Community

NPR’s puzzle master Will Shortz launched his seven-day Alaska table tennis tour in Juneau at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School Wednesday night. At an exhibition hosted by Juneau’s Table Tennis Club, Shortz and Caribbean table tennis champion Robert Roberts explained techniques of the sport and even played some matches.

The best match of the night was a game of doubles between Juneau table tennis players Phil McMurray and Tim McLeod, and visiting players Will Shortz and Robert Roberts.

“I think we only got a couple of points as I remember and they weren’t trying that hard,” McLeod says.

McLeod is part of Juneau’s Table Tennis Club, which has been around for 14 years. McLeod, McMurray, and several other Juneau players meet at AEL&P every Monday and Wednesday night throughout the year for two hours of table tennis.

McLeod isn’t surprised they lost to Shortz and Roberts. Roberts is a three-time table tennis champion of the Caribbean and Shortz isn’t happy just being a master of puzzles. He wants to also master table tennis.

“My ultimate goal is to be national champion for my age, whatever age that is. If I do it in my 60s, fantastic. 70s, 80s, 90s – doesn’t matter. Someday I want to be champion for my age.”

Shortz is 60 years old. To be national champion in table tennis, one has to win the US Open Table Tennis Championship, which has divisions for every age group. The next US Championship will be in Las Vegas this July.

“I’m not going this year because I’m not good enough, but someday,” says Shortz.

When asked when he will be good enough, Shortz laughs a bit

“I guess it’s like art, I’ll know it when I see it.”

Shortz is coming close to fulfilling another table tennis dream – to have the greatest club possible. In 2011, he opened the Westchester Table Tennis Club in Pleasantville, New York with friend, coach and Caribbean table tennis champ Robert Roberts. With 18 tables, it’s the largest table tennis facility in the country. Shortz’s club is gaining recognition both nationally and internationally. Recently, 15-year-old Kai Zhang from China joined the club.

“He’s the champion for his age in Beijing. He moved to Pleasantville to play at our club because he idolizes Robert and he loves our club,” says Shortz.

Zhang is already ranked number one for players under age 21, and is ranked 5 in the US overall.

Shortz’s table tennis schedule in Alaska is tight. He’s visiting six towns in seven days – Juneau, Anchorage, Homer, Soldotna, Eagle River, and Fairbanks – and he’ll be playing table tennis each night, which fulfills two more goals – to play table tennis every day this year and to play in every state in the union. Alaska is number 40.

While Shortz may have cast a spotlight on table tennis in Juneau, McLeod says Juneau Table Tennis Club doesn’t have the space for growth.

“We don’t have room at AEL&P. We set up one table that I own in the evening and we play. Sometimes we can set up a second one but it’s in really bad shape,” he says.

A new generation of table tennis players are sharpening their skills through an after school program at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School, which allowed the students to play on four brand new tables.

Here’s some video from the match:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjVxqgbY3YM]

Juneau resident and Home Depot employee Mara Cisney has been presented an Angel award from the corporation for saving another employee’s life.

Store Manager Robert Ihrig told a crowd of employees, paramedics and others at the store yesterday (Thursday) that the company give the awards to associates “who have literally done something to save somebody’s life.”

He called Cisney “awesome. Somebody with passion, compassion, dedication, courage.”

On Monday, March 11, 2013, Cisney rounded a corner during a regular day at work at the Juneau store to find a heart attack victim unconscious on the floor.

She approached Bryant Bearfield, a fellow employee, who was already being assisted by Gordon Mills, and began mouth to mouth resuscitation. These two worked tirelessly until the Capital City Fire & Rescue paramedics arrived on the scene to take over.

Without the CPR performed by Mara and Gordon, Bryant may very well have passed away on the scene.

Work continues to restore basic infrastructure in Galena, after an ice jam on the Yukon River severely flooded the village last week.

About 100 people are staying at the Galena boarding school, located inside a diked area that was not flooded.  The dorm and dining hall are serving as shelter for locals whose homes were damaged, and emergency responders: a mix of government, tribal and Red Cross personnel.

City manager Greg Moyer has a short list of priorities for the week including restoring city power, water and roads, and disposal of garbage.

“We are cut off from our landfill and we have rotting meat and stuff, it’s a shame, people’s freezers. We have just normal waste that we’re developing here, just with responders and getting that somewhere. Having a secondary landfill, or if we have to boat up garbage to our landfill, if we have to fly it up and sling it, we’re gonna have to do that.”

Moyer says other priorities for the week include a contamination assessment, restoring phone and Internet service community wide, re-opening the post office, and getting the local public radio station back on the air.

He says a lot of pieces need to come together before the majority of the village’s 400 residents, who evacuated, can return from Fairbanks, Anchorage and neighboring villages:

“People that wanna check on their homes, which they don’t know now unless they’re learning from friends that they have anything to come home to – what do you do then? Housing, it’s just critical for those that just didn’t lose their house off the foundation, they need sheetrock, they need those kind of supplies. Well how do they get them in here?”

