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NORAD has its eye on the sky tracking Santa’s trip around the world this Christmas Eve with a variety of technology including radar and even satellites that track the infrared heat signature of Rudolph’s nose. Two Canadian fighter pilots safely escort from the jolly man from the North Pole to North America.

Stacey Knott with the NORAD Public Affairs Office says the tradition started all because of one little typo in a Sears ad.

“What happened was in 1955 a Sears Roebuck store here in Colorado Springs printed up an ad that said hey kiddies call and talk to Santa and it had a phone number. Well it had one number wrong and it actually went to the predecessor to NORAD. It went to the command center for the continental air defense command CONAD and to the dreaded red phone. The colonel on duty there picked up on it and he was expecting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Secretary of Defense or something like that because this was the phone and instead this little tiny girl’s voice asked for Santa,” Knott says.

Colonel Harry Shoup, thought someone was playing a joke on him when he answered the phone. After talking to the girl and her mother, he figured out what had caused the confusion. Shoup checked the radar and told the little girl where Santa was.

“They started getting more phone calls, so he directed all of his staff to check the radar and check on Santa’s location and talk to the kids and from there a tradition was born. And that was in 1955. In 1958 NORAD took over from CONAD and we’ve been doing it ever since,” Knott says

For 26 hours on Dec. 24 and into the early hours of Dec. 25 a team of volunteers at the operations center will track Santa’s trip around the world. NORAD uses radar, satellites and fighter jets to track and escort Santa’s sleigh ride.

“We have 1,200 volunteers who help answer phone calls throughout that 26 hour period to tell people where Santa is at and you know that’s very important, because Santa won’t stop at your house if you’re still awake and not in bed. So we make sure that everyone knows where Santa is located,” Knott says.

The NORAD website will also features video from the “Santa Cams,” which NORAD has pre-positioned at many locations around the world to capture images and video of Santa as he and the reindeer fly by. The site also hosts a variety of games and a countdown to TrackSanta.

Knott says that NORAD volunteers enjoy the annual event.

“365 days a year NORAD is a bi-national command between the US and Canada and we’re providing homeland defense for North America. But on this one day a year we’re proud and honored to be a part of so many people’s holiday traditions and help track Santa for the world.”

People can follow along either through NORAD’s website, phone and tablet apps, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or by calling the operations center.

Phone: 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723)

Email: noradtrackssanta@outlook.com

Lifelong Juneau resident Dean Williams has died.  He was 95.

Williams passed away Tuesday in a Reno, Nevada hospital.  He had been in Nevada visiting his daughter for the Christmas holidays.

Most days, Williams could be seen in downtown Juneau on his daily walk.  He worked out at the gym several times a week and when the weather was too bad to be outdoors, he walked laps, lifted weights, and did sit-ups in his living room, says his son, Gordy Williams.

Williams’ father, Jay, was in the U.S. Forest Service, and Dean grew up in the outdoors and the backcountry, hiking, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing and skiing in Southeast Alaska.

“So Dad had that ethic and he certainly passed that on to us, both my sister and I were on skis before we knew how to walk. You know, he had pictures of us and him out holding us up on the skis, and getting out,” Gordy Williams says.

He attributes his father’s long life and good health to his love of the outdoors and physical activity.

Williams graduated from Juneau High School in 1936. He went to radio operator school in Seattle then enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corp.   He served with the Signal Corps in World War Two in Nome and the Aleutians.

During a World War Two symposium at the Alaska State Museum in October, Williams talked briefly about the war years.

On Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, he was teaching skiing.  He recalled heading back to Juneau from Douglas Island with three students, including a young Japanese-American woman, who not long after that day, was sent to an internment camp.

“We loaded the skis and we  started across the Douglas Bridge, and there was an Empire boy  there, yelling at the top of his voice , ‘Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor,’ and he didn’t have to say much more than than to know our lives were going to be changed completely,”  Williams recalled.

Williams’ skiing ability was put to good use when he was inducted into the Army in Haines then posted out at Adak and Attu as part of the original military Alaska Communications System.

“The general of the infantry heard that I was a ski instructor, and he said, ‘Sergeant, we’re going to need you to come out to the ski area and give instruction every chance you get.’ So they’d send a command car to get me.  I was riding out there first class,” Williams said.

He said many of  soldiers from the Deep South he taught turned out to be good skiers, but they were initially baffled by the snow, which they had never seen before.

