sixth year participating in the event. Ten neighborhoods from Douglas to the Valley hosted block parties and got a chance to meet local law enforcement and first responders.

Juneau’s new police chief, Bryce Johnson said he looked forward to getting out in the community and talking to people about how JPD is doing and what they can be doing better.

“It’s a great event because it gets people thinking about crime. It gets communities together. Sometimes it’s nice to just get a neighborhood out and talking to each other. It does that also. And as people interact they can talk to each other about what they see in their neighborhood and what their expectations are, so it’s been a successful event all over the country.”

Johnson was one of the 11 uniformed officers attending the events along with firefighters and members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

The various departments broke into teams of three and greeted each party with a group of police cars and fire trucks.

Anne Weske’s family moved to their neighborhood three years ago and has participated in the event every year.

“It just ended up being outside our house the first year and it was awesome. Because all the kids come down, neighbors who we had no idea lived in the area came down and brought food and it was huge. We probably had 40 people the first time.”

Lt. Dave Campbell says the teams try to make it out to events where they know lots of kids are participating so the kids can have a chance to meet McGruff the Crime Dog and see the vehicles.

Curtis Holmes’ family has been participating in the block parties since the beginning when his wife was a volunteer with the police department.

“[It’s] fun for the kids to come see all the vehicles and see everybody and not be afraid of the police cars.”

Rachel Stauffer, 38, works for the city Treasury Department. She has captained a block party for the last two years.

“I just think that it’s great to know who your neighbors are. It’s great because when people walk by every day you feel comfortable saying ‘hi.’”

Stauffer started an email list for her neighborhood so that neighbors can stay in touch over things such bears problems or possible illegal activity in the area.

“I want to be able to contact all my neighbors when I need to.”

National Night Out was started in 1984 as a way of promoting crime and drug prevention in communities.

Tonight is the annual National Night Out celebration in Juneau.

JPD is coordinating officers and representatives from the fire department, coast guard and National Guard to visit block parties and cookouts around Juneau. This is the sixth year Juneau has participated in the event. There are ten neighborhoods signed up to host events says JPD spokesman Lt. Dave Campbell.

This year marks the 30th National Night Out celebration. The first National Night Out was introduced early in 1984. The event’s goal is to promote community celebration that raises awareness about crime and drug prevention. According to JPD, National Night Out also gives citizens the opportunity to interact with their neighbors, as well as local first responders.

The events are slated to run from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and include block parties, cookouts and neighborhood walks.

More than 100 people joined Juneau’s Equality for All party on Friday, to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and allowing same-sex married couples equal treatment under federal law.

The celebration featured performances by the Juneau Pride Chorus, a dance group, and other music.

Kimberley Crawford was part of an ad hoc group of nine Juneau residents organizing the celebration.

“We believe it’s important to let everybody know what’s going on. If you’re not directly affected with the Supreme Court decision, you might not necessarily know exactly what’s going on and that’s why we all decided to get together and make this community event.”

Marguerite Crawford says the event was a success.

“It’s really important to get the awareness out to the general public that even though we have come so far with the partial DOMA overruling and Prop 8 that we still don’t have the rights in Alaska and so this is kind of the fun, get the whole community together and to be aware of our situation but have a good time.”

Keynote speaker Joshua Decker is interim executive director of American Civil Liberties Union in Alaska. He says a large part of the celebration is finding out how to advance the fight for marriage equality around the nation and the state.

“This is terrific that everyone here in Juneau is excited about movement towards justice and equality and the hope that Alaska will soon have equal marriage here.”

He will travel to Fairbanks next to continue the education on how recent Supreme Court decisions will impact same-sex couples in Alaska.

The designer and creator of the popular line Kodiak Coats is moving on to leather and silks, and leaving Juneau.

After making her trademark coats in Juneau for more than a decade, Bridget Milligan is going to Washington state.

On the first Friday of September in Bellingham, she  will be showing a new line of clothes.

“I’m just going to do a splash,” she says.

For now, Milligan is looking forward to designing and making “leather coats and fancy dresses.  I’ve always had a fantasy of just sewing with natural fabrics some day.”

She will not be showing any Kodiak Coats.

“You know, I just finished a coat for a lady – a waterproof fleece lined coat — and it might be my last waterproof fleece coat that I might ever make,” she says.

A van of sewing machines, fabric, patterns and other stuff has already gone south.   She will sublet her work area, a large cutting table and a couple of sewing machines to Danielle Byers and Iris Benson. Byers has been working with Milligan for a while.

Benson says plans are evolving, but as a commercial fisherman, she’s thinking the two will make clothes that are  “durable Alaskan and heavy duty, but also with flair that’s fun to wear.”

That describes Milligan’s line of coats, but Benson says the new business on Marine Way will not be Kodiak Coats.

Milligan’s Alaskan coat was first created in Kodiak 25 years ago.  She’s originally from the San Francisco area, and first moved to the Bristol Bay region of Alaska.

“I wanted to spend the rest of my life on a camping trip, which I still want to do,” she says.

She traveled to Kodiak to have a boat built and stayed.

Milligan says her first Alaska coats were parkas for her kids made from Army Navy blankets.  Then came the Kodiak Coat.

“Just kind of started in my back yard, so to speak, making coats for people,” she says.

And the dory she had built became the logo for her company.

The exterior fabric of a Kodiak Coat is waterproofed with rubber.  Each coat is lined with warm fleece, has a hood, and zips high around the neck to keep out the wind.  The pockets are big and wrists adjustable – a very practical but stylish coat for the sideways rain in Alaska’s coastal cities.

About 15 years ago, Milligan moved her coat-making business to Juneau.

That’s about the time Michael Kohan of Juneau and a friend bought a coat to share.

“We’ve had a purple fleece Kodiak Coat.  When one of us is out of the country in Southeast Asia or some other places, we are able to use the Kodiak Coat for the person who’s in Alaska and then we trade it, whoever comes back to Alaska gets it again.  It’s worked out well for us,” she says.

With word of the store closing, Kohan was looking at Milligan’s line of summer dresses, tops and skirts. But she says her revenue these days is coming from leather.  Milligan is even dying the leather for the coats herself.

“And I made several wedding dresses this year and bridesmaids dresses with beautiful satins and silks and wonderful fabrics,” she says.

The problem with the Kodiak Coats is the need to make men’s, women’s and children’s styles in all sizes and colors.

“You just have to, you just can’t say ‘Oh I don’t make that size or I don’t have that color,’ you just have to do that. So maybe if you’re really lucky you get an hour a week to design something you’ve been wanting to work on for two months,”  she says.

Milligan started designing and sewing doll clothes by hand as child, so her grandmother bought her a sewing machine.

She says creating the patterns is the exciting part of the process:

But the sewing is so relaxing.  It’s like ‘ah, now I get to sew.’  It’s like what I’m supposed to do.

And she says “happiness is a (sewing) machine that works.”

Milligan says owning a small business requires a different mentality than working for someone else.

“I call small business owners the unemployable,” she says. “We’re just lucky we got something we can do.”

Milligan has tried to close her Juneau business before, but it didn’t last long and she soon started making the practical coats again.  And this time, she admits, her plans are “still evolving.”