Moyer says a transition is happening now as locals move beyond surviving the disaster, to what’s next, whether and how they will rebuild their lives in Galena.

“Trying to think where their future is gonna lie now and their jobs and their homes and just their whole livelihood,” Moyer said.

Moyer welcomes volunteer organizations coming in to help when basic infrastructure can support more people. The community also needs money. The state has already declared a disaster, activating access to grant and loan programs.

Assessment teams will be in the town this week to gather information needed to apply for a federal disaster declaration, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offer aid.

KUAC’s Dan Bross toured the community Tuesday to see how residents are coping.

Iditarod veteran John Korta’s dogs bark a sad hello as we walk into his still flooded yard.

“That’s my dog yard, on the gravel pad there. I don’t think this is gonna dry out anytime soon,” Korta said.

It’s raining making the silt covering everything slick and sloppy. Korta was one of about 70 locals who remained behind during the flood.

“It was so surreal, so we’re just, like, sweating it out, living in the boat for a couple days with 12 dogs. It’s chaos.”

With the emotion of the flood wearing off, Korta and others are left trying to salvage submerged trucks and 4 wheelers, while tearing into their water logged homes before mold can grow.

“I had to pull the hardwood yesterday, that was sad. But it’s just stuff, everyone lived, it’s good, we’ll be alright,” Korta said.

Some houses are off foundations, thrown askew in mud or flood ponds. There’s evidence everywhere of the Yukon’s water and ice bulldozing through the village.

Local teacher Paul Apflebeck and Korta mix sadness and humor while driving around Galena.  looking at the result of what many refer to as the community’s worst ever flood.  The roads are pretty quiet, but every few blocks there’s somebody at work, the whir of a generator humming.

Driving down his street for the first time since evacuating with his wife, Apfelbeck is greeted by neighbors.

The flood soaked most homes, dumped over fuel tanks, and floated away firewood.  Galena 2^nd chief Jenny Polkola is one of the few women who stayed in town through the flood, working to ensure others got out, and says she continues to support those worse off.

The disaster has hit Galena during a spring that’s started far too late for what needs to get done to recover.  Paul Apfelbeck likens the experience to grieving.

“I was telling my wife that in a disaster you usually go through a predictable sequence. Which first you have your kumbaya moment in which everyone hugs each other and mentions the lord, followed by the recrimination moment where we’re supposed to rebuild our town, then jealousy and anger, which is ‘why are they getting that and I’m getting nothing,’ then followed by acceptance. And I think we’re a little past the kumbaya moment,” Apfelback said.

Like everybody in Galena, Apfelbeck says he’ll be foregoing normal summer activities; his boat grounded in the middle of the road, and greenhouse submerged.  John Korta is balancing salvage of his logging and bed and breakfast businesses, with fixing up his home.

“Rebuild, I don’t know. Waiting to see what loan packages are available and see I might be out of business for awhile, but try to get the house up and running first, “ Korta said.

His dog yard still under several feet of standing water, Korta says his huskies will spend the summer at a friends’ kennel in Fairbanks.

A public memorial service for Ahtna elder Katie John drew a crowd Wednesday in Anchorage. John inspired Alaska Natives, and at least one Alaska governor, with her unyielding stand on Alaska Native subsistence rights.

Yvonne Echohawk, a pastor and an adopted daughter of Katie John, officiated. Echohawk likened John to Biblical heroines. She said her mother never bowed to bitterness in her fight for Native rights.

“Miss Katie John walked up before lawyers, and judges and tv cameras and people, and she said ‘give me my land, give me my water, give me my fish, I want justice for my people.’ And she didn’t rest until she had it. A woman of God, called of God, knew what she had to do and did it. She knew she had a destiny. She knew she had a purpose. And she did it and she did it well,” Echohawk said.

Former state legislator Georgiana Lincoln read the eulogy, remembering John’s sense of humor, and thanked her for the “blessing to all of us” that followed John’s insistence in 1984 that her fish camp be opened for subsistence fishing.

“Our beloved leader, elder, loved one, Katie John, we mourn your passing. But we smile your contagious smile, knowing you are at last with those loved ones who waited for you, to dance longer, laugh louder, and play harder.  Job well done,” she said.

The legal wrangling that followed John’s lawsuit went on for a decade, until Alaska Governor Tony Knowles decided not to fight the case any longer. Knowles could not be present at today’s memorial, but he sent a letter, read by Echohawk, about meeting John at her fish camp face to face.

“I leaned more that day about rights and values than all the boxes of legal briefs and opinions of a 10-year old divisive lawsuit could ever say. I thank Katie John for being a teacher, I thank Katie John for being a protector of her family, I thank Katie John for being a great Alaskan, fighting for the rights of the people of the Great Land,” Knowles’ letter read.