In 1943, Williams married Edna Almquist.  They were together for 72 years, before she died last year at the age of 90.

For most of his professional life, he worked in aviation, first with Pan American World Airways then other airlines, until he started his own to serve smaller Southeast Alaska communities, which “sort of  morfed” into Wings of Alaska, says Gordy Williams.

“When Alaska Coastal got bought by Alaska Airlines and stopped service in Southeast, then he and two partners started Southeast Skyways out of the downtown Seadrome,” he says.

Dean Williams also started the first flight seeing tours over the Juneau Ice field.

Beating the odds, serving the community

In 1954, Williams was struck by polio and told he would never walk again.  But he beat the odds against the disease and returned to all the things he loved to do, adding tennis. He had more time for the sport in his senior years and earned a national ranking for each age group between 60 and 90.  He was inducted into the U.S. Tennis Association’s Pacific Northwest Tennis Hall of Fame in 2003, at the age of 86.  The tennis court at Cope Park is named after Dean Williams.

Over the years, he was a member of Juneau Parks and Recreation, and Docks and Harbors committees, the Juneau Chamber of Commerce and Juneau Rotary, even once named Rotary Man of the Year.

Dean and Edna Williams were Grand Marshals in 2006 for the Juneau Fourth of July parade.  In 2008, the University of Alaska Southeast gave the couple a Meritorious Service award for their years of service to Juneau.

Gordy Williams says his father’s love and respect for Southeast Alaska and its people were most important to him, and he advocated a healthy balance between development and small town values and lifestyle.

Williams Mountain, near Taku Inlet, is named for Dean’s father, Jay, who spent his life out and about in the forests and mountains of Southeast Alaska.

“He wanted to see if he could get a mountain named after his dad, and it was especially nice because they could see it from their home,” Gordy Williams says. 

Gordy and his dad have climbed Williams Mountain.

“We’re going to spread some of his ashes on that mountain this spring or summer,” he says. “We’re going to go up and put him up on his family mountain.”

A celebration of Dean Williams’ life will be held at a later date.

Bells across Alaska rang at 9:30 Friday morning in memory of the 26 victims who were shot to death one week ago at an elementary school in Connecticut.

The state capitol building bell was struck 26 times, and as it faded church bells throughout Juneau could be heard.

Gov.  Sean Parnell ordered the bell to be rung, as part of a  “Day of Mourning” declared by Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, who called upon all Americans to observe a moment of silence at 9:30 local time while bells tolled.

Twenty children, all six and seven years old, and six faculty members died at the hands of a gunman on December 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The gunman also took his mother’s life.  Her body was found at home.

State capitol custodial supervisor Paul David Duran rang the capitol building bell. It was a cold job, with temperatures in the low teens and howling winds.

“Very proud to do it. I have a two, a four and a six year old.  I can only hope nothing like that would ever happen,” Duran said.

Gov. Parnell and First Lady Sandy Parnell were among the few dozen people who congregated for the capitol ceremony.

Alaska’s capitol building bell is a full-scale replica of the original Liberty Bell and was given to the Alaska territory by the U.S. Treasury Department in 1950. It is rung at the governor’s discretion.

 

The National Rifle Association says armed police officers in every school could stop the next killer “waiting in the wings.”

The NRA broke its silence Friday about the Dec. 14 tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut, when 26 children and adults were killed at an elementary school. It took a week for the powerful gun lobby to comment.

In a news conference, the organization blamed school shootings on video games, violent movies and Hollywood.  NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said gun control isn’t the solution.  He said the only thing to stop “a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

The gun control question is being raised around the country, even in Juneau.

Mayor Merrill Sanford said he’s not likely to call a community meeting to talk about gun control. But the Assembly has been asked to consider sponsoring a local discussion or task force on the issue.

Douglas resident Mike Peterson told the panel last week that he’s been raising this question around town:

“Can you have a meaningful dialogue or conversation about gun control?”

He said responses have ranged from “you can’t. Just flat out, you cannot have a meaningful conversation about it”  to finding common ground – in this case the horror of the Sandy Hook incident.

“Another response was no matter what kind of conversation you begin to have in this community, or any community in the United States, the NRA will stop it dead in its tracks,” Peterson said.

Peterson said Juneau should join what appears to be a ground swell toward a national dialogue on the issue.

“I believe that you can have a meaningful conversation and a dialogue in this community on gun control. I think you have to try, you at least have to try,” Peterson said.

But it’s not likely to happen, at least not now, Mayor Sanford said.

“You know, the fanaticals are going to be out there on either side of the story right now, as you can see, and I don’t want to get into that. It’s like church and state things, you know. If you get into the middle of it then you have the crusades going and it’s just a battle you can’t win,” Sanford said.

Since Sandy Hook, Assembly members have received a number of comments from Juneau citizens about gun control, but it is not a local issue. In Alaska, guns are regulated by state law.

Assemblyman Jesse Kiehl reminded his colleagues of that after Peterson requested the local conversation.

“It certainly does not prevent a good conversation as a community,” Kiehl said. “It also does not mean that we can’t take a serious look at the steps our community can take to be a healthier place. To deal better with those that suffer from mental illnesses, and I think that’s an important part of the conversation.”

Sanford said that’s an easier conversation to have because mental health is already part of various city discussions and funding.

City officials also have heard a number of complaints from citizens about a new indoor shooting range and gun store to be built on the corner of Crest Street and Yandukin Drive.

City Planner Greg Chaney said it’s become  a very hot topic.

The Planning Commission recently granted Juneau Mercantile and Armory a conditional use permit for the 13,000 square foot facility, where customers will be able to fire assault and other automatic weapons, similar to those used in the Sandy Hook massacre.

But the main questions to be considered in granting the permit were such things as noise, parking, traffic, and whether the facility was in compliance with city regulations.

The permit can be appealed within 20 days after it’s signed by the city. The appeal deadline is January 3rd.

But Chaney said people should not appeal because they don’t like assault weapons. Appellants would have to base their argument on something within the CBJ Comprehensive Plan and Land Use Code.

“And none of those documents address the difference between a hunter safety range and a range using automatic weapons. So the burden of proof for an appellant would be to state that the Planning Commission made a mistake based on the information presented to them, in particular did the approval not comply with the comprehensive plan or some goal in the land use code or some statute,” Chaney said.

Automatic weapons, school shootings and gun violence were brought up during the Planning Commission hearings on the shooting range.

Gun range owners said customers renting automatic weapons would be trained by an NRA certified instructor.

Planning Commissioner Dan Miller is part owner of the facility.

Visitors to Juneau schools should expect a little tighter security.

The recent horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut has prompted a look at security at each of the 12 school buildings in the district.

District officials have been reviewing emergency preparedness plans for a variety of emergency situations.

Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich says each school will be more diligent about asking visitors to sign in.

“You know in our community where lots and lots or people know one another, sometimes people are a little perturbed by being asked to sign in, especially by someone they know really well, but we’re going to tighten that up,” he says.

Anybody who goes into a Juneau school building, including staff from the central office and other schools, should expect to sign in.

Gelbrich says school visitors — “whether they’re volunteers,or moms and dads, or central office staff, or custodians” —  should expect to wear a badge that indicates they are visitors.

“Just so people are readily identifiable,” he says.

Juneau schools regularly work with police and fire officers on everything from fire drills to being wary of strangers.  And Gelbrich says this week kids and teachers are going through various drills and having conversations about safety procedures.

District officials and administrators from individual schools also are reaching out to parents.  The school district website includes information on school safety and helping children cope with violence and tragedy.

 

“A Night of Hope and Healing”  is scheduled Wednesday evening in Juneau.

The community gathering is sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Community services coordinator Lindsay Kato says a recent boating tragedy that claimed the life of two brothers, the accidental death of the survivor, and other incidents in Juneau prompted discussion of a community gathering even before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

“We had talked about it a little before the shooting, but after the shooting it was really apparent that people want and need some place to come together and support each other in hope and healing,” she says.

She stresses community connectedness, and says towns generally come together – but in different ways – after tragedy.  She calls the event a safe and healthy way to connect with others.

“I guess in my head it’s hug your neighbor.”

Kato says it is not a religious event, though various church and Alaska Native leaders will participate.

“The fact that we’ve got all of these people from different sides of the community coming together is the message of support we’re wanting to send,” she says. 

Kato says parents should bring their children, who often portray hopefulness in times of tragedy and grief.

“A lot of times with children around they bring this sense of innocence and hopefulness that’s really encouraging. And to have them there I think it would be very important,” she says. “And I wouldn’t expect people to come without their families, because family support is a big deal in you hope and healing.” 

A Night of Hope and Healing is from 6 to 8 p.m. at Northern Light United Church, at 400 West 11^th Street.