Friends and relatives of Katie John filled the Anchorage Baptist Temple for the service. Many called her Chook-tay, or Grandma.

Bob Anderson: “I was Katie’s Lawyer when we started the famous Katie John Case in 1985. She’s an important figure for the upper Ahtna people but she’s really a part of the Alaska Civil Rights Movement, not just Native Right, but Civil Rights – and she’s a sweet kind person too.

Donna Pennington: “I grew up in the village of Mentasta. She adopted me in 1969 in the Village of Mentasta and taught her language in the school during my generation. So we were very fortunate that we got to get the language directly from her.”

Eruera Kawe: “My mother in law was adopted by grandma Katie. So I’m originally from New Zealand. Grandma Katie was an inspiration to us. And not only was she a mother, grandmother, a great grandmother to Athabascan people, but to many other nations around the world.”

David Harrison: “She was my relative. You know when she gave you a hug, you knew things were gonna be okay.”

John’s legacy lives on with her over 250 grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. She will be buried in her home village of Mentasta on Saturday.

About 3.4 million Filipinos live in the U.S.; 25,ooo  in Alaska.  The Ambassador of the Philippines to the United States says it’s continually growing.

More than 3,000 Filipinos live in Juneau, “roughly 10 percent of the Juneau population,” says  Jennifer Ruth Gomez Strickler.  As KTOO reported, Strickler was sworn into office Monday night as the first Honorary Consul of the Republic of the Philippines to Alaska.

Most people know her as Jenny, but once you’re appointed to a government position, complete names are required as well as “all kinds of background checks. And I swear that now the Philippine government knows more about me and my family than anybody else,” she says.

Strickler knows Juneau’s Filipino community well; she served as vice president then president of the incorporated group for a decade.

She will serve a three-year term as Honorary Consul to Alaska.

Raphael Castanos worked on the project for two  years.

“We tried so many years ago but we were not successful,” he says.

Castanos credits Connie McKenzie, a former aide to Congressman Don Young for planting the seed this time around, when she asked why Juneau had no honorary consul.

The Philippine government operates ten consulates across the country.  The San Francisco Consul General has jurisdiction over Alaska  and seven other states as well as Northern California and Northern Nevada.

San Francisco is a long and expensive trip from Alaska for passport or other document services, so years ago the San Francisco Consul began visiting Anchorage.  Now he also visits Fairbanks, Kodiak, and in 2010 started coming to Juneau once a year.

Strickler will handle many of the paperwork issues Juneau Filipinos and visitors may encounter.

“It’s very much like a liaison between the Filipinos here and the San Francisco office,” she says.

Marciano Paynor is San Francisco General Consul.  He says as Juneau’s  honorary consul, “she’ll be able to do visas, do legal documents that need to go to the Philippines, authenticate signatures, and the most important thing that she will be doing is what we call assistance to nationals. So any Filipino or Filipino American can seek help from her.”

But that’s just the paperwork.  Philippine Ambassador to the U.S., Jose Cuisia, is looking forward to economic ties between the state and the Republic.

Strickler joined Juneau Rep. Cathy Munoz and Bethel Rep. Bob Herron last fall on the  first official Alaska legislative mission to the Philippines. The Ambassador calls it a good first step.

“They’re also talking about establishing a sister-city agreement between Kalibo, Aklan.  It’s one of the cities that’s very tourism oriented, similar to Juneau,” he says.

The University of Alaska Southeast and Aklan State University are looking at a faculty exchange in fisheries. Strickler says a  seafood festival between the Philippines and Alaska is at the top of her list.

She is retired from the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, has written grants for the Juneau Filipino Community, “and one of the things that really excite me is I can facilitate projects between state of Alaska and the Philippines,” she says.

Paynor also is looking to her to help establish a Filipino emergency management team in Alaska, in the event of crisis “so that we can immediately respond or help people throughout the state”. she says.

As Honorary Consul to Alaska, Strickler is truly an honorary employee. That is, she’s a  volunteer, though Paynor says she will be able to keep 50 percent of the fees she collects for document services to operate her office in the Juneau Filipino Community Hall.

He flashes a wry smile as he explains.

“Basically it’s a volunteer job.  So we thank her a lot for volunteering for this job.”

“I pledge to administer the consulate of the Republican of the Philippines at Juneau, Alaska…”

The first Honorary Consul of the Republic of the Philippines to Alaska has been sworn into office.

Long-time Juneau resident Jennifer Gomez Strickler took the oath of office at a ceremony Monday night at the Filipino Community Hall in Juneau.

Consul General of the Philippines to San Francisco, Marciano Paynor, administered the oath.  Strickler will work under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco General Consulate.

Philippine Ambassador to the United States, Jose Cuisia, told members of the Filipino community and current and former Juneau officials that more than 25,000 Filipinos live in Alaska.  He said Strickler will help strengthen ties between the state and the country in addition to her work assisting Filipino nationals in Juneau and other parts of the state.

Check back for a full story on what that means.